Authoritative rapid Spanish

Some jobs lurch so far outside my control that any pressure to perform simply evaporates.

The other week I was booked to deliver an afternoon workshop for a Spanish sales team that was running two hours behind schedule after two hours.  I was due to follow the presentation of marketing plans for the rest of the year, which was essentially the centrepiece of the entire meeting.  As the morning dragged on it was obvious to everyone in the room that short of wrapping up around midnight something in the agenda would have to give.  And as often happens in such situations the client was forced to choose between delivering vital information (the marketing plans) and recouping a large sunk cost (my workshop).  The big boss chose me and instructed the marketing guys to 'just talk faster'.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I speak no language other than English.  Even under normal circumstances I find Spanish a daunting language to listen to; staccato and without the tonal range of French or Italian.  To my ears the demand that a Spanish speaker speed up was like putting a machine gun on fast forward.

For me at least, the effect was extremely compelling.  In the words of Elisa, Selma Hayek's wonderfully sexy nurse character on 30 Rock: -

I find that authoritative rapid Spanish subdues white people