by Mike O’Mary

I recently attended an all-afternoon meeting that consisted of slide presentations on the accomplishments of the past year, plus a couple of bonus presentations on “The Power of Teamwork” and “Turning Challenges Into Opportunities.” The meeting was held immediately after lunch in a very warm room. The danger of dozing off was high.

There are several ways to keep yourself awake in such situations. You can contort yourself in your chair until you are too uncomfortable to sleep. Or you can use a ballpoint pen to jab yourself in the thigh periodically. Another option is to get a big glass of ice water and pour a little on your crotch every 5-10 minutes. And finally, you can concentrate on your low-paying job or your lackluster career or the inept speaker—basically anything that will fill you with rage. It’s virtually impossible to fall asleep when you’re angry.

If you do fall asleep, you have several options. If it’s just a matter of your head nodding a little, don’t worry. You can always catch yourself and nod vigorously to the people around you. They’ll think you agree with whatever has just been said.

If you go so far as to slump up against the person next to you, just act like you meant to do it. Give them a nudge with your elbow and say, “This next part is good.” (This is also effective if you nod off at church.)

And finally, if you zonk out completely and fall out of your chair and wind up on the floor, stay down! There is no way to recover from this faux pas. It’s best to just stay down and wait for the paramedics. Better to have people think you suffered a heart attack or a seizure than to find out you thought the presentation on “Turning Challenges Into Opportunities” was boring. Plus, you’ll get out of the rest of the meeting.

Mike O’Mary is founding dreamer of Dream of Things, a book publisher currently accepting creative nonfiction stories for anthologies on 15 topics, including an anthology titled “Cubicle Stories: Life in the Modern Workplace.”