As every year in June-July, along with the hamsins and mosquitoes, the graduation ceremonies, from kindergartens to the university, also return to our lives.
These are usually exciting and festive events, where we shed a tear of excitement and thank the teachers and lecturers who made our children better people, and also organized an invested and festive ceremony, although some still insist on holding it all in rhymes.
But times change, the attention of all of us is shorter, and the organizers of the graduation ceremonies find it difficult to finish them on time.
This week I attended a graduation ceremony at the university, where all the lecturers, principals and officials who are somehow connected to the event were brought on stage and announced in their name, title and due respect.
It was a rather long and tedious affair, but I stood by it respectfully.
Then the graduates were ushered in a group, which took another 50 minutes that felt like an entire semester, into an exciting but slightly exhausting event.
Then the speakers came up, and as usual addressed the dignitaries on stage again, the Honorable President of the University Mr. Prof. Moshe Yankelevich, the Honorable Vice President Prof. David Ben Lulu, the Honorable Dean Prof. Antiochus, the Honorable Host Mayor and several other important people with not short names.
This reading made me a little tired, and the speech itself was not very agile either, but I stood by it respectfully.
But when the next speaker came up, he not only stole another 50 minutes of my life, in which he rewarded the story of his life, beliefs, worldview and opinion on the new season of "Wedding", but also addressed again personally and separately to each of the honorary list, again the President, Again the vice president of the dean, again the mayor and his sister, and also occasionally added "my good friend."
Well, we understood that they are here and that they are important and that they did a doctorate and a professorship (some of them probably started the ceremony as doctors and managed to become professors during it), while we do not even have a matriculation, but with all due respect, why read all the degrees and names again every time someone takes the stage?
Who invented this practice and how do you stop it?
Please, my honor and professors, have mercy on us.
Life is short and hard, and you can settle for something like "My very respected, well-respected, good evening, happy that you are here, we ended the year with fun, come on Salamat, there is refreshment" - and came to Dean Guel.
So that they do not say that I am just complaining and not bringing solutions, I am attaching for free a short guide (and this time really short) to those who need to carry things somewhere.
Note that the rules differ from audience to audience and from ceremony to ceremony, and there is no law of separation from a co-worker as law of lighting a beacon on Mount Herzl.
In general, what most of the speeches have in common is the disregard for the truth and the bad qualities of the happy / object of separation, in favor of an alternative truth in which every little shit is presented as a combination of Leonardo da Vinci and Mother Theresa.
School
Greeting a school graduation in a way that will excite, amuse and delight the audience is no easy task.
This is an audience made up of different people, with different professions, diverse education and different backgrounds, that the only thing they all have in common, apart from the fact that their child somehow finishes high school, is that everyone is now parked in red and white and excited about playing Candy Crush on mobile.
Even if you're the size of Winston Churchill, you'll have a hard time turning this year's high school summary into something interesting.
We all know that “the Corona era was challenging and we had to think outside the box and harness the technology to help us” (or in short, let the kid be in the tiktok all day, and the only thing he learned this year was to do the Tabasco Nose Challenge).
The incumbents have no choice, and they have to flatter and thank the mayor "for the unconditional support" (where's the money you promised, can we?) And the education portfolio holder, "whose door was always open" (but she's not in the room).
The chairman of the parents 'committee thanks the educator who "was like a mother to our children" (that is, like Snow White's stepmother), the student representative thanks the parents' committee "who did nights" (the problem is that during the days he does nothing) and the principal, who "always listened She was attentive "(too bad the other ear was always on the cell phone, where she gossiped with her sister).
Teachers and kindergarteners have a tendency to write farewell speeches in rhymes, which probably works until third grade and goes back to being cute again at farewell parties in sheltered housing, but does not sound good in the period between them.
This is how, for example, it probably would have sounded when I finished high school:
"Hello dear students / To serve, to the counselor, to the parents and the graduates / We are standing here in the garden yard / and excited because a year has passed for her / Chicken, it's sad, it hurts / But I'm glad it's Nitzani leaving."
Funerals
Flattery and rhymes work less well at funerals.
There is no point in flattering to rest anymore.
He wrote the will, and rhymes do not work well in front of the open grave, including the line: "Chicken chick - even though you are late."
If one does not find a good word to say about the deceased, who was an unbearable type who did not contribute anything culturally or voluntarily, one can note how much electricity, water and property taxes he paid for his entire life, and over 60 years it adds up to millions he contributed to the community.
Retirement speeches
Appreciation events in the workplace are most likely a class where the company hints to you that it's time to pack the flower pot and family photos in a cardboard box, leave Let Bite's laptop and badge in the office and go home.
The company, in return, will give you a fountain pen and a certificate with a dedication, and of course an excited thank-you speech from the CEO, followed by luxury flats and soft drinks in plastic cups.
If you did not understand the hint and decided to carry things anyway, do not be too excited, because most of those present are dying for you to leave already and they will be able to take over your office.
Awards and achievements
If you won an award at a ceremony like the Oscars / Emmy / Ophir Award / ACUM / Israel Award, and you go on stage to speak, try to be short and matter-of-fact. Takes you out modestly.Most often he is at all meant to glorify the Blessed One even more, for if the competitors who have lost to him are so great and mighty, then he, who has overcome them, must be a minimum of God.
In such thanksgiving speeches it is customary to leave the most important thanks for the end, but it is worth remembering that before you finish you will have the music in the hall suggesting that it is time to get off stage - and so you will thank all the extras And one scene.
Even if you are a real cannon and receive an award for a lifetime achievement, it is worth remembering that this is an event where you are made clear that your event is about to close, and you probably have not too much life left either.
I often hear complaints that there is no longer any use in graduation ceremonies, honors and awards.
In my opinion, it is time to refresh the field and give it real and contemporary content by combining marketing content and covert advertising in speeches, which in multi-viewing events, such as the beacon lighting ceremony, can be particularly effective.
For example: "I light this beacon just like tomorrow I will light the barbecue and prepare the fine meat of the Kebab al-Wad butcher shop, and for the glory of the Israeli marinade."
In the defense's concluding speech in court, he will be able to say: "My client is spotless, and not just because he is soaping with Clear 7, and yet for two years he has been sitting behind a steel company lattice and bolt and may be sent to the electric chair now available at Electric Warehouses."
The truth is that even at funerals it is possible to incorporate sponsorships: "Where are other people like that man, who was like the weeping willow. Get it now in a potted nursery. Seven are sitting in the family home on the folding chairs of my father's furniture."
At an academic conference, the renowned researcher can market a second-hand vehicle from a doctor, or at least from a doctor, who has hardly driven and is in a shady parking lot at the Weizmann Institute.
In short, it is allowed to speak, but to be brief, and if you are copying formats you found on the Internet - do not forget to change the names, and do not read the line "All rights reserved to the site 'Welcome lazy'".
yairn@israelhayom.co.il
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