Last week armed men broke in to a marijuana dispensary in Santa Fe, NM, tied up the employees, and stole the inventory of “medicine. More on that in a moment…..
Those who know me recognize that I have no shortage of opinions, and that I freely distribute said opinions at any opportune (and perhaps inopportune) moment. That shortcoming acknowledged, it is with relative trepidation that I reveal that Mark Walls, founder of the Work Comp Analysis Group on LinkedIn, may have taken some recent comments of mine a bit too literally.
Walls is a competent speaker; knowledgable, affable, and highly sought after in the industry. Still, he reflects the relatively conservative nature of the industry with his presentation style. I recently told him that he should add more sizzle and pizazz to the act; sort of in a James Brown meets Billy Graham meets Steven Hawking sort of way. Specifically, I told him, “You need to add more fire to your act”.
I am afraid to say that he might not have quite understood my advice. Walls recently spoke at the Workers’ Compensation Association of New Mexico Annual Conference in Albuquerque. Our investigators are piecing together the events of that week, and it is not a pretty picture.
First, this photo was sent back to our Central Security and Command Center.
It clearly displays that something was amiss at this event. Mark, being a land lubber from the midwest, has never been known to previously endanger himself by openly taunting land sharks. Then, our on scene investigators (we have people everywhere) recorded this video from Walls actual presentation.
(Click or Double Click on Video to start – requires QuickTime Plugin)
Clearly something has gone tragically wrong here. I can only assume much of the blame for this – clearly my input was misconstrued, and was not adequately defined. When I recommended he add more fire to the act, I didn’t mean to actually add fire to the act.
Of course, there was a Tequila tasting event at this conference (note to self: Attend next years WCA conference in New Mexico), but we are not clear at this point if that had any effect.
The coincidental robbery of a medicinal marijuana dispensary less than an hour away from the conference during the exact time Walls was there could also shed some light on where this whole thing left the rails. While no solid connection between the two can be made at this time, it does arouse some well correlated suspicions. One thing is quite clear; there may be a huge difference between adding fire to a presentation and getting lit for a presentation, but the end results might often appear the same.
I just hope the fine people of New Mexico can forgive me.