The true defination of wasting time

So I was asked by our CEO to give a presentation to our board of directors about the membership magazine, which I am the production manager for. He said I have 5 minutes to report on the readership survey we just finished. I thought this would be a good thing, and get myself in front of the big wigs in the association.

So I spent the better part of 20 hours over the last month or so working in this 5 minute, 8 slide presentation. A good portion was spent analyzing data from the readership survey, but then I spent probably 6 hours over several days writing what I was going to say, and having my boss give me revisions that mostly consisted of, "Oh, they don't care about that info" and, "Cut this section down by...well go ahead and cut it completely." I'm all good with that, if they don't want to hear something, then there is no point saying it.

So I'm sitting here at the board meeting, well, actually I'm sitting outside the board meeting because right now they are talking about "important and confidential" stuff. Another coworker who is giving a presentation early in the meeting was just told he is up next, but what they are talking abut now could take an hour. I looked at the schedule, and I should be going up about an hour after him, so that means I am about 2 hours away form giving a 5 minute presentation to a group of people who mostly don't care (and will likely be exhausted by the time I get to speak) and I spent 20 hours preparing.

I'm starting to wonder if the time I spend at my job has any value at all...

At least we have good health benefits