It’s going to be hard, but it’s not going to be the last time that you’re going to have to do something like this and it’s probably not the the first, right? You can’t run from it forever. Something that I kind of learned from my time in the ASA is that paradoxically, accepting your stutter as a part of you actually makes you a lot more fluent. Anxiety and stuttering are a deadly combo that aggravate each other. It’s awful, but you have to recognize it, and realize that exposing yourself to these situations is one of the only ways you’re going to be able to respond to them better in the future. Asking to sit out is okay, depending on what level you are at in terms of comfort with yourself. But it does not make your stutter go away, it does not help your co-workers understand you, and it does not help anybody learn anything about stuttering, something that is extremely underrepresented and frankly barely seen as a disability in the public eye.