そのものと and 身としては

Question

A superior is proud of subordinate's work, and says the following:

お仕事は順調そのものと…

各部署にプレゼンさせて貰った身としては鼻が高いわ

The first bit is her saying that the subordinate's work is exemplary (the very definition of going well, if I understand what そのもの does).

The second part is more troubling.

各部署にプレゼンさせて貰った

I'm pretty sure the above is saying she got the permission from the departments to do a presentation, since we have causative and もらう and に to indicate who gave permission.

The problematic bit is what follows. The 身としては, and especially the 身 bit. If I took it literally I might think that

各部署にプレゼンさせて貰った身

means

Body on which I got a go ahead from departments to give a presentation

But I don't think it's really a physical body, but more a topic of the presentation.

So I think she is saying she is proud she'll give a presentation on subordinate's work to the departments. I assume she means in future?

So am I reading this 身としては鼻が高い bit right?

Also that と at the end of そのものと, is it there just as a conjunction AND, or might it also be there to indicate the topic of presentation. I don't think it's the later, but it could be....

Answer 1

First of all, you're correct that させて貰った literally means that she received permission from someone to do this. However, in practice, させて貰った is just a more polite way of saying した - it simply adds a slight nuance of polite gratitude for having had the privilege to do the thing.

So we can immediately simplify this sentence to:

各部署にプレゼンした身としては鼻が高いわ

Now the 身 that's giving you trouble - this is actually referring to the speaker herself. One function of 身 is to describe one's own position, and ～身として in particular is a fairly common turn of phrase meaning "as someone who..." So in this case, プレゼンした身として means "As someone who gave presentations".

Treating させて貰った as した also helps us better parse the 各部署に at the beginning - it indicates that she gave the presentations to each department, not that they gave her permission. It is theoretically possible from a grammatical perspective to treat this に as indicating the source of the 貰った, but since させて貰った is generally treated as a single unit, it would be very unnatural in practice.

So the whole sentence means something along the lines of:

各部署にプレゼンさせて貰った身としては鼻が高いわ
As the person who was responsible for giving the presentations to all the departments, I feel proud.