Some people love to network, and it comes as naturally to them as talking to a close friend would. For others, networking can be far more formidable, full of the potential for mistakes and even outright humiliation.
Over at the Intuit QuickBase blog today, I share 10 of the funniest and most embarrassing networking stories readers have shared here — including a very unwanted raffle prize, a fall down a full flight of stairs, an uncooperative bladder, and more. You can read it here.
{ 52 comments… read them below or add one }
I have totally had #10 happen to me too, but it was at a funeral.
Mortifying – absolutely mortifying.
And I am really bad with names – so I live in fear of #5 happening to me. I have perfected the art of smile and a bright “hey – how ARE you?” while my eyes say I remember you…all the while my brain is desperately searching for the name you must have, since I doubt your mother put “Oh That Guy” on your birth certificate.
Weird thing, I’m only bad with names if I’ve heard them only. Once I see them written they are much easier to remember – maybe that’s why I so prefer email to phone calls. It actually makes people more real to me than disembodied nameless voices on the phone.
Me too! If I know I will need to remember someone’s name, I write it down as soon as I can get away from the person. Oddly, the act of writing it down generally cements it for me, so I don’t have to check my note later.
When a friend was getting her master’s degree in education, she said that people learn in different ways: by hearing, by seeing, by doing. A good teacher will make sure she incorporates all of those in her lessons.
I, too, am a writer. Once I have written something down by hand, then I am more likely to remember it.
It is just the names I can’t remember, though, not the details. I can see a person and say, “You’re the guy who ran the marathon while wearing a tutu! You have a sister in Hawaii and three snakes and a turtle as pets. You know how to make salt from scratch.” But I can’t remember his name.
Me too – details are there – it’s just the name which runs out of my brain like a sieve. And seeing it in writing is better than hearing it – but absolutely writing it or typing it cements it for me.
I used to be able to ace tests in school just by copying down certain data by hand because once it went out the end of my pen onto the paper it was in my head forever. It’s weird that way – I’m like that with everything from IP addresses to financial data.
And typing it is good – but there is something about actually using a pen or pencil that locks it in tighter. Something about using muscles and fine motor skills to engage parts of the brain. I used to teach my son via a multi-sensory approach and it worked in a way traditional methods didn’t.
Jamie – my theory on the writing/typing thing is that, as far as your fingers are concerned, most of the letters on the keyboard are identical in terms of muscle memory. Handwriting, on the other hand (hah), requires distinctly different motions for each letter.
(It’s part of why I used to encourage my students to handwrite their notes – that, and it helped them build up muscle strength and endurance for in-class essays.)
I think there’s been some research that shows that people remember things better when they write them down with pen and paper than they do with typing.
Yes, here it is: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119095458.htm
I absolutely have to write things down. There’s nothing more frustrating than someone telling me something where the details are important and not having an ability to write it down. It just floats in one ear and out the other! (I love email…)
And I’m with you on the names. I can remember names, and I can remember people; the trick is putting the two together. When I was teaching I used to have the students take pictures of each other with a mini-Polaroid as a first-day icebreaker. I’d then post them next to their names and review them regularly. Alas that you can’t do this in regular situations, though profile photos on LinkedIn and Facebook are a huge help.
I had to stop at a Forever 21 on the way to an office party once and purchase new tights; sitting at my desk all day, the dissolving elastic was not apparent, but the minute we started walking there (it was about 10 blocks from the office), they were hobbling me at the knees. Fortunately, I was walking there with a close friend who was able to cover for me when we entered the very glam location and I had to scuttle off to the restroom to change.
I’m feeling lucky. I’ve had runs in the hose but never had them try to escape to my ankles!
It’s less a wardrobe malfunction and more like they are staging a coup.
Ha! #10 was my story, and in retrospect that’s exactly what it felt like.
I’ve had the cheap hose that, once having sat in them, continued to retain the shape of my sitting figure … when I stood. Which meant poofy calves, knees, and rear in anatomically incorrect positions!
That is definitely one of the reasons I prefer email to phone. I can have a phone conversation with someone and go over the same thing ten times, but as soon as the phone hangs up, it’s all gone. I barely remember even having a phone call. But the written word? Sticks in my memory like nothing else. I look up things on Wikipedia all the time, just out of general curiosity, and all those random, useless bits of information are engraved in my mind. It makes me pretty awesome at Trivial Pursuit.
These are amazing.
My worst networking gaffe was when I made a breakfast appointment to discuss PR services–and the guy I made the appointment with thought it was a date. I was (am) married and the conversation hadn’t gotten remotely personal. Still no clue why he thought a business breakfast translated into a date but the look on his face when he finally noticed my ring brought breakfast to an abrupt halt.
Wow–these poor people!
This is why nobody should ever have to wear pantyhose, ever.
Pantyhose (or tights) are a necessary evil for me. Walking the four blocks to the bus stop this morning and waiting another nine for the bus, which was late, in 3 degrees, is not fun with bare legs.
(OK, I had to put sweatpants on over the hose. And now, in my humble cubicle, I have a blanket wrapped around my tights-covered legs. But it would be worse without the tights.)
Ooops. Sorry, Alison. Didn’t mean to re-ignite the pantyhose debate.
oops–I totally forgot about that! lol–forget I said anything!!
I draw a sharp distinction between pantyhose and tights in my mind. Tights are much warmer and less likely to self-destruct if you look at them wrong. :-)
And they come in neat colors and patterns, too. :)
This is the US distinction but I get the feeling that the UK calls panty hose (sheer, flesh-colored nylons) “tights”.
No, that’s why the old fashioned stockings are better – the ones that attach to garter belts. No depending on waistband elastic or rubber grippers on the thigh-highs. Plus, they tend to be less expensive and if you rip one you don’t lose the whole pair!
+1 For me, it’s either tights or stockings with belt. Pantyhose do not like me.
#8 has me laughing almost to the point of tears! How embarrassing for that person but I can imagine it happening.
Why, oh why, would anyone raffle off sex toys in such a setting?
I will forever think of this person and always look over the raffle prizes carefully before entering ANY raffle. wow.
I appreciate these folks willingness to share their stories. I feel a little less alone in some of my own experiences now. It’s not just me… hahaha.
My best guess was that someone there was a Pure Romance consultant in her spare time and wanted to drum up some business. Just bizarre!
Maybe I’m 12 – but I can’t help but giggle to imagine what those production meetings are like in their plants.
The engineering files, production samples…I really don’t think I’d be able to keep a straight face. I’d be fired for incessant and inappropriate giggling.
But seriously – someone some where is really bored compiling the production reports for those things.
At my editors’ group meeting this week, the topic of technical writing came up. I am now thinking that there’s some writer out there responsible for the documentation for these items. It makes me wonder how they’d describe their accomplishments on a resume!
My spouse met a woman whose job included captioning photos for an XXX site. She said it became _very difficult_ after a while to come up with interesting, unique captions.
“I will forever think of this person and always look over the raffle prizes carefully before entering ANY raffle. wow.”
Sometimes the full list of prizes isn’t advertised. I had the (mis)fortune of winning a raffle at an out of town tech conference. While the big advertised prizes were laptops and iPads, there was also a much longer list of random crap that wasn’t announced until the actual drawing. I ended up winning a cheap-o mini fridge, but it wasn’t feasible to bring it home.
I bet it was a mommy bloggers event. ;)
These are all great! I definitely remember #1.
For #8 – I’m surprised the organization didn’t see the contents of all the gift baskets prior to the raffle.
No one ever thinks they’ll actually win these raffles. I have a friend who won a brand new car, and didn’t believe the person who called to tell her, because she didn’t remember tossing her business card in a fishbowl. It worked out, though, and I bought her 2 year old Grand Prix.
I’ve always said that anything remotely embarrassing that can happen to a person, has probably already happened to me. ;-)
My mom always used to say there is no such thing as a bad experience if you either learned something or got a funny story out of it.
She was kind of a Pollyanna about most things – but that one has always rung true for me.
Although some embarrassing moments need a lot more time (decades) than others before you can see the humor.
Ah, yes. Walking into the senior prom wearing a floor-length, strapless gown while carrying heavy, breakable objects in each hand … and stepping on the front hem of my dress.
Thank goodness cell phone cameras hadn’t been invented back then.
Hey, I never said my sex toy bounty was unwanted! I just could have done without the publicity :)
The next time I won anything, it was a years supply of the worst gum, ever. I was not a popular Halloween house.
A year’s supply of bad gum? Yeah, I’d take the sex toys over that, too.
“Bonk” is a pretty fantastic book. If anyone has mastered the art of being boldly matter-of-fact about awkward conversation topics, it’s Mary Roach.
I’m reading this book also… and realized there are just some places I can’t take it. And when I read it, I can’t giggle at the writing, because people will ask me what’s so funny. How can I explain what’s funny about a researcher losing a shipment of penises from cadavers?
Oops, that post above was from me
wait–some people don’t understand why a researcher losing a shipment of cadaver penises is funny???
Eww networking events.
I had the misfortune in uni to fall victim to one. My company was sponsoring the local sports association, and they wanted me to go with the marketing coordinator to hand out showbags at their yearly launch event.
I asked what I should wear (as I was coming straight from uni classes) and I was told, oh just wear what you would normally wear to uni.
So I rocked up in skinny jeans, boots, a purple long sleeved shirt and faux leather jacket. While my boots wear a bit scuffed from wear, it was one of my better uni outfits (no hoodies!)
I was mortified to see everyone at the event wearing full business atire…but figured that I was handing out showbags and driving their promo car, not doing the networking thing…until my boss dragged me inside and started steering me around the event for three hours until the showbag part started. I was talking to men and women in business suits while I was wearing faux leather! :(
To top things off, the marketing coordinator was wearing a beautiful business dress, so when show bag hand out time came, all the sports guys flocked to her to get their show bags, and I was left with armfuls as hardly anyone would approach me, though it was the whole reason I was there! :(
I still feel embarrassed now!
Given that you explicitly asked about the dress code, I think you’re long overdue to forgive yourself!
Well, I think the kicker is that they probably assumed I wore nicer clothes to uni, when they said that. I’m generally not a very fashionable person in my non-work life, and the women of that office always wore beautiful dresses, cute heels, and up to the fashion outfits, being in publicity and marketing. I had only just started as their promo driver that spent half her time in dusty storage sheds loading boxes of promo gear. I definitely stepped it up after that for the office and events, and changed for the driving stuff, but it kills me as it was my one great networking opportunity and I didn’t even know I’d be networking until I got there!
Heh. In my experience the average college student is most likely to be wearing jeans, baggy shorts, or pajama bottoms, with t-shirt, tank top, or hoodie. (Though I did work one place where a fair number of the female students wore heels and pearls; lots of sororities on that campus.)
Haha I wavered around the middle of that. My uni was based in the middle of the CBD so no pajamas, but definitely a few hoodies and trackie pants in the early morning classes.
Izzy. I’ll never forget his name or me asking him at the end of the interview “by the way what’s your name?” This was years ago before I felt comfortable with repeating back the name early in the interview or in the introduction phase.
I don’t know why I asked perhaps out of nervousness or because I thought I would forget it. But as I was asking him, I was thinking no don’t…but it was too late.
Woo hoo! I’m #2. Eh, I probably shouldn’t be proud of the fact that I made the top ten list of most embarrassing stories…
You can be proud that you have gotten over it enough to be excited! I wish I could turn embarrassing memories into funny stories faster.
Hey, I made the list! I’m #10. That happened almost 20 years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. Chit-chatting with partners like I didn’t have a care in the world, but all the while holding onto those stupid pantyhose with a death-grip.
My other good pantyhose story happened to my sister. She lived in NYC years ago and did the typical NYC thing of always dressing in black. She went to a business dinner one night, in one of her black outfits, and only at the end of the dinner did she realize that she had a pair of black pantyhose wrapped around her neck. As she put it, the legs were hanging down on either side of her neck, and the back was hanging down her back like a sailor suit. The first time I heard that story is definitely on the top 5 list of the hardest I’ve ever laughed.
Oh my goodness, this just made me laugh like crazy. And I can’t seem to stop now…