let’s talk about your mortifying moments at work

by Alison Green on July 25, 2024

It’s almost time for Mortification Week 2024, and in preparation we need to hear your stories of mortifying experiences at work — yours or other people’s. Maybe you mistakenly emailed erotica to your entire team … or accidentally told a coworker it was “great to hear” of a colleague’s death … or gave a person two noses in an interview Photoshop test. Maybe you still still lie awake at night thinking about the time you accidentally wrote in a job application that you “answer the phone throughout my shits.”

Mortification makes us human — and is often hilarious — and it’s in this spirit that we celebrate Mortification Week every summer.

Please share your own stories in the comments!

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{ 1,106 comments }

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  1. Irish Teacher.*

    I’m aphantasic and for some reason, a conversation arose about a P.E. teacher in another school showering after work and something about how the kids could have hidden his clothes or seen him without his clothes came up and I said, “I’m just picturing that,” meaning I was thinking how that would play out and forgetting it’s not a metaphor, thereby making my colleagues think I was picturing a naked man.

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Oh, the number of times I have done something like that. (Or worse, remembering how many times I did something like that BEFORE I realized that it truly wasn’t a metaphor to anyone else.)

    2. a clockwork lemon*

      For what it’s worth, I would have interpreted your statement as “I am imagining the situation” not “I am visualizing a naked man I’ve never seen”

      2. metadata minion*

        Same here! I mean, I guess technically I would be imagining a naked man, but it would be a kind of generic cartoon Ken doll sort of situation.

      3. Observer*

        , I would have interpreted your statement as “I am imagining the situation” not “I am visualizing a naked man I’ve never seen”

        Agreed. Even for a lot of people who are not aphantasic, I think this would be the case. That’s part of why this phrase it tricky. Sometimes it’s a metaphor and sometimes it’s not.

    3. Also Laura Actually!*

      I’m also aphantasic and felt this LOL I only found out in the last couple of years that aphantasia was even a thing, so I can only imagine how many times I’ve said something similar, assuming picturing things is a metaphor.

      1. Esprit de l'escalier*

        You can imagine it but you can’t picture it, lol (speaking as another person who can’t visualize anything).

        1. Galloping Gargoyles*

          Sums it up perfectly! I didn’t know that people could picture things in their minds until last year.

        2. linger*

          Radiolab aired a segment on aphantasia on 15th June 2024, including an interview with a researcher who had inadvertently developed a test for it: he found by accident that individuals capable of mental visualisation could “pre-select” and then focus only on one of two images projected simultaneously to right and left eyes, but those incapable of mental visualisation could not, and instead switched attention between both images shown.

    4. allathian*

      To be fair, I have a faily vivid visual imagination, but reading that I pictured the look on his face when he realized his clothes weren’t where he put them.

    5. Anne Elliot*

      Not ten minutes ago I texted a coworker who I do not know well that the airline lost my vag and I couldn’t enjoy the conference until they returned it.

      The “b” key and the “v” key should not be so close together on the keyboard.

    6. Ineffable Bastard*

      aw, don’t feel bad! I have extremely vivid imagery in my brain and still interpreted your words as “I am imagining how a situation like this could be difficult”. A lot of people would assume the same.

  2. MI Dawn*

    Very embarrassing moment. Just before shift change a colleague confided they do all their cleaning in the buff (very hot in the summer, not very cold in winter southern state). I happened to blurt it out when some day shift people came in to work and asked what we were talking about (we were still on the topic of cleaning). Oops! I apologized immediately and it didn’t hurt our relationship. But lo, these many years later, I have never forgotten my verbal error.

    1. NotBatman*

      I have a friend who does this too! Is this a normal thing that lots of people engage in? Am I the weirdo for cleaning while clothed?

      1. Mads*

        Yes! Last place to clean – shower. Works perfect. I had to stop once I had kids and now that the kids are gone, nobody wants to see that! Especially me. :0

  3. ScroogeMcDunk*

    I worked for many years in the customer service department for our local newspaper, and one of our duties was to make calls to customers starting or restarting their subscriptions to make sure there were no issues with delivery. So there I was, making my way through an hour of outbound calls, repeating my script over and over again: “Hi, it’s Scrooge calling from Newspaper to make sure you got your paper okay?” It was going great until my last call of day, when I instead said: “Hi, it’s Scrooge calling from Newspaper to make sure you got your pooper okay?” This was almost 20 years ago and I still cringe when I think about it.

    2. pagooey*

      This appeared for me immediately below a multi-post thread about poop situations. So there is poop even in the threads not about poop. It truly does get everywhere!

  4. :)*

    I was the witness to this, as HR for my company. A newish manager had to fire an employee over the phone (it’s a long story) and the employee asked for a letter about the termination. The manager agreed to send one, the employee thanked them, and the manager responded “my pleasure.”

    1. Deejay*

      This reminds me of a famous incident on the darts-based quiz show Bullseye.

      The host, Jim Bowen, would tend to say “smashing” a lot.

      One time he asked a contestant “What do you do for a living?”
      “I’m unemployed”
      “Oh, smashing”.

  5. Medium Sized Manager*

    I am not easily embarrassed, but I cringe every time somebody reminds me of the story. A few years back, we were playing 2 Truths and a Lie as a supervisory team. I proudly stated “I have never been outside of North America” as one of the true factoids about me.

    Gentle reader, I had just come back from a work trip to the Philippines ONE MONTH PRIOR. I was so used to that being my standard lie that I completely forgot about the thousands of hours I had spent prepping for and then working on this trip.

    It’s been 5 years, and I still can’t believe I said that.

    1. CowWhisperer*

      Hey, at least you just forgot.

      I’ve played with young adults who hadn’t realized that they had left the country when they visited Windsor, CA because they used Michigan’s expedited system where you can apply for a driver’s license that also works for entry and reentry between MI and Canada.

      I kinda understood that one – but the teens who didn’t know Cancun isn’t in the US still boggles my mind.

          1. ThatGirl*

            It doesn’t count as “leaving the country” because you don’t need a passport, we share the same currency, etc.

          2. Medium Sized Manager*

            I work for a company that offers services in the US but not territories, and the amount of time we have to spend explaining that yes, PR is part of the US but not part of our services is…a lot.

            1. Tuckerman*

              It is a territory of the United States and Puerto Ricans are US citizens without full citizen benefits.

            2. MigraineMonth*

              There’s a complicated colonial history where Puerto Rico is a US territory but not a US state. Puerto Ricans are all US citizens, but they don’t have (voting) representation while they live in Puerto Rico.

              There is both a Puerto Rico independence movement and a Puerto Rico statehood movement.

              1. A Girl Like Moi*

                I was denied being able to vote upon handing over my US passport and being informed I’m not a citizen since I was born outside of the country.

          4. Katherine*

            It matters if you’re from Puerto Rico trying to get a driver’s license in the state of Georgia and can’t get it because the DMV employee insists upon seeing your non existent immigration documents (a scenario I have personally observed).

            1. Rachel*

              My stepdad had a time years ago trying to convince the clerks at the DMV also in Georgia that his license from Guam was indeed a US license.

          1. Forrest Rhodes*

            Agreed, Rainy. Longtime NM resident here, and I can’t count the times that people planning to visit from eastern states asked:
            “Do I need a visa, or will my passport get me across the border?” Either is okay.
            “What’s the money exchange rate?” Pretty good, actually.
            “Does anyone there speak English?” Si, hablamos Ingles.
            “Are the streets mostly paved?” Um, yes.
            “Do the smaller towns have electricity?” You’re kidding me, right?
            For cryin’ out loud—it was the 1980s-1990s, get a clue!

            1. run mad; don't faint*

              To hop off on a tangent briefly, I worked with tourists in my state in the 1980s-1990s. While I didn’t have quite the same questions, I was staggered by the number of times I was told that I couldn’t be from [state] because I was clearly too educated. Apparently no one here went to university. It still blows my mind that they thought that.

          2. DannyG*

            I got a full scholarship to UNM in Albuquerque, NM. Had all kinds of elderly relatives asking why I was leaving the country.

            1. Forrest Rhodes*

              LOL, DannyG—I know! When I told people (who were in California and should’ve known better) that I would be going to UNM, they asked me if the requirements for a degree were different with an international school. Ah, well. Go, Lobos!

          3. Desk Dragon*

            I was born in New Mexico. The number of people who have asked me (or my parents, also both from the US, when I was young) about whether I had dual citizenship, did it make things more difficult having a birth certificate in another language, etc., is distressingly high.

          4. RLC*

            A colleague from New Mexico pointed out that this is why the newer license plates issued by the state have the text “New Mexico USA” on them.
            Another colleague, New Mexico born and raised, once commented (with an eye roll) as to the surprising number of people who complimented him on his mastery of English, and lack of a Mexican accent.

            2. Artemesia*

              And yet those f rom New York don’t get asked why they don’t have a British accent or if they know how to make Yorkshire pudding.

          5. NMisastate*

            Born & raised in NM. Went to college in IA.

            Can’t count the number of times my home address got changed from NM to MN.

            Got so tired of people asking about my international experience that about 2-3 months in, I handed another student a pen and a piece of paper, and asked them to list all 50 states.

            Once sent a package home. It got returned with an official post office stamp that said “NO SUCH STATE.”

            Recently flew to Chicago. On my return trip, the airline app asked me for passport information because it thought I was flying internationally – from Chicago to Albuquerque via Dallas.

            Stories like this are actually part of NM history classes for middle schoolers.

          6. Blue Skies*

            When I was in Spain I had a colleague from New Mexico. At one point he had to renew his Visa and ran into problems with an employee at the US Embassy in Madrid who did not realize that N. M. was a state and, yes, indeed, part of the United States. I remember that the problem became so messed up that my colleague had to actually travel from Sevilla to Madrid and meet with Embassy personnel face-to-face in order to get the paperwork fixed and figured out.

      2. Lady_Lessa*

        Grin, When I saw “Windsor, CA” I was thinking that CA meant California, not Canada. (There is an Ontario city in California).

        I also need to think multiple times about what LA stands for (Louisiana or Los Angeles)

        2. metadata minion*

          Same here! I had to read that several times, and almost looked up Windsor, CA to see if it was one of those weird pockets where there’s a three-mile blob of Belgium stuck in the middle of northern Germany or whatever.

        3. Bear in the Sky*

          There’s also a Windsor in California. That’s what I thought at first, too.

          1. Euphony*

            As a very junior employee I was thrilled to be included in an invite with my boss to a swanky restaurant. This was a working lunch organised by a prospective vendor who was pitching for a substantial contract and the pressure was also on my boss to negotiate the price down. So I definitely needed to be on my best behaviour for this one.

            Also relevant is that I absolutely can’t stand the taste of sparkling water. So when the bottle of sparkling water was opened and poured for my boss and the vendor, I asked for tap water instead and duly received a glass of tap water.

            2 courses of expensive food later my boss and the vendor are into an intense and delicate discussion about cost. The very attentive waitress spotted that our water glasses were less than half full and discretely swooped in with the bottle of sparkling water. Not wanting to interrupt the conversation, I thought I would put my hand over the top of my glass to indicate that I didn’t want any. Unfortunately I was just a few seconds too late and the waitress poured water all over my hand. Fizzy water went EVERYWHERE – all over me, the table, our food, my boss and the vendor’s paper presentation. Oops.

            The restaurant was terribly apologetic, but they and my boss clearly thought I was an idiot. And I don’t think the vendor ever forgave me for losing them the contract.

        5. Dahlia*

          I’m Canadian and got confused XD We don’t abbreviate it like that. It’s like saying “Portland, USA.” It’s not technically wrong but it is confusing.

      3. Slow Gin Lizz*

        My mom worked with a grown woman who could not be convinced that Baja California was in Mexico, not the US state of California.

        1. MagicEyes*

          I’m a fully grown adult, lived in the US all of my life, and I just learned this a few months ago!

          1. Unions Are Good, Actually*

            It’s a vestige of the time before the USA annexed parts of Mexico – there used to be Alta California (upper California) and Baja California (lower California). Mexico retained the lower part (now the State of Baja California in the United Mexican States), while Alta California became the State of California in the United States of America.

      4. Bast*

        I am a big fan of game shows, and I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard a “Name a country that ____” question on Family Feud and someone answers with a state, typically New Mexico, Hawaii, or Texas. I’m not sure what it is about those states in particular, but those seem to be the most frequent country-states. I believe it was on The Bachelor or Bachelorette too they took a trip to New Mexico and a comment was made by one of the contestants about how they were excited for the trip, as they had never having left the country before. Seems to be a common flub.

        1. Bryce*

          Every New Mexican has a story about that. I was ordering something over the phone, the call went fine until we got to the shipping address, and when she heard New Mexico the receptionist apologized and tried to transfer me to the Spanish line.

          1. Saddesklunch*

            This is such a New Mexico thing – growing up people on the East Coast would compliment my English when I told them where I was from.

            1. Bryce*

              I’ve gotten the same a couple of times, but I have a lisp and stutter and did a lot of speech therapy as a kid so I’d never make the connection until weeks after it happened.

            2. Nina*

              I’m from New Zealand and regularly get complimented on my English in the UK and US.
              Like, thanks, but pretty much everyone born here has English as their first language.

              1. STAT!*

                Say what now? I have received those compliments regarding my command of English as an Australian: many many people think of “Austria” instead when saying what country I’m from. But what are they thinking, that you speak Sindarin or Westron or something?

          2. Been There Done That*

            I remember when New Mexico magazine used to have a monthly article entitled “One of our 50 is Missing” – it was full of “oops moments” – mistakes people had made in thinking NM was not part of the United States. Some were quite entertaining.

        2. Bear in the Sky*

          To be fair, Hawaii and Texas were both independent countries before becoming U.S. territories and then states. (So was California, arguably, though it was never recognized, never formed a government, and it only took 25 days for the United States to annex it after it broke away from Mexico.)

      5. It's Gonna Be May*

        Back when I was a teenager, a new girl moved to our area (state in the Midwest) from a southern state. A group of us were introducing ourselves to her in gym class. One of the girls in the group said to New Girl: “Wow! Did you get all your money changed over? Like you have different money there, right? Not American dollars?” The silence was deafening. Thirty-five years later that’s still the first thing that pops into my mind when I see that person on social media.

        2. Dahlia*

          I know a man from Georgia, the country, and he constantly has to say he’s from George, the country.

      8. greenfordanger*

        I live in the Yukon Territory which people have to drive through when they drive to Alaska. Drivers always know that BC – which they also have to travel through – is in Canada but the number who are astonished and in a state of disbelief when they find out that the Yukon is not part of ALaska and they are still, in fact, in another country is crazy. I was a barmaid and corrected one table of four older men when they told me it was great to be back in Alaska but questioned why we had so many Canadian beers for sale and so few American. When I said, “This is Canada” they said, “All of the Yukon? Even up where they had the Klondike gold rush? Since when”. When I replied that all of the Yukon has always been part of Canada they kindly disagreed with me and told me that America must have agreed to give it to Canada at some point after the Gold Rush. But they left me a good tip to make up for the fact that the Yukon was no longer in Alaska ( it never was!)

    2. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

      I did this in 2022 at a doctor’s appointment. COVID screening included asking if I had left the country in the past 30 days, and my bright ass said, “No.. Oh, well, I just came back from Iceland.”
      I wasn’t even 48 hours out of the country.

  6. Sometimes I Wonder*

    I am a native English speaker in the US and had taken five years of French in school. A few years later I worked as a secretary at an environmental consulting firm with multi-national contracts. I had been speaking French to a new client and accidentally used tu instead of vous because almost all of my French speaking was done to close friends! I turned bright red and apologized.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I have a *really* hard time with formal you vs. informal, because it’s the same story for me (in German, not French). We didn’t really learn in which situations you should use the formal you because teachers never really taught us, so when I was younger and visiting my German relatives I was too shy to talk to them b/c I didn’t know which you to use with them! Now I know that you use the informal you for basically everyone you know and only use the formal for strangers, but it’s still hard for me b/c although we learned the conjugations for the formal you we didn’t use them in classes and I never really internalized them like I did the informal ones. It’s tricky going from a language with just one you vs two, isn’t it?

      1. CatMouse*

        I’m grateful that when we learned Japanese it was the formal for strangers type (mid level formality, you could be even more formal, but unless we expected to meet high level dignitaries, unlikely to be needed). A little stiff around friends/classmates, but just right dor use when traveling and everyone is a stranger!

        1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

          I really wish we had stuck with the formal in the courses I took because I had such a hard time switching between the two. Though the program was all around bananas. On day one we were learning both formal and informal, plus the whole katakana and hiragana scripts, and weekly kanji that we had to memorize. It was grueling, especially to those of us who were coming from rote memorization high school Spanish.

        2. Anax*

          Same here – I was a nervous and formal college student, so ‘a little stiff’ was just right. I was slightly mortified when our TAs pushed us to use the informal mode during classroom discussions, and I roll my eyes a little at my teen self now.

          (It didn’t help that I was trans but not fully out yet, so the fact that middling-formality is also gender-neutral was a big plus. I wasn’t quite comfortable using boku yet.)

          I heard that the hyper-formal level is also used in job interviews, which sounds like a nightmare. Not only do you have job interview jitters, but you have to remember all the special verb conjugations you ONLY USE FOR INTERVIEWS.

      2. Desk Dragon*

        My parents lived in Germany for several years, and had trouble remembering the informal forms, since most of their German interactions were in more formal situations, with English used among friends. Their landlord’s young son thought it was hilarious that they addressed him with the formal you.

      3. Ho-ho-holey hose*

        Yes! I am learning German to speak to my in-laws, and the people in my evening course have all been taking it for years so we are fully informal and always use “du”, but then when I meet older folks or strangers in a more formal setting, I have absolutely slipped up and used “du” and then been corrected by my partner.

      4. Name Nerd*

        Yes! Even though I know better, when I have to use Spanish with Spanish-speaking clients from Latin America (where it really matters to be formal) I still mess this up! Even when I focus hard on using the formal you, I often get the first verb right, and then the second verb forget and use the tu form instead of usted form.

      1. CowWhisperer*

        The tu form is an informal tense used with close friends and family. The polite, formal tense uses “vous”.

        It’s kinda like saying, “Hey, you! I haven’t seen you in forever! Gimme a hug!” in a business meeting with new clients who you’ve just met.

          1. Arrietty*

            Because it’s the most close and intimate relationship you’ll ever have, I believe. Similar to why children call their parents tu.

            1. allathian*

              Yes. Kids call their teachers vous and teachers use tu with the students, although that changes at some point in adolescence. In tertiary education, it’s certainly formal address both ways.

          2. Nina*

            Same reason God is ‘thou’ in English.
            ‘tu’ and ‘thou’ are singular/informal
            ‘vous’ and ‘you’ are plural/formal
            English slowly dropped ‘thou’ and switched to ‘you’ for everything in the last couple hundred years; French didn’t. We retained ‘thou’ for God because it’s in like, Bibles, but previously ‘thou’ would be used similarly to the French ‘tu’ – it’s not the ‘more formal’ or ‘more respectful’ form at all!
            I remember it as ‘you/vous’ is plural because you’re addressing the person and their dignity, but if you’re close enough that they don’t have to stand on their dignity with you then ‘thou/tu’ is fine.

            1. Chirpy*

              Which is fun because now everyone assumes “thou” is the formal, because it’s what’s used in old Bibles!

            2. Overthinking it*

              English is a HUGE language I believe. I think our vocabulary is like 5 or 10 times the size of French or something, and it’s been streamlined over the centuries. For example: English is not inflected. We have only one form of each verb in every tense. And most “tenses” are formed by adding on additional words, like the future perfect “. . will have been. . .”. We don’t even recognize them as additional tenses, making it hard to get our hands around all those verb conjugation! And we have only ONE truly irregular verb: to “be” (though some “stem change” from the infinitive to the past tenses)

              In general, the smaller the group that speaks a language, the more complicated it is. There are languages with like 12 or 16 “genders” which have little if anything to do with sex. And on that has forms reserved only for royalty to speak to each other. Even Cherokee has about 6 different forms of the pronoun “that” depending on the nature of the object “that” refers to

        3. Not One of the Bronte Sisters*

          Yes. But you can say “tu” to all little children, even if you do not know them. I cringe when people ask if you should say Comment ca va? to people you don’t know. Seriously? You think it’s okay to say How’s it going? to people you don’t even know? The French are more formal than Americans and that wouldn’t be correct in the US.

            2. Esprit de l'escalier*

              My French is a bit rusty now, but I think it would be “Comment allez-vous?”

          2. MigraineMonth*

            My understanding is that most languages that have both formal and informal tenses in common use are drifting more and more towards the informal (even French, despite the efforts of the Académie Française). Formality and hierarchy aren’t as emphasized anymore.

            Of course, English had already dropped our *informal* tense (thee/thou) for some reason.

            1. Eve*

              Spanish in Guatemala has gotten so informal because of all the tourists and language students, that they have now resurrected an old informal you to use to be truly informal between Guatemalan friends. But in Costa Rica, even infants are addressed with the formal!

            2. linger*

              English isn’t the best starting point for describing functional elements in languages, simply because it has relatively few left.
              The distinction being made here is one of register (familiar vs. polite). In English there are no longer any grammatical markers used only for that function (though there are many vocabulary and grammar choices that correlate with style level).
              In German and French (amongst other European languages), the grammatical distinction in addressee number was adopted as a grammatical register marker: the plural pronoun form was taken as the formal/polite form, thus also forcing plural verb agreement, even for a singular-referent addressee, in formal style.
              Other languages mark register using other types of grammatical markers: e.g. Japanese uses (amongst other things) different sets of tense/aspect/voice markers on verbs as register markers.
              (The closest we get in English is that more formal registers have higher levels of passive constructions, impersonal constructions, and past-tense modal forms, e.g. “Can I…” –> “Would it be possible to…”. But again, English shows a change in frequency of use, not an absolute grammatical rule.)

        4. JSPA*

          In some areas, though, the informal is used 90% of the time, and failing to “tutoyer” is seen as stuck up! We nearly never used “tu” in school…

      2. londonedit*

        ‘Vous’ is the formal ‘you’, which you use with people who are senior to you in a hierarchy, or who you’ve only just met. ‘Tu’ is the informal version, which you use with family, friends, peers etc. There’s even a phrase you can use when you meet someone that means ‘can I use “tu” with you – which signifies you’re moving into a more friendly and/or collaborative relationship. So if you’re meeting a brand new client and trying to make a good impression, you’d use ‘vous’ because it’s the polite form. It’s not really the done thing to use ‘tu’ with people you’ve only just met, especially in a client-facing situation.

          1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

            As far as I can tell, mostly what Duolingo tells you is that you made a mistake, even if you didn’t, and that you will either have to pay them or start over tomorrow because you’re out of mistakes. (Sorry I didn’t know whether to address the cartoon bear as tu or usted in Spanish — same idea as tu or vous in French! But if it’s a mistake to use tu, it can’t also be a mistake to use usted.)

        2. Media Monkey*

          Tutoyer! one of my favourite french words. I also love the fact that you can “novoteliser le foyer” which means to treat your house like a hotel (Novotel being a very big hotel chain in France – and other parts of Europe).

          1. diasporacrew*

            i’m French and this is the first time I’m seeing this phrase. I don’t think it’s very common.

            1. Media Monkey*

              to be fair i noticed it in a french dictionary so could be something theoretical that’s not really used in practice!

              1. Alexander Graham Yell*

                It’s definitely something I’ve heard in the office and my partner has used when I was explaining that I had moved from “vous” to “tu” with a client. Maybe it’s regional, or more common in conservative fields where there is a BIG difference in how you address clients/superiors and how you address colleagues at the same level?

                1. diasporacrew*

                  So sorry for the misunderstanding–tutoyer and vouvoyer are common words. I was referring to the Novotel phrase.

          2. Shy Platypus*

            The Novotel thing sounds like it could be from Québec? I’ve never heard it and very seldom use the phrase “le foyer” to describe my home (except in jest). Love it though!

            1. greenfordanger*

              There are only two Novotel hotels in Quebec so I don’t think that the phrase arose there.

        4. Humble Schoolmarm*

          Watch out for the cultural connotations, though. I was out on a first date with a guy I wasn’t really feeling it with and he asked me if he could address me by “tu (te tutoyer)”. “Sure!” I said, because it seemed pleasant, I didn’t care and I had to think less about the grammar (I’m fluent in French, but it’s not my first language). Unnnfortunately, he took that to mean that I was very interested and I felt kind of badly that my grammar had misled him.

          1. Tu peux plus me dire "tu"*

            Conversely, I once broke up with someone by vousvoying him. Devastatingly effective, tbh. (Don’t worry, it was extremely well deserved!)

      3. ThatGirl*

        Tu is informal and singular – you use it with close friends and people you know well. Vous is formal and plural, and you would always use it with a stranger or in most business settings. Using “tu” is the equivalent of saying “hey man, how’s it going?” instead of “hello sir, nice to meet you”.

      4. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

        Vous – polite, respectful. You vous strangers, co-workers, bosses. The “you” equivalent of calling James “James.”

        Tu – informal, for close relationships The “you” equivalent of calling James “Jim.”

        1. diasporacrew*

          Most co-workers (and even employees to bosses!) won’t call each other vous, it would be very stilted and formal. Maybe in verrry conservative fields. It would be the equivalent of calling your colleague Mr. Lastname and ‘sir’. I’m sure it happens, but it’s less and less common.

      5. College Career Counselor*

        Basically “tu” is familiar “you” and “vous” is formal. You use the one for family, close friends, and the other in business/formal situations. It’s weird for English speakers but it can be A Thing in other languages.

      6. Dust Bunny*

        Formal vs. informal (Spanish does this, too). You use one form with your friends, children, etc., and a different one with people you don’t know well, older relatives, most coworkers. But you don’t use the informal form with a new client at work!

        1. merula*

          Depending on where you are. Certain regions of Spain the only place I’d hear Usted was El Corte Ingles (a fancy department store).

      7. C*

        I don’t know how it works in German, but in French, using “tu” which is the personal form of you to someone is a level of intimacy. So you would never use “tu” to a teacher or a superior, but you would to close friends.

        It is generally safest to use “vous” as that is the polite/formal form of the singular you, plus is also what is used for the plural “you” in all cases. And there is a moment in relationships with someone where you decide if you can “tutoyer” and use the intimate “tu” with each other instead of “vouvoyer” using the format vous.

        1. Clisby*

          In German, “du” is informal “you”, “Sie” is formal. Not to be confused with “sie”, which is “she” or “they”. (I think I’ve remembered this correctly.

          1. Retiring Academic*

            Sie is in fact the very same word as sie meaning she, because it stands in for something like ‘your honour’ or ‘your highness’, which being abstract nouns are feminine. Italian is the same: lei is both she and polite you. Cf Spanish Usted (polite you), which I believe is a contraction of vuestra merced = your mercy/your grace.

    3. The Not-An-Underpants Gnome*

      This reminds me of how, in an attempt to help me with my French homework in preparation for an upcoming test, my Pittsburgh-born mother decided to say “yinz” instead of “you plural” for anything that required “vous.”

      14 year old me thought it was absolutely hilarious (tbh 36 year old me does too), but 14 year old me also aced the test, so it clearly worked.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        Many moons ago, my Southern roommate was in a Spanish class and was practicing in the shower at the top of her lungs, and to this day over 20 years later I still remember solidly that “vosotros is Spanish for y’all.”

        1. Liane*

          I took Latin in both high school & college, thinking it would be easy because no conversation.* I always translated the Latin second person plural as “you all.” Neither teacher nor professor said a word, or marked me off.

          *spoiler alert: Latin is 100% inflected & so every word can have up to about 120 suffixes/forms, so it was NOT easy

          1. MotherofaPickle*

            Latin is a dead language, and therefore cannot be spoken at all with accuracy. Your translation was pretty much correct.

            I have found my years of Latin (high school, college, grad school) insanely helpful. If (and only if) I am immersed, I can pick up enough conversational Spanish to at least find my way around town because of my Latin.

            1. Ginger in Black*

              “Latin is a dead language, and therefore cannot be spoken at all with accuracy.”

              I’m sure everyone at the Vatican will be surprised to hear that. And a whole lot of monks, friars, and nuns.

      2. Quill*

        Oh, I had a spanish teacher who was very into using Y’all for both ustedes and multiple instances of Tu. We got… possibly the wrong context for using it, given that we were midwestern kids.

        But we did get our plurals right, which was the point.

      3. Nightengale*

        my Greek professor in college had us translate the plural “you” as “y’all”

        It was funnier because this was a class in ancient Greek, he was very not Southern (from New England if I recall) and the college was in Pennsylvania so also not Southern. “Y’all” was just not otherwise something said much there. But it sure made a clear distinction in translation!

    4. Alexander Graham Yell*

      I’m an American working in France and I have to constantly remind myself about this. You’d think I’d get practice in at the office, but no! We are a deeply informal company! Even our contracts use “tu”!

      On the flip side, some dude stopped me in the street to try to talk to me the other day and used “tu” and my instinctive reaction was to get mad bc we don’t know each other like that, don’t try to force familiarity on me, SIR.

      1. Rainy*

        When I was living in Canada I was stopped on the street by French tourists who I suspect had discovered that while French is one of the official languages of Canada, in my province you were more likely to encounter people who spoke Mandarin than French. Luckily I spoke enough French to answer their questions!

    5. Jam on Toast*

      I feel your pain @Sometimes. As a teenager on a school trip to Ottawa, I ‘tu’d’ the French ambassador while asking them a question in French during a Q&A on Parliament Hill. I’ve never seen an eyebrow raise so quickly or so disdainfully before or since. 16 year old me quickly learned that Quebecois French and Parisian French have very, very different standards when it comes to grammar and formality.

      1. Tutoyer*

        Thiiiis. I learned French in Ontario, I used it travelling to Quebec, and I always used tu. I now shrivel at the thought of travelling to France…

    6. RussianInTexas*

      You can make a similar mistake in Russian, and it can be a costly one. Depending on the situation, it can be super rude to mistake “ты” and “вы”.

    7. Exchange Student Woes*

      I was an exchange student in Germany for a year, and in my DZS* (Deutsche Zweite Sprache/German second language) classes we pretty much only used du (informal you), almost never sie (formal you). Figuring out the congugation for formal you when I also had to learn the congugation for 4 different cases (which we don’t really have in English any more) was just a bridge too far for me (if you will excuse the phrase).

      My solution was to conguate everything informally, and then at the end I would say “Entschuldigung, ich meine ‘sie'” (excuse me, I meant to use formal you). I think my teachers cottoned on to me pretty quick, but I get the sense that it was more of a funny story to tell than deeply offensive to them.

    8. Melewen*

      I learned Business German (well, to B2 anyway), so it was primarily formal (Sie), but my office only uses the informal du so that has become my default. This means that I pretty much accidentally dutzen everybody before I catch myself — I’ve even done it to police officers. I used to get really embarrassed by it, but so far no one has appeared offended. I have been told that it considered common courtesy to use du with less-fluent speakers so I think Germans (especially those in larger cities) are used to it.

    9. 2cents*

      I’m also a French learner and I’ve made this mistake a couple of times – thankfully not with clients, but I still catch myself the moment the words come out of my mouth and I want to die from embarrassment. It’s not easy to get it right, especially if you’re not in constant contact with the language.

    10. Burned Out Banker*

      I did the same thing in Spanish with my bf’s dad… I was so embarrassed

  7. Blue Spoon*

    When I first started working at a public library, I worked a lot of closing shifts. Part of the closing procedures involves making “the library will be closing” announcements over the PA at various intervals as closing time approaches. I have a pretty good radio voice and was typically stationed at the reference desk, which had the script for the announcements. so I ended up doing that a lot.

    One fateful evening, I was instead at the circulation desk, and when we hit five minutes to closing, my coworker who was supposed to be at the reference desk was nowhere to be found (I think he was turning off the computers in the lab). There was no script at the front desk, but I had been doing this for a while and assumed I knew the announcement text by heart (especially the five minute announcement, which was the shortest one. So I got on the PA, and immediately my mind went blank. In my panicked search for the announcement I was supposed to make, I somehow landed on “Good evening. The library will close in five minutes. Please leave.”

    Fortunately, there were no patrons in the building at the time, but my coworkers all felt the need to inform me of how funny that was and the extent to which they agreed with the sentiment. I still work at that library, and while I don’t work as many closing shifts, I still find myself thinking about that announcement from time to time.

    1. A large cage of birds*

      I used to work at an animal shelter and at closing we would have staff (not my department) walk around and get people to leave. It was a tradition that departing employees would do this on their last day because they all loved telling people to get out (politely, of course)

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        Superstore. Garrett announcing: The store is closed. If you are still here, you are being a dick.

      2. Jon*

        I did have a co-worker do this once. We knew the store was empty, but the closing manager didn’t and oooh boy was he pissed.

        1. Chirpy*

          I had a manager once who came very close to doing this. The store had been closed for half an hour, multiple people had personally asked this guy if he needed help and told him we were closing, the manager TURNED OFF THE LIGHTS, and this guy *still* was just leisurely shopping. I guess in his mind, he’d gotten in the store before closing, so he could stay as long as he wanted?

    3. Irish Teacher.*

      When I worked retail, a customer once came in after closing because somebody had opened a door to sweep the entrance and one of my colleagues said to them, “we’re closed! OUT!” and pointed over his shoulder. The manager and I, both of whom heard, just about cracked up.

    4. Dust Bunny*

      . . . yeah, but we’re all thinking it.

      We (academic library) have this one researcher who stays until the VERY LAST SECOND**, leaving us to reshelve his stuff after we’re closed. I think he finally finished his Ph.D. because we haven’t seen him in awhile and have stopped scheming ways to get him to leave sooner.

      **When researchers contact us we tell them we’re 8:30-4:30 to give staff time to finish things up, but he always stays until 4:59.

      1. Lady Ann*

        At my old job I was the supervisor in charge of closing some nights, which meant I had to make sure the building was empty, turn off the lights, and arm the alarm. The number of people who would cause me to have to stay 15 to sometimes 30 minutes later because they just had one more thing to finish was infuriating. One lady would talk to her husband on her land line office phone instead of her cell phone for some reason and would say she just needed to finish her call. One night I accidentally locked her in (the building was kind of a maze so we missed each other as she left her office and went to the bathroom). She came running out of the building as I was getting in my car and I had to hurry up and disarm the alarm before the police got called. But she never left late again on my closing nights!

        1. Dust Bunny*

          Yeah, that IS infuriating! Use your cell phone and GTFO of the building, lady! (Also, you’re leaving–you’re probably going to see him pretty soon, anyway.)

          1. gmezzy*

            My first thought is that maybe she was talking to a boyfriend, using the office line so it wouldn’t show up on her family phone bills. No reason for it, otherwise!

            1. Nina*

              The lab I worked in for postgrad had its landline removed and replaced with a ‘call emergency services’ button because wayyyy too many international students realized it was equipped for international calls.

        2. Katherine*

          I used to work in a small grocery store with one phone line and there was one customer who would always borrow the phone and talk with his wife while he shopped — meaning we couldn’t run any credit card payments because the line was tied up. He would get so pissy when we would point this out to him, too.

      2. Rook Thomas*

        I work in a public library and agree . . . . at 5 minutes to close, we’re all thinking it. It’s always the night when you haven’t had a break, your stomach is growling, and there’s one person who stays until the announcement, then takes time to pack up their stuff . . . and then want to use the restroom one more time . . .

        1. Blue Spoon*

          I do feel for some of the lingerers at my library–we’re in the downtown area of a small city, and we have quite a few patrons experiencing homelessness. I definitely understand that they want to get one last bathroom use in, but at the same time I would like to leave work for the day.

      3. Rex Libris*

        I’m convinced that every public library in America has a person who comes in five minutes before closing with 75 pages to photocopy, and only fifty dollar bills and Canadian quarters in their pocket. I think they issue them with the building.

        2. MotherofaPickle*

          Sounds like something Pratchett would write, RIP.

          Maybe Gaiman could write this character?

      4. Consonance*

        I don’t usually close, but one evening I did and had a community patron on the computer at 4:58, after I’d given him the 15-minute warning. I stood there and told him that we were now closed, since he hadn’t even started logging off. He huffed about how he thought he had two more minutes, and I’m just thinking, “yeah, to get your ass out the door. Not to start finishing up!” Honestly I don’t know how so many adults don’t know what “closed” means.

        1. Blue Spoon*

          Our lab computers automatically kick patrons off 10 minutes before closing; I can’t imagine how bad it would be if people could stay on them right up until we close.

          1. Consonance*

            It’s made even harder because the space is available to students/faculty 24/7 with their ID cards. So at 5pm, I’m trying to force community patrons to leave while everyone else sits around them and keeps doing their work.

    5. Witty TV Character Name*

      I’m going to need some help on why this is wrong/bad/funny. I’ve heard many library closing announcements and don’t understand how this one is embarrassing.

      1. ThatGirl*

        It’s more the abruptness of “please leave” as opposed to a gentler “please make your way to the checkout desk” or similar.

      2. Blue Spoon*

        The full announcement is something along the lines of “Good evening. The library will close in five minutes. The children’s room is closed. Please make your final selections and bring them to the checkout desk.” Which is more courteous and patron-friendly than the blunt “Please leave.”

        I also just remembered that this wasn’t my only moment of PA-based mortification, but that’s another post.

    6. Generic Name*

      I recently visited the Omaha Zoo, and apparently we were there past closing. I WISH they would have made some kind of announcement. We were in the “creatures of the night” exhibit, which is in near complete darkness indoors, and a staff member stationed at the exhibit would tell people about the various animals, and she kept saying, “thank you for visiting the zoo”, I guess as a subtle Midwestern hint to leave, but it went over my whole family’s heads. We had no idea the zoo had closed. We ended up walking out with the employees leaving their shifts.

      1. Butterfly Counter*

        I did something similar once at my gym.

        The gym was open late some evenings (into the wee hours of morning), but not all evenings. One night, I decided to have a later workout. I hopped on the treadmill at 8:45. At 9:00, the employees came through and turned off all of the televisions and fans, but didn’t say anything to me. I was confused and ran for another minute or two before the penny dropped. This wasn’t a 24 Hour Fitness!

        I did apologize on my way out. Oops.

    7. TheBunny*

      Literally LOL’d to this one. I think because I’ve worked in retail and this is really what those announcements mean but don’t actually say.

    9. And...uh...Abraham Lincoln*

      I worked retail for a LONG time and used to make a lot of closing announcements. There were many MANY nights when I would have liked to say, “Please leave.”

  8. juliebulie*

    I went to work wearing mismatched shoes. Not once but twice – at the same employer.

    Not exactly mortified because I’m not sure anyone noticed. But kind of mortified that I didn’t catch my mistake. (It was shoes of the same style but different colors the first time, and the second time they were the same color but different styles.) You’d think I had piles and piles of shoes, but I just had the three pair for work and I started keeping them a little farther apart so they wouldn’t get jumbled up again.

        1. Ed 'Massive Aggression' Teach*

          I’ve got one custom set which are deliberately mismatched, and several others which are a pair but non-identical (for example I have Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens). I also just ordered a *single* custom earring for a cosplay.

        2. Nina*

          I didn’t realize it went out of fashion. My favorite earrings are a ‘pair’ of Lego Han and Leia (one in each ear) that my dad made for me.

      2. NotHannah*

        I had mismatched earrings for a big donor visit. Same style, different colors. I would have only found out once I took them off, but a colleague said he liked my earrings and that was odd enough for me to look. Yikes.

      3. Kimmy Schmidt*

        I often wear purposefully mismatched earrings and socks! Rock it with confidence and everyone will think you are the epitome of fasion.

    2. MsM*

      No lie, I am sitting here right now in two mismatched shoes because my barely awake brain registered two black pumps and failed to notice they were completely different heights and materials until I was already on my way to work.

      1. MsM*

        Also, I’d just like to note that the banner ad on the side is now showing two mismatched shoes. Good job, data mining?

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          Ha, I have an ad following me around the internet for a brand that sells (expensive!) deliberately mismatched shoes. They’re mostly just different colors, though — same shape and heel height.

    3. Dust Bunny*

      I stopped a lady getting off my bus the other day because her shirt appeared to have the seams (which were overlocked) on the outside. I couldn’t see any buttonholes, though, so I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a deliberate design element? I finally just said, “Forgive me if this is supposed to be that way and I’ve just misinterpreted it, but are your seam allowances supposed to be on the outside?”

      They were not. And she was on her way to an interview.

      It was not actually that noticeable–I noticed because I sew and was admiring the way the plaid was centered in the back yoke–and I hope they would have forgiven her, but whew.

      1. Seven If You Count Bad John*

        I have a friend who had a coworker who had to spend all day wearing her coat in the office, because she had forgotten to put on a skirt.

        1. BikeWalkBarb*

          Oh lord, this reminded me that I once went out the door in just my long johns with no pants over them. Hey, my legs were covered so I must be dressed.

        2. Sophia Brooks*

          I did this too! Luckily I worked in a costume shop so I was able to borrow a skirt. In my defense it was tech and I was working 20 hour days. I was also wearing fleece tights, so I think it felt like leggings!

        3. Chirpy*

          I don’t put on my work pants until the last minute before walking out the door (they’re jeans and I rewear them, but my work clothes can get grungy so I actually keep them in the bathroom/laundry next to the door) and this is my fear. I’ve had to stop myself a few times from walking out the door pantsless/in my pajama bottoms (I am not a morning person.)

      2. Cinn*

        I managed to wear a block colour top inside out for half a day at work once. I think I got away with it because who’s looking at seams that closely, but still… XD I definitely relate to that lady.

    4. Seven times*

      I feel better that I only did this once! But I didn’t catch it and the shoes were really different!

    5. 40 Years In the Hole*

      Hubby did that – once with mismatched shoes (same style different colour), and once with socks. He came home both times to change. I told him not worry; he at least had another pair just like them. We still laugh 30 yrs later.

    6. knitcrazybooknut*

      I was halfway through a workday and somehow noticed that my boots were different heel heights. My immediate thought was that my back and hips must be WAY out of wack.

      I had three different pairs of black boots, all the same brand, different styles, and had managed to put on a mismatched pair. Oops.

    7. Resume please*

      I did the same thing, I wore two completely different sneakers to get to work. Different brands, colors, etc on each foot. One was a brightly colored running shoe, the other was an unassuming “running errands” shoe in a neutral color. Took the local subway system, walked down public streets, went to the work kutchen for coffee and to quickly chat, and didn’t notice until I got to my desk. Luckily, I had actual work shoes in a drawer. Not a morning person…

      1. Quill*

        Knew a guy who did that on purpose during college. It may have been a way of making himself memorable, because he had one of the most common male names of our generation, and I get the feeling he didn’t think he’d made a big impression in high school.

        Naturally, we all called him Shoes. He ended up one of the board members on a club I was in and nobody could ever email or facebook him because Shoes Johnson was not his legal name.

    8. EA*

      I have done this too – and I’ve also completely forgotten to change my “house shoes” (basically like flip flop-type slides) for professional shoes before and didn’t notice until I was getting out of the car at work (40 minutes away)!

      2. Teapot Librarian*

        I looked down at my feet during a job interview and realized I hadn’t changed my shoes out of my flip flops!

        2. MotherofaPickle*

          Once worked at a place with a strict “no open toes shoes policy” and a schedule that had me on later hours two days per week. Doing chores around the house, then driving 30+ minutes to work only to have security point out that I was wearing my Tevas. Had to drive all the way back home to put on socks (in the summer!) and switch shoes.

          A couple of times security didn’t catch the Tevas and I didn’t realize until I was already in my office. So I couldn’t get up from my desk unless no underlings were around.

      3. umami*

        LOL, I’ve done that! Not to work yet, but to the grocery store and once going out to eat. At least they were Vionics, so not TOO embarrassing.

      4. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

        Same. Luckily I keep a pair of ballet flats at my desk just in case, but I had to go through reception and up the elevator in fuzzy slippers.

        Also accidentally wore a hoodie, instead of changing to a more professional cardigan. That I could take off, but then I was cold the whole day in the office.

        1. Overthinking it*

          You could have tucked the hood down the back of your neck, and rolled the zippered edges in! You could have pulled it off!

      6. Snoozing not schmoozing*

        Many years ago, I went on a train trip to Canada for Expo 67 with my Mom. It wasn’t until I had gotten on the train that I realized I had my house shoes on – this was in the 60s when things like that Just Weren’t Done. Mom yelled out the window to my Dad, who was waving from the platform, told him where my shoes I’d bought for the trip were, and he raced home, got the shoes, and met us at the next train stop to do a quick shoe transfer through the window. At least I looked fashionable for the rest of our vacation!

    9. A Significant Tree*

      Oh, I went to work in mismatched boots once (different style + different color, same heel height though) and my colleagues *did* notice. I got razzed about it for a while since I’m a woman who generally dressed fashionably and all of my colleagues at the time were men who definitely preferred the casual side of business casual (though obviously they had a better eye for detail than I did!).

    10. SaraV*

      A relative by marriage was getting dressed early in the morning to go to an out-of-town meeting. At that time of year, it was still dark when he was getting dressed. Plus, he had 3 (maybe 4) kids under 6 asleep in the house, and he was not going to wake them up by turning on the lights. He drove the 3 hours to the meeting, got out of the car, and realized he had on one black shoe and one tan shoe. oops. Same style, perhaps even same brand, but two very different colors.

    11. Media Monkey*

      i did this – very similar ballet pumps from the same shop. both with bowds on the front (but not the same bows). one navy and one black.

      only slightly less embarassing than the time i stepped onto the train (which in the UK is sometimes a big step up from the platform , and the tracks are a good 5 or so feet below platform level) and my ballet pump popped off my foot and fell down the gap between the train and the platform, falling onto the track below. i could have waited for the train to leave and asked a staff member to get my shoe back, making myself late for work, but i opted to travel into my destination station and buy another pair of shoes (thank goodness for Accessorise stores in just about all stations)

    12. Irish Teacher.*

      Oh, I can do better than that. Doing my work experience, I had to go a working week with mismatched shoes since I had worn them when returning to the city I was doing my work experience in and left the other half of each pair in my hometown.

      They were similar enough that it was a couple of days before anybody noticed.

    13. CanadiEm*

      I’ve done this too! Different colours, different materials, different heel heights, different vamps. The only thing they had in common was that they were both slip-ons. Didn’t notice until I got out of the car at work 45 minutes away. I had never been so glad to have my safety shoes (as in steel toe, not as in shoe emergency) at my desk!

    14. MizzDoTooMuch*

      I did this (I had brown and black danskos!) as a high school teacher of some kids who loved to cut up. I was originally mortified but in later periods tried to sorta turn it into a game where I would give the first kid who noticed a post it that said something like “shh! Let’s see who else is paying attention!” And see how long it took for the whole class to erupt in laughter.

      It kinda worked. But the whole thing also helped me get over myself a little bit; I got a really tough skin in that job.

    15. Alexander Graham Yell*

      I had a coworker notice she’d done that at the airport on the way to a client meeting. She was in a skirt, so there was no chance of covering it either.

    16. Seashell*

      I did that once and noticed it halfway through the workday. They were both black suede and similar styles, so I don’t know if anyone else noticed. Nonetheless, I felt like an idiot.

      One time, I noticed when going into the grocery store that I had one black shoe and one brown shoe on. I encouraged my kid to walk in front of me to block other people’s views of my feet.

    17. LabManagerPerson*

      I have brown and black copies of my standard work shoes, and I have done the “one of each” thing at least twice; given my obliviousness to such things (and the obliviousness, or excessive politeness, of my co-workers), it may have happened more often than that.

      1. Snoozing not schmoozing*

        Oh, that’s when you can say, “Aren’t they cute? I like them so much I have another pair just like them!”

    18. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      I went to a JOB INTERVIEW wearing mismatched shoes! Both black oxfords, but the soles were different and one was pointier. I did get an offer, so either they didn’t notice or it didn’t count too heavily against me.

    19. Hannah Lee*

      “I went to work wearing mismatched shoes. Not once but twice – at the same employer.”

      Ugh! Me too, also not once, but twice.

      And not long after the second time, I was in a department meeting, and for some reason during chit chat people started talking about outfits they repeat and it became clear that one particular co-worker had superhuman ability to remember what other people have worn, and started listing off “Oh yeah, Jeff has those black wing tips he always wears on the Tuesday’s he’s sitting in on Finance meetings, usually with his dark grey suit but sometimes the navy one with 2 buttons on the cuff. But last week he wore these black cap toe oxfords that he’s never worn before, they must be new” and she could do this with every single one of us, noting that for example women had the same skirt, and that she could name which of us had sometimes reworn the same outfit twice in one week or on back to back days.

      I just stared wide-eyed across the table thinking “she knows, and she knows I know she knows”

    20. Forensic13*

      I was once so tired getting ready for my first shift manufacturing job that I shoved on my open-toed sandals instead of my closed-toed work shoes.

      It was sterile manufacturing, so they just made me work in the filling areas all day in the factory-provided shoes instead, but I felt so ridiculous walking around the few times I was in the regular offices that day.

    21. SometimesCharlotte*

      I had two pair of the same shoe just different colors. Wore one of each to work one day. In a customer facing role. My husband was kind enough to drive 40 minutes (one way) to bring me another shoe.

    22. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      I had a job once where I had to get up at 4:15 a.m. to be at my desk 75 miles away by 6.

      I only forgot to wear a bra once.

    23. Another Kristin*

      Not mismatched shoes, but I went to a big off-site client meeting at my first professional job wearing bright pink winter boots. (I have really small feet and can wear children’s sized shoes and boots.) I had acquired a small professional wardrobe, including a winter coat, but it didn’t occur to me that I needed professional-looking boots as well until I got there!

    24. This One Here*

      My husband’s grandmother wore mismatched shoes to her husband’s funeral. To be fair, she was by then legally blind, and they were the same style (I believe her daughter had bought the same shoes in different colors), but one was black, the other tan. No one told her, and the only person who seemed fussed about it was one of her sons. Everyone else was there to offer condolences.

    25. Meow*

      I did this the first day of my new job… I had my husband come drop me off a new pair in my car, but it was a long walk of shame to the parking garage.

    26. BikeWalkBarb*

      Oh good, I’m not the only one. I did this on my VERY FIRST DAY at the job I hold now.

      I had a long drive to get to the headquarters 60 miles away, felt good about the dress I’d chosen and the boots to go with it that I grabbed out of the closet as the last thing before getting in the car. It wasn’t until I got all the way to the destination city, parked, and started walking toward HQ that I realized my stride felt funny. Looked down and I had on one brown boot and one black boot with slightly different heel heights and absolutely not the same design. I had to stop and take a picture because it was so funny to look at.

      I got most of the way through the day of new employee orientation before someone in HR looked down at my feet and said, “Are you wearing two different boots?” Yes, yes, I am, it’s all the rage now, didn’t you know.

      1. littlehope*

        Facebook occasionally still shows me a “your memories on Facebook” of the time I went out wearing one each of two similar but crucially not identical pairs of grey pull-on trainers. Honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever done.
        I also fairly routinely make it halfway to the bus stop still wearing my slippers. They’re quite substantial! I need the arch support! They feel like shoes!

        1. littlehope*

          …to be honest it’s quite possible no one would have noticed the trainer situation if I hadn’t immediately gone “OH MY GOD EVERYONE LOOK AT MY SHOES I AM THE MOST FUNCTIONAL ADULT IN THE WORLD.” You can’t let these opportunities for harmless hilarity be wasted.

    27. Lyn*

      Not me but a fellow co-worker did this multiple times over the years. One time she came in wearing one normal pump and one open-toed pump. Same colors though.

  9. bruh*

    When I started my first professional internship, I (several times) ended Teams calls with “loveyoubye” – I think because 99% of my phone conversations before that were with my mom, or my wife, and that’s how I end those calls.

    I did eventually break the habit after I got a “What was that? Don’t do that.” from a very senior, attractive coworker.

    2. Not The Earliest Bird*

      My office voicemail ended with “love you, bye!” for YEARS and no one told me, until someone left a message laughing that they loved me too. I just recorded it and never thought about it again.

      1. Crimson Tide*

        Once when talking to a boss on the phone I said at the end “love you” to which he replied automatically “love you too” … long pause and I said “let’s never mention this again”

        1. CatMouse*

          I’ve stopped doing, but while working at a call center I started answering and ending personal calls like work calls. Not as mortifying since direct family were all that ever called, but still groan worthy when I think about how many times I thanked my Mom for calling customer service!

          1. Mr Doubt*

            It took me months after leaving tech support to stop greeting my parents when they called in with ‘hello, Llama grooming IT Support, Mr Doubt Speaking’

            Mind you if definitely prevented them mixing me up with my brother.

            1. Snudence Prooter*

              When I’m really sick, I’ll start answering phones as if I’m at a job I had five yeaes ago, in another city. It’s one of the few ways I know to check my temperature, because I don’t feel fevers until I’m above 103. It’s caused some confusing at work a few times, which was only compounded by me needing to go home immediately!

      2. Katherine*

        I have actually possibly a worse one, which is that I needed to tell my husband something and I thought he was the last person I had talked to on my phone so I, apparently without looking, hit the last number on the “calls” list, someone answered, I said “Hola amor” and a confused voice replied “…amor?”. Turns out MY BOSS was the last person I had talked to. AND THEN I tried again to call my husband and AGAIN called my boss, only this time I said “Hola amor” while giggling hysterically because I was embarrased at just having called my boss “amor”.
        Fortunately my boss has a sense of humor.

    4. spuffyduds*

      I used to work at a newspaper copy desk with a very cute, sweet guy. He and I were both Very Married (and not to each other!) And we both instinctively said, “What, honey?” or similar when we didn’t hear each other the first time. We apologized to each other the first few days and then decided that neither of us could break the habit and all the apologies were a waste of time, so we just carried on like that. I’m sure colleagues thought we were having a fling.

    6. Aspiring Square*

      In undergrad I worked second shift at a budget hotel front desk (for us, this was 3pm-11pm.) Most of our clients were road trippers, truckers, people in transit, etc. Aka they’d check-in, maybe order takeout, and just chill in their rooms. No lively lobby bar or anything like that.

      This was one of three jobs I had, and after the afternoon check-in rush it was usually very quiet, with just the gurgling of a fish tank and Hindi prayer music playing softly in the background. I usually tried to do homework or read to stay alert, but if I was already tired, it was soooo easy to zone out.

      Anyway one night at around 10pm I was staring blankly ahead and the phone rang, jolting me only halfway back into existence.

      I grabbed the phone and instead of “Thank you for calling Budget Highway Hotel, this is Aspiring Square, how may I help you?” I blurted out a sleepy, croaky, surprised “HELLO?”

      The poor customer on the other side replied “Hello?”

      “Yes, HELLO? What do you want?”

      “Hi, uh, sorry, is this Budget Highway Hotel?”

      This yanked me fully back to reality and I shifted into work voice, but I was so embarrassed and worried my boss would get a complaint the next day. He did not. No one cares about service at budget highway hotels that much :D

    7. PinkCandyFloss*

      My boss did this to me once as he was multitasking texting his wife about a home issue and talking to me on the phone about a work issue. He immediately texted when we hung up and explained and apologized profusely.

    8. The OG Sleepless*

      My husband said that to a client once. He was absolutely mortified and she was howling. I told him I’m pretty sure everybody who has been in a relationship for a long time has either done that, or come really close.

    9. Great Frogs of Literature*

      When I started this job, I frequently had calls with a coworker who signs off with “buh-bye” in EXACTLY the same intonation my dad uses when ending a call, and for like a solid year I was low-key terrified that I was going to autopilot respond “Love you, bye!”

      It never did happen, and eventually I got a little more used to it, and also we mostly don’t talk to each other very much anymore.

    11. RedinSC*

      Similar to that, I once went to get my boss’s attention and said, “hey, babe”

      OMG, DIE

      1. TaraGreen89*

        I had to text my boss a work question and I used speech-to-text because I was walking down the street, and I find that speech-to-text useful when trying not to trip over thin air. Well to make a long story short “Hi Carl” sounds like “Hi darling” to my phone’s app. Now you would think I would catch that error before I hit send. And you would be quite wrong about that. I caught it exactly 15 seconds after I hit send.

        Happily, my significantly older and very married boss thought this error and the apology/explanation test that followed *very* shortly afterwards were the height of hilarity.

  10. Irish Teacher.*

    Oh, a second one. I was showing one of my learning support students the docudrama Charlie, about a corrupt Irish political figure with a tendency to use rather um, colourful language. At one point, the head of my department walked in during a scene where the titular character was on a four-letter word rant and she was like “what on earth are you showing?”

    I told her, “it’s just Charlie” and she said, “it doesn’t sound like Charlie. Actually, it does sound like Charlie.” (The first time she meant it didn’t sound like an educational docudrama; the second time she meant it sounded like the politician in question.)

    I will add that at this point I was on a temporary contract and while it is the principal who is responsible for staffing, the principal did consult with her about our department. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like she minded my showing it (and she and I were sort of friends anyway), but…it was a little awkward.

  11. Now a parent, somehow*

    I was interviewing for a part time job through my college where I’d be mentoring students. During the phone interview, in response to some question (unsure of what they asked that could have prompted this!), I rambled a bit and then concluded with, “Actually, I guess thinking about it, I don’t really like kids.” I then panicked and hung up.

    I did not get the job.

    1. Aspiring Square*

      ahahaha I’m imagining the hiring panel on the other side absolutely dumbfounded.

    2. Bast*

      My husband, great guy, does NOT have a way with words, and in situations like interviews, he gets very nervous and it gets WORSE. He did something very similar early in his career, where he was interviewing for a retail/sales job where you received minimum wage, but also commission for sales (think upscale menswear with suits costing hundreds). It was an phone interview so I could hear him stumbling his way through it — one phrase that I thought for sure would cost him the job — “I’m not a naturally good salesman.” I thought FOR SURE that would cost him the job, but I guess they either figured he was just nervous or they needed a body in there, because he somehow got the job.

    3. I AM a Lawyer*

      This reminds me of the scene in Bridget Jones where she’s interviewing for a children’s television program and the interviewer asks her if she has any children of her own and she says, “Oh, christ no. Yeuck!”

    4. Owlette*

      Luckily my husband decided to practice interviews with me before going into a huge job interview. I asked what his greatest weakness was and he said “I get frustrated easily”! After I explained in detail why that answer would have his application stamped ‘never ever ever hire’, he came up with a better answer and got the job. He’s also a very patient guy so I don’t even know where it came from

  12. HonorBox*

    I’m not sure who was more mortified in this situation. My boss at the time was (and is) a wonderfully professional woman who is about 10 years older than me. She prided herself on being well-spoken, dressed immaculately, and held herself to a very high standard. She’s someone I learned a lot from and still have great respect for.

    One day, the four of us in the office were standing around talking, and boss was talking about how she’d had a stressful couple of days, which we all knew about and understood. She talked about how she wanted to go home, pour herself a glass of wine, grab a good book and take a nice long bath. Pretty innocuous, right? Well, she recognized that I was the only male in the conversation and immediately was MORTIFIED that perhaps she had said something that made me feel uncomfortable and possibly even bordered on sexual harassment. So she quickly apologized and then went through the process by which I could report her to the president of our board of directors if I felt at all uncomfortable.

    I told her I was both not uncomfortable with the suggestion that someone might bathe, but I would actually be monumentally more uncomfortable calling the president of the board, who was also a female who I have great respect for, and raising the issue that someone had discussed taking a bath in front of me. We all had a good laugh at how that conversation might go and how any of us might be weirded out reporting something like that.

    I still remember distinctly, though, the look on my boss’s face when she thought she’d stepped in it.

    1. PinkCandyFloss*

      I love that she gave you the steps to take to report her – that’s an ethical boss!

    2. Betty*

      My boss was telling me about his wife’s neck/shoulder pain, and he was telling me about how it hurt her to wear a bra. I think he said the word bra about 8 times in that conversation, and he’s so chill, he didn’t notice from my face that I was internally thinking, “did he just say ‘bra’? oh no, he said it again! oh please stop saying ‘bra’ at work.” I was really sympathetic to his wife, and I knew about the unfortunately long history about this injury, so maybe I managed to keep my face neutral. It was so odd to me that I was at all uncomfortable because I’m not really upright in that way, but I guess maybe I am…

      2. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

        Nah I don’t think that’s uptight at all. It’s an example (to me) of being subject to a topic that shouldn’t be present at work, even if it’s comparatively mild relative to how bad we normally think of harassment. But that would make me uncomfortable too (and hilariously I’m also a woman who can’t wear bras due to pain and am pretty free and not uptight in general – I just don’t want a bra area to be talked about at length by most people and definitely not at work)

  13. Plebeian Aristocracy*

    Oh, I have been waiting for this day. Let’s go!

    So, the first graders at my school interview different folks around campus to get to know them. It’s super cute, and a great way for them to feel valued, and they like to end by bringing that person back to their classroom at the end of the year and having a little thank you celebration. This is scheduled out weeks in advance so that everyone’s on board and can clear schedules.

    And I forgot. My week got incredibly busy, and I stood up a bunch of first graders who just wanted to say thank you to me.

    Fast forward an hour, and I’m getting lunch from the cafeteria. They had teriyaki noodles that day, so it had a really thick, pungent sauce (this will be super important in a few moments). Who do I see getting her lunch as well, but the first grade teacher. So, naturally, I go up and start to profusely apologize. And she is being really magnanimous about the whole affair, absolutely saying that it was no problem, that we would reschedule, etc. But, what neither of us notice, is that as I’m leaning forward to apologize, my plate is leaning forward too.

    And then my fingers slip.

    And my entire lunch—covered in that sweet, pungent, thick, and sticky teriyaki sauce—goes flying all over her nice shirt. Her nice white shirt. That I have now ruined while trying to apologize for standing up her class of first graders. I don’t think that I could get myself to even make eye contact with her for an entire week.

        1. darsynia*

          My guess is it’s meant that the ‘i’ at the end of teriyaki sounds enough like ‘injury’?

          1. Plebeian Aristocracy*

            Absolutely right. I still get awkward about the whole thing, and humor (or attempts at it) is how I manage that. “Teriyakury” might’ve been better, but it’s still a bad joke

  14. Chicken Little*

    Once on a very large conference call, I meant to say either: “Let’s not reinvent the wheel” or “Let’s not put the cart before the horse” (honestly can’t remember which). Instead I said: “Let’s not reinvent the horse.” I still can’t say either phrase without dying inside!

    1. NameRequired*

      No wait I think you were onto something! We probably shouldn’t reinvent the horse

            1. Nina*

              A horse is a camel designed by a concept artist; a camel is a horse designed by an engineer.

    2. ArchivesPony*

      I had to giggle because a lot of horse people will joke that we should reinvent the horse (a lot of horses tend to hurt themselves in the dumbest ways possible; they can’t throw up; they have a messed up digestive system; they’re basically standing on an elongated middle finger that’s super thin; etc.).

    3. HB*

      Okay but I might steal this phrase, because it’s a good one. I love weird language mashups like this, along with things where people can’t think of the actual word/phrase so come up with something else like “laundry sauce” for detergent.

      2. Kendall^2*

        A college friend used to use “Up a tree without a paddle”, and also “whatever floats your boat, whatever blows up your skirt”….

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          My sister once said that she was “up the paddle without a creek” and I just started laughing and she looked at me in this way that meant it was 50/50 whether she was going to laugh too or get mad, so I said, “ah, but think of it. You’re up on top of an oar without any river” and she started laughing.

          She was a teenager or young adult at the time and I’m not sure she knew what either a paddle or a creek was.

        2. umami*

          I used to be a newspaper editor and once wrote a sub-headline that included the phrase ‘hit the hammer on the nail’. Like, wat. It published like that, too :(

      3. Boba Feta*

        I was already cackling at “reinvent the horse” but “laundry sauce” absolutely sent me. I scared the dog.

        I really needed these guffaws today, so thank you, everyone in this thread.

        1. Can't find the words*

          Due to several reasons, such as migraines, I sometimes have trouble finding the correct words. I have made peace with the sometimes very baffling work-arounds my brain throws at me and more often than not it still gets the point across. I’ve certainly used something like laundry sauce…
          – “the other fridge” aka the oven (both provide extreme temperatures)
          – “the spinny circle” aka the washing machine

          1. Miss Mantis*

            Also because of migraine, I run into this a lot! I tell people that I’m basically playing the game Taboo all the time.
            A pretty consistent one is “sendy place” (post office)
            Most recently I was trying to describe the type of medication I had been put on for a bad asthma flare-up, and I ended up saying “if you’re a beseball player you get in trouble for taking them?” (they put me on steroids)

        2. WondHRland*

          a friend of mine once said that beauty is only knee deep
          It’s been 30 years and I still haven’t let her forget it.

      5. Annie*

        “Can you pass me… the… uh…. spicy sprinkles?”

        I wanted the chili flakes. My spouse and I still call them spicy sprinkles.

      7. BikeWalkBarb*

        Not that long ago in pandemic years I was shopping for makeup with my best friend. Could not for the life of me remember the word “foundation” (which I hadn’t worn in three years) so I kept talking about “face makeup”, which she found very funny. Not nearly as funny as laundry sauce, which I may just borrow and use as the family term.

        1. Snoozing not schmoozing*

          I must be ancient. When I was much younger, that’s what it was called. “Foundation” was a horribly uncomfortable undergarment that wrangled anything at all jiggly into absolute rigidness.

      8. Pony tailed wonder*

        I had a coworker proclaim that Miracle on Elm Street was one of the best movies ever.

      9. Colleen Whitley*

        there used to be on the radio, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a segment called Wanted Words. It proved to be so popular they actually published two books filled with the suggestions that had been submitted. I still the remember some of the suggestions for that sudden movement that jerks you awake just as you have fallen asleep: napsnap and slumberjolt.

        1. Chirpy*

          Sounds like words that might be in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Some really great made up words for concepts that should have names.

        2. linger*

          See also D. Adams & J. Lloyd The Meaning of Liff (a dictionary of meanings suggested for placenames). My favourite, included in a followup collection, was:
          tildonk (n) plastic divider used to separate customers’ purchases at a supermarket counter.

        3. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

          I’m totally disappointed that Amazon doesn’t have a kindle version of Wanted Words or Wanted Words 2 available.

      10. Nitrocat*

        I was once fumbling to let my husband know he had food caught in his mustache and ended up saying “Wipe your … upper lip beard”.

      1. LlamaLibrarian*

        My child once, around age 2, had a nightmare and woke up crying about “wider spebs.” And now my whole family calls spiderwebs “wider spebs” so often that I can’t really remember which one is the right way around.

        1. Phil the Cat*

          When my brother was about three, he came in from the back yard shouting that there were “black weirdos in the alley.”

          We were all very confused until he said “Y’know, PIDERS”, and then the penny dropped: black widows.

    5. Space Coyote*

      This wasn’t in a job context, but a friend of mine once loudly announced, “That was the straw that broke the haystack’s back!” and I’ve never really gotten over it.

      2. RowdyRed*

        My neighbor, not the sharpest pencil in the box, was relating an early morning surprise that was in the morning, but not really a surprise.
        She asked, “Who let the worm out of the bag?”

    6. Meg*

      My boss says these things all the time! His favorite is lets not burn this bridge until we get to it. Another frequent one is “Cross our I’s and dot our T’s.”

      1. BikeWalkBarb*

        I got “I’ll burn this bridge when I get to it” from a work friend many years ago and it’s been with me ever since. Says so much, really.

      2. I Have RBF*

        My household “crosses our I’s and dots our T’s”. We have another (gaming context) where we say “Oh noes! There’s a snolo the rooptof with a snifer riple!” (A solo on a rooftop with a sniper rifle is a classic hero vs villains game trope.) We often take common. expressions and mangle them for our amusement.

    7. Pixel*

      My boss once said “We need to get our arms around the bigger picture” in a meeting, but I don’t think he really cared whether he got it wrong or not.

    9. Prudence Snooter*

      I was once trying to point out that to my friend that we’d “killed two birds with one stone” but I got that phrase confused with another phrase involving violence toward animals, “shooting fish in a barrel.” What I actually said was, “Huh. Two in one barrel!” At least I omitted the violence

      1. Betty*

        This isn’t exactly the same, but it’s close. Someone I know said “feed two birds with one piece of bread” instead of”kill two birds with one stone.” I’m an animal lover, so I preferred her wording to the traditional phrase and started using it. It was about a year later when I heard someone say “feed two birds with one scone,” which makes a lot more sense since it actually rhymes with the original! I laughed out loud when I realized how ridiculous “piece of bread” was! No one corrected me the whole time I was getting it wrong, but they must have been scratching their heads at the odd phrase.

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          I’ve heard “feed two birds with one seed” as an alternative if you don’t want to talk about killing them with stones!

          Kind of off-topic, but years ago I posted on Facebook about why so many old expressions included cruelty to animals – stop beating a dead horse, kill two birds with one stone, more than one way to skin a cat, etc. I happened to check my phone during my lunch break and saw that a friend had added “choke the chicken,” which caused me to laugh so hard my water almost went out my nose!

    10. allhailtheboi*

      My mum (French, living in the UK) regularly mixes up idioms of both languages, and apparently she gets teased mercilessly for this at work.

  15. Viki*

    My first time presenting to my org, I said “I’ll send you the dick after.”

    Deck. I meant deck.

      1. Sleeping Panther*

        As someone who left the defense industry after five and a half years in program planning and scheduling, that DOES accurately capture my feelings on Gantt charts.

        1. Butterfly Counter*

          I often email students updates on how they’re doing. I often end a sentence with, “… so far.”

          Without fail, I always type, “… so fart.”

          I’m pretty sure I’ve corrected all of them before sending them out.

          So far…

      3. SarahKay*

        I had a colleague once send an email with subject “Notice to all shift workers”. Except he missed the F in shift.

        He spotted the omission just as he hit send; until then I’d never seen someone actually claw at their screen while crying ‘come back!’

        And that’s why I have a 60 second delay set as a rule on all my outgoing emails.

      4. Kimmy Schmidt*

        I’m currently working on a book display about sharks. I accidentally messaged one of my colleagues about the shart display.

        1. The Not-An-Underpants Gnome*

          My friend actually has a gif of an animated shark fleeing in panic while doing le number 2 that says “Shart Week” at the top of it.

          Her favorite thing to do with it is send me the gif when I least expect it, because she knows it always makes me ugly laugh.

      5. Walk on the Left Side*

        This is officially the point in the comment thread where I 100% lost it and started laughing uncontrollably.

        Gantt shart. You win the internet.

    2. Bessa*

      I once sent an email to a federal agency asking what materials were needed to apply to a program they facilitated because I “wanted to make sure I had all my dicks in a row.”

      …we were not accepted into the program that year.

      2. Annie*

        Grad school in the late 90s. I was a female graduate student working at a computer lab. One professor had written a computer program on a 3.5″ floppy disk that the students had to take to a computer, insert the disk, and run the program. A male student came in asking for assistance. I of course forgot the “s” sound, so I told him…”it’s easy..you just stick your dick into it.” He was horrified and said “I really don’t have to do that, do I?”

        Alison, please make a dick-focused entry… it seems there will be plenty!

        1. Bossy*

          I am dead – mostly because I have a 16 year old who would definitely respond the same! Hilarious

        2. Thegs*

          Trying to manage the container engine on one of the DGX systems at my previous job in front of a coworker was always incredibly fraught. It’s only a matter of time before you tell the computer to `cocker ps` right in front of everyone. At least that one just sounds like I’m cursing the system out, but I dreaded the day I would inevitably run `dicker exec -it /path/to/script.sh`

          Needless to say I was very relieved when I learned my current job uses podman instead of docker.

    3. WellRed*

      Reporter here: I published on our website that such and such corporate is shitting its headquarters to Tennessee. A reader finally pointed it out.

      1. Morag*

        Spell check has a lot to answer for. While I can spell, typing is not my forte. So for years at a large telcom, I would inadvertently respond to meeting requests that I would ‘defiantly’ attend. Although I always meant ‘definitely’, sometimes the typo was more accurate.

        1. The Man from Chicago*

          Many moons ago, I wrote a column for my high-school paper, in which Spell-Check screwed me by changing “Jascha Heifetz” (the Russian violinist) to “Kasha Diets” (a Byelorussian buckwheat cereal porridge).

          Says something about my precious paper’s circulation that it stood for damn near a week before anyone noticed.

        2. Charlotte Lucas*

          I used to teach composition and saw “defiantly” for “definitely” all the time.

          Also, there was a 10/10 chance that anyone named “Brian” would turn in at least one piece of work by “Brain.” (Sadly, never by Pinky, too.)

          1. Desk Dragon*

            I get the flip side of that; I work in medical-related copyediting and have caught several references to Brian surgery. I also flag to new hires that if a document mentions patients filling out a symptom diary, to do a quick search for instances “dairy.” (I dread the day we have a project of this type that’s about lactose intolerance.)

        3. Uranus Wars*

          Many years ago the runner on CNN said “pubic hearing” for a good 30 minutes before it was updated to public. I wasn’t responsible for it but I got a huge kick out of it.

            1. LlamaLibrarian*

              I work for a public library. We’ve had incidents in our in-house publications where the “l” gets left out.

    4. Tradd*

      I’ve started emails with Hi. Or what was supposed to be hi.

      HO was what I sent. As in “Ho Tom!”

      It was a good customer and we had a laugh.

      1. Retiring Academic*

        A friend of mine got an email from an acquaintance named Dermot, who’d had some sort of injury to his hand and was using speech to text. He intended to sign off by saying something was ‘too bad’ but being very pretentious he said it in French ‘tant pis’. So his email ended ‘Tom pee, Dammit’.

    5. Casual Observer*

      This reminds me of a situation that happened to my roommate in university. She had gone on a date with a guy she’d been set up with. The date was going well and so what was meant to be a quick drink to see if they jived turned into several hours. They were driving by a gas McDonald’s and my roommate’s date asked her if she wanted anything. She told him she was thirsty and could really use a large cock (instead of coke). I felt so embarrassed for her when she told me but I also couldn’t stop laughing for a solid 15 minutes either.

    6. The Prettiest Curse*

      This was 100% my mistake and luckily I caught it before it went on a name badge. Part of registration admin for the events I run is making sure that people’s names are correct, so their name badge doesn’t have their names in all caps etc. (And yes, plenty of people do make typos when typing their own names.)

      A few years ago, a guy with a really unusual Welsh first name that I’d never encountered before registered for one of our events. His name was one letter different than a much more common name (think Byb instead of Bob), so I made the incorrect assumption that it was the more common name and changed it. I realised that I was wrong after seeing his name on another list and changed it back before any harm was done but I was SO mortified to get it wrong!

      1. Cute As Cymraeg*

        I’m now trying to guess what that name might be (see my handle for why). Twm? Huw? Tomos? Dic?

        (Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to tell me; just amusing myself.)

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          You’re correct that I can’t tell you, but I was extra-mortified in this case because I think Welsh names are really cool and so usually enjoy coming across them!

    7. Alice Quinn*

      I’ve had a similar experience! My newly formed team was in a meeting room discussing staffing, and one of my peers meant to say we’d have to have “all hands on deck” while we hired people and it came out as “all hands on dick.” The entire room of professional adults spent about 5 minutes dying laughing!

    9. Leslie Santiago*

      as a New Zealander working in the UK, there were multiple times my colleagues thought that I had said “dick” when I actually said “deck”. Thankfully they found it hilarious.

  16. LadyAmalthea*

    I work for the civil service, and part of our job is responding to queries to the department. One such query was from another government minister. Any response goes through at least three layers of proofreading, and the final letter that went out to the other minister added an incriminating in the standard closing line “I trust this information will be of use.”

      1. darsynia*

        NGL it took me a good 3 minutes to figure out where that H went. I for some reason zeroed in on ‘use’ as the culprit. Now that I’ve realized, oh gosh I am so sorry that happened!

  17. Camera Issues*

    During the pandemic, when we are all just learning how to really work from home, I, a woman, had logged on earlier than usual to check something, got distracted finishing up my usual morning routine, and, therefore, was in nothing but pants and my underthings when my boss, an executive for my company and lovely man with a good sense of humor, video called me unexpectedly.

    Panicking because I’d forgotten I was logged in and not wanting him to think I was ignoring him because I’m his executive assistant, I answered thinking I’d be fine because the camera on my laptop was covered. My friends, I was NOT fine. Apparently, my very thoughtful spouse had connected our external camera up without telling me, so the camera turned on upon my answering, and I immediately realized the issue.

    Terror filled and continuing to panic, I literally hit the floor like someone had yelled out for a disaster drill. I hit the floor SO hard that it shook my desk, causing my camera to tilt and, essentially, follow my line of decent into mortification. I crawled under my desk to the sound of my boss laughing so hard I think he may have been crying, reached up blindly and somehow managed to end the call.

    After dressing, pulling myself and what was left of my dignity together, I called him back. He answered by covering his eyes with one hand and asking first if everyone was decent.

    We never spoke of the incident again, but he also pings me now before he calls me. Bless, I think I traumatized us both.

    1. Roy G. Biv*

      This was golden “Apparently, my very thoughtful spouse had connected our external camera up without telling me,” and then the rest of the story just kept getting better. It is all comedy gold!

      1. Camera Issues*

        Even thinking about it now makes me want to crawl under my desk and never leave again. I still work for this man and have for nearly a decade now. My saving grace is that my boss was once in HR and has the ability to overlook and/or handle the embarrassing with an ease I admire.

      2. ferrina*

        I am crying from laughing! This is so mortifying but also so, so funny! Very well written, too!

        1. Camera Issues*

          I told my spouse this story when we broke for lunch that day, and they tried very hard not to laugh. They were somewhat successful.

          For atonement, they cooked dinner, did the dishes, and washed laundry for the rest of the week. Small pittance for me effectively flashing my boss.

    3. M2RB*

      Ohhhh nooooo!!!

      I have been silently giggling at my desk at previous comments but this one sent me into an audible giggle. Might be time to go to lunch so my cube neighbors don’t come check on me!

    5. Bean Counter*

      OMG I just outed myself at work! Sorry for your mortification, but your telling of it was excellent! I think you win this contest!

    6. LabManagerPerson*

      I’m covering my mouth, with literal tears running down my face, so as keep my laughter from echoing through the halls where I work. I’m so sorry that this happened, and so happy that I got to read this story!

    8. Throwaway Account*

      I so lol’ed at work!!

      This is gold and it is very well written as others pointed out!

    9. Prudence Snooter*

      Wow. When you got to the part where the camera fell down with you, an entire sea of cubicles just heard me clapped my hand over my mouth in my unsuccessful attempt to stifle laughter

    10. A. Ham*

      Im thinking about that moment in Fleabag where she is in an interview and takes her sweater off thinking she has a shirt on underneath, but she doesn’t.

    11. dontbeadork*

      Today is a day I’m grateful to be retired. I laughed so hard at your story that the cats are all giving me the hairy eyeball, but at least I don’t have to explain to students and colleagues what’s so funny.

      Bless your boss. If he manages to avoid telling this story at his or your retirement dinner, double bless him. And you. And your spouse.

    13. Love me, love my cat*

      “follow my line of decent…” I know this was a typo or typical autocorrect not correcting, but it cracked me up. Didn’t you mean your line of indecent?” :)

  18. The Not-An-Underpants Gnome*

    I have a tendency to say odd things in place of swear words when I’m at work. Usually these are deployed while I’m muted, so I can freely express horror, shock, etc. at what I’m seeing (I work in health insurance), and some of them can get pretty goofy. This particular incident happened a few years ago, when we were still in-office pre-COVID.

    Everything was trucking along wonderfully this particular day, when a call came in from a doctor’s office that needed me to look at a referral that had been approved for their patient. I went through all the opening requirements, placed them on “hold” (muted them) so I could look at it, and opened the referral in our referral system.

    The aforementioned referral was processed as a hot mess of fail. After taking a look at the extensiveness of what I had to fix (and thank goodness everything was fixible AND within my sphere to fix), I let out one of my favorite heavy-duty goofy expressions: “WHAT IN THE FRICK-FRACK PADDYWHACK HAPPENED HERE?”

    Coworkers seated next to me in the office started giggling…as did the doctor’s office rep. And that was when I realized that the little red light that shows my mic was muted was not on. I profusely apologized and continued with the call, but I wanted to melt into the office floor and still do whenever I remember that.

    Post Script: That call ended up getting pulled for grading. According to a friend in QA, the only reason I didn’t get docked on quality is because not only was my abject mortification audibly clear in the recording, but QA thought the phrase was hilarious.

    3. ThursdaysGeek*

      My mother, who has never uttered a swear word in her life, would sometimes exclaim, “goodness gracious, sakes alive, and little fishies!”

      1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        I have a very potty mouth (I try to keep it in check at work…try being the operative word) but the ONE time someone genuinely scared me, I screamed, “JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH!” at the top of my lungs. Apparently that Catholicism got into me *deep* even though I rejected it nearly 40 years ago.

        1. HobblingUpAHill*

          My mother is a very very lapsed catholic but she also says stuff like that.

          As a small child I heard it and repeated it as “Jesus Mary Aunt Josephine” followed by asking who Aunt Josephine was.

        2. londonedit*

          Anyone who’s seen Line of Duty (UK police drama) will be familiar with the phrase ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey’.

      4. Snudence Prooter*

        I don’t dear at work and am stealing your mother’s phrase. In exchange I can offer, ‘mother of pearl!’ ‘what the ham sandwich’ and for really strong feelings, ‘by gum!’

        1. more non-swears*

          “son of a biscuit!” “shiitake mushrooms!” are used by my coworker a lot.
          i like to say “gross” and “grody”

          1. totallyrad*

            I go for good old-fashioned “fiddlesticks!” or, in a truly messed-up situation, “what the flippin’ French toast!?” I also like to answer “Just swell!” when someone invariably inquires “how are you?”

          2. Galloping Gargoyles*

            Adding to the “son of a biscuit” is “son of a gun” and “Jiminy Cricket”.

  19. dtrosadiaz*

    I may have told this story here before; years ago, I had a new employee in his first couple of weeks (a queer man, which is relevant to the story). During a training session, he apologized about asking so many questions and being “anal-retentive” about the information. What I intended to say was, “That’s okay; we love detail-oriented people!”. What I actually said was, “That’s okay; I love anal…”. Cue awkward laughter and me wanting to disappear into the carpet.

    1. Nonny Mized*

      My boss is a gay man. I’m also gay.

      During the business’s preparations for Pride, Boss showed off our new, branded t-shirt, which he was wearing ahead of the march. Some sweet innocent soul responded ‘Nice top!’

      Reader, my camera also happened to be on during the call. I think the effort of keeping a(n ironically) straight face and neither collapsing into giggles nor responding with something WILDLY innappropriate about Boss’s extracurriculars just about made me sprain something…

      1. Elle*

        My boss recently said something about “having more bottoms than we need” (doesn’t everyone!) and I really had to hold it together.

  20. Blarg*

    We were moving offices, and the cubicle walls had been removed and all of a sudden the room looked huge. There was a big stack of chair mats, those hard plastic things that go under desk chairs on carpet so you can move the chairs. For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to run towards the stack of mats and jump on them, thinking they’d slide and I’d look like I was surfing. Only, I am incredibly unathletic and awkward. This was a bad idea from the get go.

    I run. I jump. And the stack does not move. I continue moving. Fall on my ass. Hard. In front of so many people, because, again, big empty room. I was thankfully unhurt, though very embarrassed. One of the managers was convinced I was, in fact, hurt and insisted that I do a worker’s comp form, just in case. So I did. Under “injury,” I just wrote “bruised ego.” The HR person called me the next day, couldn’t stop laughing, made sure I was ok, and closed the file.

  21. Emily*

    I was working from home and meal prepping dinner on a call, and I didn’t notice that my mic was still on. When I wrapped my last yam in tin foil right next to the phone, I finally heard my team begging me to mute the audio poison I was creating.

  22. CowWhisperer*

    My upper middle aged male principal had to tell me as a newly hired teacher that I had tucked the back hem of my maxi skirt into my underwear when I used the bathroom.

    This means my entire underwear covered rear end was on display while I was making copies.

    It’s been over twenty years and I’m still blushing – and so grateful he noticed before I walked back to a classroom of teenagers.

    1. We're BtWBH*

      That happened to me, too. Apparently it’s not that unusual. I never wore that dress again.

      1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

        I developed the nervous habit of smoothing down the back of my skirt before exiting the ladies for this very reason.

    2. MissMaple*

      I nearly did this…during my first job…where I’d been invited as a special guest of my boss…to meet my hero Dr. Sally Ride. I’m forever grateful to the person who stopped me on the way into the event, they’re now my another hero of mine :)

    3. Prudence Snooter*

      I witnessed a teacher walking down the hall in this condition when I was a 6th grader. 30 years later I still think about it and wish I had told her, but at the time I couldn’t fathom how someone would even get themselves into that state. I just remember staring and being SO CONFUSED

    4. KateM*

      I can’t picture it – it seems to me that in case of a maxi-skirt, the doubled-up skirt should still cover the rear.

      1. CowWhisperer*

        The hem had caught while I had the skirt of a one-piece, pull over stylrvdress bunched around my waist while using the toilet.

        It was a business knit material and when I stood up and dropped the skirt the front and most of the sides fell back down while the back remained in a crumpled ridge between the bottom of the dress’ bodice and the elastic of the waist band of my underwear.

  23. Heart&Vine*

    My first day on the job I clogged the toilet. Badly. It was an open office with only two bathrooms facing the bullpen so everyone could see I was the one walking out of the scene of the crime. Both bathrooms were stark with nothing in them but the toilet, sink, and a small trash can. No plungers to be seen. Not even a toilet scrubber (not that that would’ve helped me). I had to meekly walk over to one of my coworkers, introduce myself, and ask if they had a plunger anywhere.

  24. Pillow Fort Forever*

    Leaving after third day at new job and I get to my car and realize I didn’t have my keys on me. Went back into the office to find mine. Bent over to look under my desk and my skirt tears from the back pleat up to the zipper. Plain black straight skirt so everything is visible. I call the only woman in the office I’ve met (it was an engineering firm and at the time very few women) who finds her bosses trench coat I can use. Of course it was a 90 degree day but it did the trick. Then of course I still had to find my keys which, turns out, were locked in my car. I was told to find a certain engineer who could jimmy the lock for me (weird skill to be known for but also really helpful) – he was able to open it after several minutes in the hot parking lot, me in my trench coat. Finally was able to get in the car and drove home embarrassed as hell. And then of course it became a hilarious story that I told the next day.

  25. WhiskeyTango*

    I know I’ve shared this before – but I love it! Mainly, because I witnessed it and was very happy not to have otherwise been involved.

    I worked in a law firm that occupied a small house. The front bathroom was for clients only. Staff was expected to the back bathroom, which was tiny and looked like a closet. My cubical was set up in the kitchen and the bathroom door was next to the refrigerator, so it was kept closed all the time. One of our attorneys had a standing “appointment” each morning. He’d go in with a newspaper and do what he needed to do.

    One day, I heard him go in for his normal transaction. I had my head down and was focused on my work, so I didn’t notice our brand new receptionist boldly walk up and open the door to the bathroom. Apparently, the attorney didn’t both to lock it, because the next thing I heard was both of them scream.

    She slammed the door shut and yelled “Why didn’t you lock it?” then rushed out of the office, got in her car and drove away. (She did come back an hour later and actually worked there for several years after.)

    For a few weeks after, he’d loudly announce every time he was using the facilities. And that he was locking the door!

  26. Magnus Archivist*

    This might identify me because I’ve told this story to colleagues before, but it’s relatively harmless!

    A few years ago I was at work in a large east coast city and started to feel like I was swaying or dizzy, like the room was shifting around me. On instinct, I got up and made my way to the stairs to head to the bathroom on a lower floor, my lizard brain telling me that was the place to go if I was about to be sick/pass out.

    In the stairwell though, I encountered people from the floors above emptying out the building because there was an *actual earthquake* and not knowing what else to do, people were evacuating the building.

    But to my colleagues in my office, it looked like an earthquake started and I immediately got up and left them all behind without saying a word. See ya, suckers. I am still so embarrassed thinking about them exchanging looks behind my back as I stone-facedly walked out.

    [Everyone was fine, the building was fine, and I was actually relieved that it was an earthquake and I wasn’t having a stroke.]

    1. Butterfly Counter*

      You’ve got some remarkable survival skills.

      If I was a coworker, I’d just know to follow you if anything weird was happening!

  27. Chilie Healer*

    When I was in college, I had a very part time job at a real estate office where I answered the phones on Saturdays. The phones almost never rang and it was a great way to study and do homework in a quiet environment and get paid for it. One day I actually did have a task, to give out envelopes with keys to all of the agents. They were to come by throughout the day and pick them up. I had never met most of them, so they would tell me who they were and I’d give them their key. One agent came in, and I knew I recognized him, and knew he knew my dad. But I did not know his name. And he didn’t offer it, though made very friendly chit chat, confirming that he knew who I was. I stalled by rummaging through the envelopes hoping seeing his name would trigger my memory. No such luck. I asked him “How do you spell your name again?” I don’t know why I thought that would give me cover. He looked at me like I had two heads and said “R-O-N”. I wanted to die.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I know the feeling! I’ve finally realized that many people have issues remembering people’s names and have taken to unabashedly saying, “Remind me your name again?” when I don’t remember, and inevitably they will ask me my name as well. But when I was in college I had a lot of acquaintances that I knew from, say, one class or extracurricular activity, and I would realize after months of talking to them frequently that I actually didn’t know the person’s name and I was too embarrassed to ask.

      1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

        Not work related, but anecdote related. My mother could not remember the name of the man who would someday be my father while they were dating in college.

        To be fair, Mother was a babe and he had competition.

        Anyway, this being in more formal times, Mother got her roommate to go down to the lobby and enquire “Who was calling to speak to (Mother), please?” Which she did, then hotfooted back to the room and hissed “His name is (name) you idiot!”

        1. A Significant Tree*

          Oh, I have a similar story! My mom went to a fraternity party with a boyfriend she broke up with afterward, but while at the party she chatted with a couple of other guys. The guys she talked to flipped a coin and the winner got to call her for a date. She talked with the winner and agreed to the date, even though she had no idea which of the two it was! The winner became her future husband/my future dad. :-)

      2. Everyone is different*

        After 3 kids multiple sports teams and summer camps over 25+ years I’m just happy if I can remember which kid and sport I know you from.

        1. Mentally Spicy*

          As the father/step-father of six children and the landlord of five cats it’s a good day if I get at least some of their names right first time.

    3. HannahS*

      I have done this SO MANY times with patients whose names I don’t remember. The save you were looking for is, “I know! I meant your last name.”

  28. Seven times*

    In my first job at a professional office, I was asked to move a large floor plant in the front lobby. I was eager to please and (wisely) bent my knees to lift with my legs, not my back. As I stood up, The entire crotch and bottom of my pants tore all the way, front to back. I placed the plant down and ran out of the office. Luckily, there was a mall about two blocks away and I bought new pants and was back in the office pretty quickly!

  29. Peanut Hamper*

    I was doing my student teaching and co-teaching an Advanced Biology class, so these kids were maybe five or six years younger than me for the most part. They were making charts, and one of them pulled out a box of scented markers. I said “Oh my god, I love scented markers!” and started smelling them, starting with the black, because it’s licorice, and I love the scent of licorice (I know, I know).

    What I didn’t realize is how closely I held that marker to my nose. I had given myself a little Charlie Chaplin moustache (which also looks like some other infamous person from that same era) that I had to wear the rest of the day because it would not wash off.

    Needless to say, I am not so fond of scented markers any more.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      Were they Mr. Sketch markers? I spent a fair amount of time in art class snorting those instead of working on the project. The blue and orange were my favorite.

  30. Foot in mouth*

    Everyone. Learn from my mistake and be very very very careful when using common figures of speech, such as “let me give you a hand!” when offering help.

    A coworker was involved in a horrific accident that resulted in him losing both forearms. He was back at work and was trying to get through a door that was a pull door, not push (he hadn’t received prosthetics yet). Trying to be helpful, I said “do you need a hand?”

    I was horrified. As the words came out of my mouth, I was willing them to come back! I am so thankful that he burst out laughing and had a great sense of humor about it, telling me not to worry about it as I apologized profusely. but please! Learn from me!

      1. Erin*

        I had a friend who was asked by a colleague of ours to help her with her printer.

        Her Braille printer.

        My poor friend could. NOT. come up with non-visual phrases to say while he tried to fix the printer. “let me see….” “Let’s take a look at….” “So, you see…”

    2. Anonosaurus*

      I feel you.

      signed, person who told an amputee client that the other party “did not have a leg to stand on” in the litigation

    3. Chirpy*

      Eh, I used to know a blind guy who would point out that “it’s nice to see you” or whatever you said was still usually true on some level, he just “saw” using other methods than his eyes. He could tell a person’s weight/size pretty accurately from the qualities of their voice, for example. I think he just felt it was more awkward that people felt a need to alter the usual speaking patterns of English in his presence.

  31. DeeDee*

    The summer after high school (25 years ago) I worked in a daycare with 2- and 3-year-olds. One day the kids were coloring and decorating cardboard rocket ships and I was helping them and praising their efforts, when I leaned over to one kid and said without thinking said, “Avery, that kicks ass!” (At the end of the summer my boss gave me a “girls kick ass” keychain as a souvenir of my inappropriate enthusiasm.)

    2. Prudence Snooter*

      This reminds me of a thread I read a while back called something like “I must have missed that day of school” about common knowledge things you didn’t realize until you were an adult. One woman said she’d always thought the phrase “half assed” was actually “half fast” as in, not doing something as fast as you could be resulting in less effort. So the meaning was the same. She said the mix-up was finally brought to her attention when she was a preschool teacher and was reprimanded for telling a little girl she was doing she was doing something “half fast.”

      Totally off topic but another hilarious comment in that thread that has stuck with me for years was a woman who always believed that wind was created by trees moving around, instead of the reverse. She said that wind and trees moving always went hand in hand so as a child she’d concluded that it was the trees that caused the wind and no one ever taught her otherwise. When she was a young adult on a very windy beach with friends, she remarked how odd it was that it was so windy but there were no trees around to create the wind. Her friends were like WUT

      1. BikeWalkBarb*

        My mom had this plaque that I’m guessing my dad gave her as a joke because it would fit his sense of humor. It read, “I’m not a fast cook. I’m not a slow cook. I’m a half-fast cook.” As a kid I read this to myself silently and very literally and absolutely didn’t get the joke for years until someone finally said “Read it out loud.”

        For the record, Mom was a really good cook.

        1. linger*

          In a workplace that would not have condoned swearing, I occasionally resorted to calling things, with very careful pronunciation, “half-farced”. As in, both incompetent and sloppy, so that even if more effort had been put in, it would not have improved the outcome except perhaps as entertainment.

      2. Thebrideblessedtheday Thedogssaygoodnight*

        I missed this one too! Only I thought it was “half asked” – as in you did only half of what you were asked to do. Which made perfect sense to me in context… I come from a family in the South that does not use expletives, so was mortified years later to realize what I was saying vs what the phrase was (and what everyone assumed I said). Now as an adult I am embarrassed that I was embarrassed…but I also still think “half asked” makes so much sense!

  32. Dismal Scientist*

    Part of my job responsibilities involve clerking state government committee meetings. One day, after taking the attendance, I announced that there were six members “pregnant” rather than “present”…into the microphone, while being televised, and having it written into the Journal for the day.

    1. allhailtheboi*

      There’s this video my brother showed me recently of this French official legislative sounding meeting about hydroelectricity, and one of the speakers’ names translates to Mrs Burn-wood, and these really official looking people in this serious sounding meeting just lose their minds completely.

  33. Allison*

    Not me, but my brother. His coworker told him that he was attending a celebration of life that weekend. My brother, not knowing what that meant, goes “well that sounds fun, hope you have a great time!”

    1. Dr. Rebecca*

      I mean, to be fair, this is how euphemisms for death go too far sometimes. A celebration of life could be a memorial service/funeral/wake, or it could be a baptism, or it could be a wedding, or… And don’t get me started on “passed” and “is no longer with us.”

      1. umami*

        Yeah, I happened to be visiting home when my dad died, and my brother had been staying with him to care for him. He died in the middle of the night, and I went to his room and woke him up, saying ‘Dad’s gone’. He immediately said ‘gone where?’ without even thinking, which I then contemplated for a bit because what a good question lol. Neither of us are clear thinkers when being awakened unexpectedly, apparently.

        1. Inappropriate Humor*

          I almost burst out laughing in 2002 when my brother called to tell me my mother had died. He left a message on my work phone for me to call him at home, and it was important. I called him back and asked what was happening, expecting it to be bad news about my father, who was in the hospital at the time.
          My brother: “Thanks for calling me back. I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. Mom’s dead.”
          My mind immediately ignored the message for the delivery and started thinking, “You idiot. You are 49 years old. You’ve been married for over 20 years, seen your wife through the loss of both of her parents, watched god knows how many sappy movies with her, and you haven’t learned a thing about preparing someone for very bad news. What about, ‘I have some bad news. You might want to be sitting for this or make sure you have some privacy.’?”
          I didn’t quite laugh at how awful his delivery was. I did rant to my coworkers and friends about it while I made arrangements for my dogs to be cared for while I flew east for the funeral. A different sibling called me when my father died a few months later. Her delivery was better.

      2. Kimmy Schmidt*

        My grandmother always used “lost”, as in “Patty lost her husband last week”. My dear mother who has no time no anything less than straight shooter directness, would always deadpan respond “I hope they find him”.

        1. The OG Sleepless*

          When my grandfather died and my parents were calling around to let the family know, my 20-something cousin blurted out, “Well, don’t you think you better find him?” Cousin is a hospital chaplain now, and hopefully doesn’t say things like that to people who have “lost” someone.

      3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        I saw someone announcing that their child had “transitioned” and thought they were announcing a change of gender. They were not.

        3. linger*

          I’d have made the same assumption; haven’t ever previously heard that phrase as announcing a change of animacy!

        4. Nightengale*

          I work with kids including some trans kids. I got a message a parent wanted me to call about the child’s transition. This was not a patient where I recalled gender identity having come up before but I mentally pulled together all my gender conversation scripts, picked up the phone and thankfully said something generic.

          She meant the child’s transition from preschool to kindergarten.

      4. M2RB*

        Oh man, I used to work for a funeral home/cemetery company. The panic I would feel when someone would say “so-and-so is no longer with us” – at least at that job, I could just come straight out and ask, “Do you mean they left the company or they died?” That job also killed my need to use euphemisms for dying! I might say “my dad passed away” if I think whoever I’m speaking to is sensitive but most of the time I just say “my dad died” and keep moving.

      5. Future*

        This is why I’m not a fan of “passed”. “Pass away”, fine, no mistaking that, but depending on the context, without that “away” there’s no way of knowing if someone has died, progressed to the next grade, or completed their first aid certification.

        I just tend to use “died”.

      6. Kesnit*

        I’ve been working in criminal law for over 7 years. When a defendant dies, I’ve started using the phrase “they moved on to a higher court.”

    2. ThatGirl*

      OMG that reminds me, I was in a meeting a few months ago and someone mentioned our coworker Anna who had moved to another department and said “now that Alice is no longer with us…”

      I started chuckling quietly and typed in the meeting chat “Anna moved to sales, she’s not dead” :D

      2. Maudite Entendante*

        Oh man, yeah – there was unsurprisingly a lot of turnover in the public health workforce in 2020-2022 as people found less soul-crushing positions in adjacent fields… but I have to consciously remember not to say “due to the pandemic, we lost our director and deputy director within two weeks of each other.”

    3. lyonite*

      One time my husband and I were supposed to travel together, but at the last minute our dog got sick and I had to go alone. We hadn’t cancelled his ticket, and it was one where you check in the night before, and I didn’t realize this meant the flight attendants would come looking for him. So I popped up my hand and said, “Oh, that’s my husband, he didn’t make it.”

    4. Tree*

      When I told my coworkers “Dad’s in hospice, I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” one very young woman responded “I hope he gets better soon!” … … I told her that he would not be getting better.

      I thought I’d been clear enough, but that if she was still fuzzy about it she’d ask our great team lead, or Google it, or something. Nope!

      When I was back at work, she asked how he was doing.

      1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

        Twenty plus years ago, I visited my dad when he was in (what I thought was) adult care facility. The word “hospice” was mentioned, but I had no concept of the meaning until after he had passed. The coulda/shoulda/woulda’s of my last visit with him still hurt.

  34. WhyTheFudge*

    A fresh one for you: I was talking to one of the Directors in my company, and I wanted to thank him for his kind words. I looked at him in the eye and I bowed.

    I f°cking bowed.

    I’m not Japanese. I have no idea why I did it. I’m still hiding in the office’s bathroom.

  35. bertha*

    I have a few:

    -Newly married and updating resume with new name. Added an extra letter to new last name. Submitted it to multiple companies.
    -Wore a dress from cheap, fast fashion online store. (Lesson learned, don’t come for me), and it literally split down the middle at a seam while presenting to CEOs of community’s biggest employers. I was trying to hold it together so my entire side wasn’t spilling out.

  36. Lynnerd*

    I flashed my coworkers during a video call. All men.

    I was wearing a thick, flowy sort of sweater and sitting next to the fireplace with my work laptop facing me on an ottoman. The fire got a tad warm, so I grabbed the bottom hem of that sweater and fanned it up and out, as one does, which provided them a perfect–PERFECT–view of my entire torso. No bra (that sweater was thick! I thought it was safe!).

    The whole scene unfolded in a half-second delay on my little video window. I saw it all. I saw what they saw. All three fannings. By that time, it was far too late. One man said, “WOAH.” Another made a “hehuh” sound. I scrambled out of frame and spent the rest of the time huddled on the floor, too mortified to even approach the keyboard to leave the meeting.

    We’ve all (mostly) recovered and moved on from my full, authentic work self.

    1. Haven’t picked a username yet*

      I am dying for you! The delay makes it so much worse too! You can’t pretend they didn’t see anything.

      So glad you have all mostly recovered!

    4. Sits at Desk for All Work Activities*

      I think this is proof that it’s possible to be *too* comfortable in your WFH environment.

  37. Anonymous Librarian*

    At a college library we were collecting food donations and the organization gave us a list of their highest need items. I retyped the list for Marketing and sent it off so we could get some fliers. A little while later a Marketing staffer calls me laughing hysterically and says, “You wrote on here that one of the requested donations is porn and beans…by any chance did you mean pork and beans?” Luckily she thought it was funny and changed it to the correct item. Eek!

    1. Dana*

      OH NOOOOOOO !! i once typed “pubic library” instead of public and it haunts my dreams

      1. Pubic office*

        i’m processing constituent mail from a senator’s archival collection and definitely saw a response letter that had this misfortunate typo.

      2. allhailtheboi*

        My dad gets enquiries from the public and he saves his favourites. My personal favourite is an enquiry about ‘the Vale of the Shite Horse’ (the Vale of the White Horse is what was intended).

    2. Nina*

      My sister recently ordered ‘porn and prawk’ dumplings at a restaurant and immediately hid under the table.

  38. KD*

    When I worked at a small startup, I was spaced out one day when I opened the microwave and hit myself in the face with the door. Someone pulled the security footage from the kitchen and made a gif out of it. The gif of me hitting myself in the face with the microwave survived as long as the company did and was regularly used as a reaction in the company Slack.

    3. Morgan Proctor*

      My company now flags this specific thing (making images/gifs out of someone on Slack) as bullying and will get you written up.

    4. The Man from Chicago*

      I ate it hard walking into our old office a few years back (first one in after a crappy storm, ice abound, lot crew hadn’t salted yet).

      A coworker edited it to make it look like explosive rounds were being fired at my feet. Still makes the e-mail round every winter and I laugh my azz off every time.

  39. EA*

    I was on a group video call with a person who was being very rude to my coworker, who was presenting slides with a shared screen. I was annoyed and sent messages to a group chat complaining about how rude this person was… little did I know that the presenter had push notifications on and my messages popped up on the screen for everyone to see. Possibly the worst part was that another coworker in the group chat didn’t notice the notifications and responded with her agreement that this person was a real piece of work – and the coworker who was presenting also didn’t notice and had absolutely no idea!

    I ended up asking the presenter to pause and apologizing. It was a real humbling moment for me – and made me realize (1) the importance of being direct and addressing issues head on rather than to snarking about it in a chat, and (2) be VERY careful with group chats!

    1. Boggle*

      Yup, I did the same over Teams. Thought I was chatting my coworker (to complain about another coworker) but it went into the group chat, and my boss saw it (but not my coworker) and was not happy. That opened up a can of worms and ended up in a meeting with boss, coworker I complained about, and me. I got to air to some grievances but did no good, thankfully he was let go a year later.

  40. HailRobonia*

    I almost had a mortifying moment. A card was circulating for a coworker and I nearly signed it “happy birthday” out of habit then luckily noticed it was a condolence card for a lost parent.

    1. HonorBox*

      While not quite as mortifying, a former coworker signed a card incorrectly, too. We circulate birthday and anniversary (work anniversary) cards for everyone to sign. Former coworker signed the boss’s anniversary card, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY.” She got lots of guff, and from time to time, someone will still jokingly sign boss’s card the wrong way.

      1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        I walk up to every coworker to have them sign anniversary and birthday cards. Even though I literally write, “Happy Birthday, Coworker!” or “Happy Anniversary, Coworker!” in the top left hand of every card, many coworkers:

        1) Ask who the card is for
        2) Ask if it’s birthday or anniversary
        3) Sign the wrong names

        I had one employee think that the card was for him (even though it was neither his anniversary or birthday) and try to take off with it. One of our younger employees writes weird movie quotes in all the cards. I have given up expecting the cards to be coherent- if there are a bunch of words in different handwriting on the card, I feel like it’s a success. :)

        1. Meow*

          Oh god speaking of mistaken greeting cards, I had a coworker who had recently announced he was moving to a new position. I was getting married in the next couple of months and wanted to invite him to the wedding. So I came to him one day and handed him an envelope (with a wedding invitation) and before even opening it, he gave me a big hug and told me how grateful he was to work with me, how much he was going to miss me, etc. He clearly thought it was a going-away card. I felt so self-centered when he opened it and it was a wedding invitation. He didn’t come to the wedding.

    2. Roy G. Biv*

      There was a Frasier episode where he signed a coworker’s card, thinking it was the retiring coworker, when it was the coworker going on medical leave, so the sentiment was definitely wrong. It was something like “Get out! Glad you’re leaving!” Funny for your best work buddy who is retiring. Not so much for the person headed for a long hospital stay.

      The rest of the episode included the typical sitcom hijinks of trying to replace the card with a duplicate with forged signatures. I remembered watching it and thinking, “Someone in the writer’s room has worked in cubical land.”

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        He thought it was a birthday card and wrote “you’re not getting older, just closer to death”!

        The kicker is it ended up being given to the wrong patient and coworker in question never saw it.

        I’ve seen a lot of Frasier!

  41. Dust Bunny*

    We spent a year working from home in 2020. There isn’t a lot we can do without access to our materials so most of what I did was online research and updating the biographies/histories of various people and organizations related to my institution.

    I sent probably two dozen emails to various medical and health-oriented individuals (for whom COVID was definitely a focus at the time) asking about their CORVID policies before I caught the spelling error. All of them were polite enough to ignore it.

    1. Elle*

      If they had corvid policies, I’d love to know them! My own household corvid policy is “feed the crows kibble lest they sit in the tree in the yard and Screme”

    2. Missa Brevis*

      Let’s be real, learning about various institutions’ corvid policies would probably have been a lot more fun.

      1. Dust Bunny*

        I’ll be super disappointed if there isn’t a bird rescue somewhere named Just Caws.

    4. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      If they develop a bird flu vaccine and do not call it the corvid vaccine I will be very disappointed. (Crows are awesome.)

    6. allhailtheboi*

      In February when it was in the news but hadn’t hit Europe yet, I was convinced not only that it was Corvid (some sort of crow-specific bird flu?), but that everyone who wrote Covid was *so stupid*.

    7. Deejay*

      Now I’m imagining a time travel story where someone goes back and casually mentions that “we had to stay at home because of the Covid plague”. The person they’re speaking to, not being a virologist, mishears and imagines everyone cowering indoors in fear of all the birds that have gone Hitchcock.

  42. Christina*

    I was a few months into a new job, having moved to a new state. I called someone in another city and they didn’t answer, no problem, I started in on my normal voicemail spiel. But I realized as I got toward the end that I hadn’t memorized my phone number yet, and I panicked. Instead of just assuming that his caller ID would let him know my number (this was 2019), I started verbally flailing and ultimately looked over at my phone and decided to read off the number on the screen. Critically though, since I was living in a new state, I didn’t yet know all of the local area codes and I didn’t catch that I was haltingly reading his own phone number back to him as my supposed call-back line. He told me later it was one of the funniest things he’d ever heard, but I wanted to die.

    3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      My wife and I are on a group text with the parents of one of our kid’s best friends. At one point the kids were at our house and I texted them – we’ll call them Joe and Sam – to come pick up their kid. Sam replied to ask for our address, and Joe promptly replied with their own address. “I know our address, Joe” still makes my wife and I laugh.

  43. LovelyTresses*

    I’ve worked for almost a decade at a wonderful non-profit that’s professional, but casual. Just for a sense of our communication, we share good-natured jokes and have Slack channels dedicated to showcasing our arts and crafts, kids and pets, music, recommendations etc. Right before I left on a 10 day vacation, we got word that we’d need to make a big announcement in the middle of my vacation. No biggie, I planned to sign on for an hour, proof the press release and then get back to relaxing. So the morning of the announcement, I checked in on our Slack channel and said “I’m only here to proof the press release, send me the draft whenever!”. My colleague shared the link and commented “hope you’re having a great time!”. I proofed it and responded back “Slight edits made, this is good to go out. We’re having a great time, they have the best poops here” and promptly signed off for the remainder of my trip. I meant pooLs.

      1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

        I am fantastic at identifying typos in documents, but don’t ask me to spell the words correctly. The person proofreading should never make the corrections – the opportunity for inserting additional errors is exceedingly high.
        People are notoriously blind to their own mistakes. I’ve often seen document reviewers make changes, and the original author accept the changes without looking (because the reviewer is higher in the organization), only to later find the published document has additional errors due to the change.

        1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

          Is there enough implied mortification in my story to show this as lessons learned from experience in changing other’s documents and seeing my mistakes published?
          Software code changes are even more extreme. Correcting someone else’s code and discovering that you’ve made the executable even more “buggy”.

  44. Freelance Bass*

    When I was 18, I had an internship at a digital branding agency, and one of the projects I was put on was a national ad campaign featuring a fictional rock band. There was a contest in which kids could submit a name and artwork for the band. My job was to look through the submissions and make sure the submissions were (most likely) submitted by actual kids and weren’t copyrighted (no “The Spongebob Band,” etc.)

    The next week, the other intern and I got called into the team lead’s office. He showed us a submission and asked which one of us let it through. I said I did, and asked if it was copyrighted. He asked me if I was trying to be funny. I wasn’t. He said, “I know what you know what this means.” I didn’t.

    The name submitted was “Pink Taco,” which is a euphemism for a woman’s genitalia. I’ve never heard this term used before or since, because… who calls it that?! The team lead got really flustered and explained it to me. The whole office knew within an hour and I never quite lived it down.

    1. NotARealManager*

      I was a junior in college (at a women’s college) before I heard the euphemism and I’d heard plenty before then. I might not run with the right crowd, because I’ve also only heard it very rarely since.

      1. PropJoe*

        Lol. I had been around a couple of similarly named taco chains (Fuzzy’s Taco & Velvet Taco) for years before someone explained the pun to me.

        Felt kinda silly for not picking up on it, like I felt silly for not picking up on all the thinly veiled sex & drugs references in ZZ Top lyrics.

    2. Snow Angels in the Zen Garden*

      Leaving this work embarassment here because it’s related: I seriously spent YEARS assuming Velvet Taco was a lesbian bar because I hadn’t heard of it before. Some colleagues invited me to come with them after work, so it was finally explained to me.

    3. Fork Soap*

      To be honest, I’m more concerned with why your team lead thought they had to explain anything! Just remove the submission and move on.

    4. dontbeadork*

      So I’m 60+ years old and this is the first time I have heard/read that particular euphemism.

      2. I Have RBF*

        Ditto. Yeah, it’s kinda obvious when you read it, but… “bearded clams” is more classic.

      3. Betty*

        Me neither, and I just realized that there’s a restaurant called Pink Taco near my office, and it never occurred to me that name might have another meaning! And I’m a lesbian!

    5. And thanks for the coffee*

      Never heard it either. Sometimes it’s good to be oblivious to things.

    7. Chirpy*

      I have never heard this term until just now….

      Though, it reminds me of the time some friends and I were talking about animal furs, someone mentioned beaver, and I, an oblivious asexual, who was thinking about the hands-on Fur Trade exhibit at the museum and not the exhausting and ever changing list of innuendos and euphemisms that allosexuals use, said “oh yeah, beaver feels nice”…

      I realized what I’d said when my lesbian friend had to try really hard not to laugh.

  45. Space Coyote*

    At an old job, our department had a weekly status meeting that involved managers, some admin staff, and the two foremen of the maintenance department. In my (limited) defense, this wasn’t a particularly formal meeting, we all knew each other well, and some sarcasm/ribbing/complaining was expected.

    NOT in my defense, when one of the foreman made a snarky comment about the update I had just given, I chose to reply with “Blow me, Paul,” at full volume to the entire room. I still do not know a) why I thought that was a good rejoinder or b) why my brain decided that was the moment to express my inner monologue out loud. Everyone was terribly silent for a long moment (for obvious reasons), and then the highest-ranking person in the room said something like “Wow, Coyote,” and we all somehow moved on.

    I was not punished. I was not even spoken to, ever, about the incident, and the only explanation I can think of is that I was the most soft-spoken, feminine-presenting person in that department and everyone’s brains just kind of short-circuited and rewrote reality or something. I also wasn’t anywhere NEAR as mortified as I should have been for days afterward.

    I’ve made up for that by becoming increasingly mortified by the memory every day since that moment, and I will probably eventually DIE of that mortification years in the distant future.

    *head in hands*

    1. cityMouse*

      oh dear…. Space Coyote, please don’t die of mortification. I bet they don’t think of it as often as you do…

    2. Hroethvitnir*

      Haha, I feel this. I’ve never done anything that striking but have both socialised a lot with people who communicate like that and worked in very informal environments, so it 1000% could have been me.

    3. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

      You are my new favorite person and I love everything about your response, including the lack of mortification.

  46. Cookies For Breakfast*

    In my early twenties, I shared an office with a very serious, quiet young man who barely spoke to me the first few months. We didn’t have a staff room and had to eat lunch at our desks. I often had something homemade, while he always had a store-bought sandwich and crisps. One day, in a rare burst of conversation, he asked if I could tell him about my favourite pasta recipes, since he wanted to start cooking more at home.

    Favourite pasta recipes? No problem! I have so many! Now which one to share so that he can fully partake in the joy of the Italian food I grew up with…oh, yes, let’s walk him through how to make a quick and easy amatriciana with plenty of sizzling bacon!

    New as I was to that workplace, the key fact about that colleague that I had learned right on day one is that he was a very observant Muslim.

    He didn’t even stop me. I was at least halfway through the recipe when I realised what I was doing, let my speech fade out in a litany of “ohnosorrysorrysorry”, and buried my face in the depths of my Tupperware, hoping the ground would swallow me and my lovingly homemade tuna pasta salad without further ado.

  47. many bells down*

    I work for a church. When our music director plays something for a transition, he calls it “noodling”. As in, “I’ll noodle while the ushers are doing the collection.”

    This led to me asking a guest musician if he could play something during the collection, and when the ushers are done he could “wrap up his noodle.”

    3. Pixel*

      “Noodling” is indeed the term used for playing random music! Also, I would totally say the same thing and completely miss the entendre.

    4. Eurekas*

      the pianist at the early service at my church was asked for “tinkling music”. Person asking meant something like your “noodling” music, the rest of us heard “something to pee by”.

      I think that was the same Sunday that the worship director (older woman) and the pastor(forty something man) realized that he should not call her ” mother”.

    5. siobhan.sharpe*

      I’m a Brit working in the US, and on occasion Apple autocorrects something weirdly if I’ve used a UK spelling it hasn’t recognized. A funny one is that it corrects ‘moustache’ to ‘moist ache’. Lots of ways to become aware of this – for me, it was commenting ‘nice moist ache!’ on a colleague’s new headshot.

  48. BathingBelle*

    During lockdown, I joined a virtual choir where we held rehearsals over Zoom (everyone joins on mute and you sing your own part). I got quite into joining from the bath with my camera off as steam is good for the vocal cords and you can hear yourself well in a tiled room. I set Zoom on my phone to always join calls muted and with camera off for rehearsals so I could sing with my choir in the bath, and I always joined my work Zoom from a laptop in the study.

    You can probably tell where this is going….one day, I’d joined a work call from my phone as I was on the run; the next time I went to join a choir rehearsal from the bath I was still signed into my work Zoom. Somehow that call went straight to a work meeting in progress rather than to the rehearsal I wanted to join; and my work Zoom was *not* set to always join on mute with camera off. To make things worse, it was a rather sensitive meeting in progress that I managed to crash from my bath. (I did, thank goodness, have lots of bubbles).

    I apologised very profusely to my colleague for the unscheduled interruption. She said it was unexpected but cheered her up.

    1. ferrina*

      Yikes! I did something similar- when I was pregnant and my ab muscles were turning inside out, I had a lot of muscle pain from my core. The only thing that helped was a hot bath. I worked remotely, so I was able to do a lot of work from the bathtub. I would time my baths around my meeting.

      Except of course the one time I forgot about a meeting until the moment it started. It was a client call. My camera automatically started up. After a moment of panic, I went supersonic to turn off the camera as quickly as possible. To this day I have no idea if anyone saw me or not.

  49. Pretend I'm Anon*

    When interviewing for what would become my first after college job, I went to the interview with Very Visibly Mismatched socks. I was staying with a friend and needed to take public transit to the interview. I wake up in the morning to find out that the HR rep had actually scheduled the interview for the morning instead of the afternoon and I had to leave in the next five minutes to catch my train. in my rush I couldn’t find my interview socks so I had to go with a mismatched pair, telling myself no one would notice. And I thought I had gotten away with it.

    Until I was talking with one of the hiring managers six months into the job she said she knew I was a good pick because my mismatched socks showed I was quirky. To which I got to explain how I was mortified to be wearing mismatched socks to the interview.
    Hey, at least I got the job!

  50. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    I work remotely and have done for ten years, so my “going onsite” wardrobe is limited. This past summer I was getting ready to go to an all-day leadership summit, with about 3500 managers, directors, and other people up the org chart. As I got out of my car in the parking garage, I realized I was wearing the same style of shoe in two different colors – not something excusable like black and brown or black and navy, but one bright-ass red shoe and one bright-ass teal shoe. I went “Well, expletive. Ok. I’m wearing an ankle length skirt, and I’m about to be sitting with my feet under a table all day. Nobody will notice. It’ll be fine.”

    By 30 seconds later as I was crossing the street to the building where the event was, no less than eight of my fellow managers-plus had told me how much they loved my shoes.

    (The skirt was actually a red, teal and orange pattern, so each shoe matched individually and it honestly probably looked like I mismatched my shoes on purpose. Which I actually do all the time, when I’m NOT at work.)

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          I am on the younger end of being a middle aged woman in Indiana, I get away with a lot of bright-colored paint explosion type patterns because people just assume it’s Vera Bradley and every woman they know owns at least one VB bag, so why not. :D (I do usually stick to one eye-searing piece of clothing per outfit though.)

  51. Petey*

    In my first full time job and a very young early 20’ish. We were allowed to wear jeans, which I did most days. One day I instead wore a jean skirt and my male boss commented on my wearing a skirt instead of jeans and I said ‘Well, you can get me out of my pants, but not out of jeans’. I was mortified (of course, in this more enlightened time, he (hopefully) would not have addressed it at all).

  52. Anon for This One*

    We had a work culture where we could have items shipped to the work address if we had issues with where we lived, and everyone took full advantage of it. Until one fateful night when my vibrator caught on fire (it does happen!) and I ordered a new one that was advertised as “discreetly and securely wrapped” which it was. . . it clear cellophane tape.
    After a mortifying meeting with management (and they did NOT believe “It’s for my sciatica!”) we all got a terse memo that there would be no more personal deliveries at work.
    I still work there.

      1. Juicebox Hero*

        I don’t even want to think about something that goes There catching fire 0.0

      2. Csethiro Ceredin*

        I had one quite expensive one that would just start turning itself on (pun unintended) in sort of double bursts at random times when it was sitting innocently in its storage. I got a replacement after sending the maker a video of it doing that, but the replacement did it too eventually.

        Thankfully it didn’t act up when shipped (more discreetly) to my office, but I remember how awkward it was disposing of it in the dead of night and leaving the condo dumpster making periodic metallic rumbles.

        1. allhailtheboi*

          “disposing of it in the dead of night and leaving the condo dumpster making periodic metallic rumbles.” I almost died choking on gum this made me laugh so hard!

        2. I Have RBF*

          … leaving the condo dumpster making periodic metallic rumbles.

          Bwahahahahaha! That is hilarious!

    2. Dido*

      This is definitely the winner… I don’t think I’d have the balls to contine working there

    3. Hroethvitnir*

      It’s actually shocking the toy company stuffed that up so badly – but banning deliveries strikes me as a huge over-reaction.

      1. Csethiro Ceredin*

        Same! I’d be rather embarrassed if it was my shipment but I would just feel bad for anyone else in the office who got this – no judgment, we all have bodies.

        I hope the toy company gave some kind of compensation for this though – what a mistake to make in that industry!

  53. Jo-Anne*

    My uncle is a catholic priest. He once completely blanked on what to say at the very end of Mass. Instead of the customary “Mass is ended, go in peace” he told the congregation “Mass is ended, you may now go home.”

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      To be fair, that is probably what the congregation are thinking at that point anyway!

      1. ferrina*

        My siblings and I went through a phase of saying “go eat peas” in response. We would feel very disappointed by this.

    2. I strive to Excel*

      I once attended a service with a VERY Russian priest. At the end of the service, after we’d all filed out, my mom and I were hanging out by the door chatting with another attendee. The priest was coming around the building to lock up and told us “Church is over. Go home now!”

      We still laugh about it to this day.

    3. Kimmy Schmidt*

      Should meet up with the “please leave” library closing announcer upthread!

  54. Skates*

    I am a college professor who gets the opportunity to run study abroad trips. Because of some genetic issues I had to have several teeth replaced with a partial denture right before leading a trip to London (only strange because I was in my early 30s). I was very broke at the time and my partial didn’t fit great and was especially badly set in my mouth when I sat down to our first faculty meeting/arrival meal, jet lagged, after shepherding a dozen 20 year olds on their first international flight. I sat down to dinner with a table full of other faculty who I had never met but was about to spend 2 weeks working with and I took a bite of arugula salad. A leaf got snagged on my poorly fitted teeth and I STARTED TO SWALLOW MY DENTURE. in response, I involuntarily gagged and ended up with a pile of half chewed salad shooting out of my mouth (luckily into a napkin). I excused myself and literally never addressed it with any witnesses but I think about it weekly.

  55. Email Challenged*

    I have two, both involving emails at work.

    I loved Mad magazine growing up. They would list their contributors on the cover and end it with “the usual gang of idiots”. Fast forward to my first tech job out of college (early 90’s), and I responded to an email question about who was working on a ticket. I replied with “me, Bob, and the usual gang of idiots”. Let’s just say there weren’t any other Mad magazine readers in that group.

    My wife and I worked at that same company for a couple of years. She sent me an email talking about why she didn’t get along with one of our co-workers. I accidentally forwarded the email to the co-worker. Not sure what was more awkward, trying to convince the co-worker “it was a joke” or the ride home with my wife.

  56. Bird Lady*

    It was Covid times and the cultural organization I worked for was doing a big virtual event with a nationally known artist and the Consulate of another nation. Very Important people were on this Zoom call. Our organization did not want to upgrade to a webinar feature, so I ran tech while an assistant managed the chat room and promised to mute people.

    It did not go well. Because the invited speakers viewed this opportunity as a platform to speak about issues, they did. Forever. The crowd got rowdy. The crowd told various diplomats to stop talking via the chat. Finally, one decided to unmute and complain. This prompted others to do the same.

    So we both frantically went about muting people. Somehow the Consulate folks were muted. In the game of wack-a-mole-muting one of us had muted the Consul General. I got a phone call from the board chair of our org pleading with me to unmute the Consulate. He didn’t see the request to un-mute I sent. So yes, readers, I – in the middle of the Consul General speaking – had to say, “I’m so sorry, but can you unmute yourself”.

    Thankfully the Dutch have good humor about these sorts of things.

    1. Joanne*

      I’m so relieved for you that it happened to be a Dutch Consul that got muted! We typically don’t mind too much when situations like that happen.

      Because 1) we like saving on costs where possible and 2) our culture is very egalitarian and practical. The consul likely was just happy for someone to point out the issue, so he could reiterate his point and move on.

      It’s like having something fixable wrong with your outfit or make up: it’s slightly embarrassing when someone points it out to you, but way worse when you find out at the end of the day and no one said anything.

  57. MPerera*

    I used to live in the Middle East where I volunteered at a thrift store. A lot of my work involved picking up clothes that people had dropped on the floor after taking them off the rack. One day I saw a woman doing this with item after item. I could tell that the woman was from Sri Lanka, and I am too, so I tried to ask her in Sinhalese not to do this.

    Unfortunately my Sinhalese is not very good. I wanted to say, “Please pick up the clothes.” What I actually said was, “Please raise your skirt.”

  58. notscarlettohara*

    I’m a veterinarian, and many years ago was working as a high-quality high-volume spay/neuter surgeon. These clinics are run as a well-oiled machine to be extremely efficient, allowing you to do 30-40 surgeries per day. As the surgeon, I just stand at the table while my staff put animal after animal in front of me and they handle everything else. One day I was very much in the zone, there was music, conversation, etc. They plop a male dog down in front of me, I place my drape, make my incision, get a testicle out, tie it off and remove it, close up my incision and remove my drape. Immediately realize the very, excruciatingly obvious fact that most dogs have TWO testicles. Have to yell, “No, come back!” as my staff are trying to take the dog away.

    2. The OG Sleepless*

      I’m a veterinarian too. There is a whole thread in progress on VIN right now about that very sort of thing. Suffice it to say you’re not the only person who has done that.

    3. Hroethvitnir*

      We had a notoriously useless vet at the SPCA we worked at. When I moved on to a vet clinic we received more than one pregnant cat he had supposedly spayed. Having nursed for many spays I straight up don’t understand what he was doing. How do you leave at least one ovary and the uterus?? They did have surgical scars.

      (He should have been let go but ethics complaints to the vet council went nowhere and the internal politics were a mess.)

  59. TomGraphy*

    I was typing out an IM and I meant to say “Hey how’s it going?” but instead typed “Hey hoe” and then the enter key. This was being sent to a female business partner so I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Luckily she was very understanding and accepted my apology.

    2. Lis*

      if I had a penny for everytime I’ve hit send instead of backspace/delete I’d at least be able to buy a coffee. your example seems like a prime example of that. e beside w and what I do. so I’d believe it instantly.

      1. TomGraphy*

        Yeah I hit ‘e’ instead of ‘w’ and then I hit enter instead of apostrophe so yeah everything is next to each other.

    3. Hope*

      My name is Hope and I have gotten this as people misspelled my name and I think it’s funny every time

      1. SarcasmBeforeAnger*

        My name is Melanie and I have missed the L and signed too many emails “Thanks, Meanie”

  60. Michele Cherry*

    I am a middle school science teacher. Most of my tests have a hands-on component where students have to interact with something. This test involved suitcases and bicycles for a simple machine unit. I was using a suitcase that my brother-in-law had just borrowed and I THOUGHT I checked all of the pockets for loose items. Nope. I completely missed the condom packs he left in the outside pocket. Of course, a student pulled them out and started laughing and they said, “Mrs. Teacher, you forgot something in here.” Trying to explain that those weren’t mine and trying to shut down the conversation went as well as you would expect with middle schoolers. The conversation with my principal about this mishap was a delight.

    1. ferrina*

      Oh no!!

      On the bright side, I’m sure the students were much more interested in your class for a couple weeks?

  61. Rick*

    Years ago I was a young employee in a large tech company. Because I was a high performer, I was asked to be part of a team working on a new high-profile product. The person running this team was something of a legend in the company and industry. I knew him by reputation only — we’d never met.

    When the day came to meet Dr. Legend I was so excited and wanted to make the best impression by showing how eager I was to be a great team member. When I walked into the meeting room there was already a small group there. Dr. Legend turned to me and I strode forward confidently with my arm extended to give him a firm handshake. I went in for the shake and…he had no hand. But I was already committed and my brain couldn’t catch up quickly enough.

    I shook the stump. I start to sweat just typing that now, years later. I shook his stump and smiled and said how excited I was to be working with him. He smiled and said hi and went along with the whole thing while I had a total internal meltdown that I hope I covered up but probably didn’t. Everyone else stood there silently. Moments later other people came into the room and things moved on.

    I never found out what Dr. Legend’s real response was. Before the next meeting the team was disbanded because of a bunch of changes at the company. At least, that’s what they told me. I’ve always wondered if the team kept going without me. No adverse effects on my career though. Just my ego.

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      It would have been nice if someone had given you a heads-up beforeha… I mean prior to meeting him. I’m sure it wasn’t the first or last time Dr. Legend ran into that situation, and if it had been me I’d have given you credit for just pushing through instead of going all awkward and apologetic at me.

    2. Prudence Snooter*

      I’d say shaking the stump was better than recoiling in horror, which is something he’s probably encountered

      1. Betty*

        Once when I was canvassing door-to-door, I came across a person with a malformed right hand. We both put our hands out to shake, and my hand kind of “jumped” in surprise. I felt terrible. But after we had our conversation, when I was leaving, I had a chance to do better, and our goodbye handshake was just a usual handshake.

    3. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

      Not personal experience but seem to recall on TV (or in books) the person without a right hand will extend the left hand with thumb down for a handshake.
      Does this happen in reality?

  62. MsM*

    Not work, exactly, but I was volunteering with a local cultural institution for an event (greeting guests, handing out programs, etc.). They kindly had pizza available for when we finished our shifts. I scarfed mine down, and then called for a ride-share, which I expected to take a fair bit of time to arrive. Nope. Three minutes.

    I rushed upstairs, immediately felt sick to my stomach, and…regifted the pizza on the sidewalk outside. Right in front of a bunch of entering visitors, one of whom was nice enough to hand me a tissue. This was also the moment the driver pulled up.

    I’d like to say I retained enough presence of mind to cancel the ride, or at least ask the driver to wait while I went inside to try and sort out the situation. But instead I fled the scene and sheepishly called the volunteer coordinator from the car to let them know “someone” had been sick on the walk outside and they should probably let a cleanup crew know.

  63. SarahKay*

    I had to go into site one weekend and found the security officer doing his rounds while wearing socks but no shoes. This is not considered safe behaviour (risk of slipping) so I politely reminded him he needed to wear shoes, and also, as required, entered it as a quick observation in the on-line site safety log.

    Monday comes around and we start our daily management meeting at 9am with the usual review of any new safety issues in the log. We get to mine, and rather to my surprise the entire team look at me in shock. A very concerned HSE manager speaks for all of them: “Was the security officer really walking round site naked?” she asked, sounding horrified.

    “What?!? NO, why would you think that?” I responded, equally horrified.

    At which point I reread the observation I’d input: ‘Security officer walking round site in just his socks’ and realised that perhaps this was not quite as clearly worded as it might have been. “No, no, I only meant he didn’t have shoes on. He was dressed, it was fine, oh crumbs, who else has seen this?”

    We adjusted the wording hurriedly, and fortunately although several other people on site had seen it, it hadn’t gone any further than that, and (I hope!) the security guy never knew what I accidently implied.

      2. londonedit*

        Did not realise ‘oh crumbs’ wasn’t universal! It’s a fairly common British expression!

    3. C.C.*

      I know this isn’t the point, but…do you have any idea why he would be walking around in only socks?

      1. SarahKay*

        If you mean why would people assume he’s naked, I can only guess it’s because it was Sunday evening, and while site is open to staff 24/7, usually the only person actually working between about midday Sunday and 4am Monday is the security guard. So may be they thought he’s a secret nudist?

        If you just mean why wasn’t he wearing shoes, I reckon he took them off at his desk and couldn’t be bothered to put them back on. He only patrolled inside the building so he wouldn’t be walking on anything worse than linoleum or carpet.

      2. RT*

        I would guess uncomfortable, wrong-sized, or pinchy work shoes, possibly ones that were assigned to him instead of ones he bought himself.

        I’ve taken my shoes off at work before for that reason. It wasn’t a safety issue for me though, just a little weird!

  64. Lolllee*

    I used to train in karate at lunch. One day, a customer came to visit right after lunch. unknown to me, I was covered in red hand marks were my partner had grabbed ahold on me during sparing, including handprints around my neck. The customer was being unusually quiet and tense. When I mentioned his odd behavior to a coworker, he said, huh-uh, well, did you realize you have hand prints around your neck? I was not just mortified, I was horrified! Though when I explained it, the customer relaxed and laughed with me about it.

    A year later, I was hit in the eye during lunch time sparring, and I kid you not, I greeting the same customer rep with a swollen, black eye. He shook my hand and the first thing he said to me was, “still doing karate at lunch, I see.”

  65. Kara*

    This was many years ago in my first professional job out of college. I was 23 or 24 I think. I was the training coordinator, working for a well known Fortune 100 company in their corporate training offices. We often did trainings for customers or vendors as well as for employees. We had 4 large classrooms and 14 “breakout” rooms at our facility and part of my job was assigning different groups to different breakout rooms when we had multiple courses going at once.

    This was also in the days when proper professional wear for women included skirt-suits and pantyhose.

    We had a full house of trainings for vendors/customers and I was running around like crazy, keeping the various coffee pots filled, making sure all the signs pointed to the right rooms, etc. As I was fast-walking down one of the hallways, I felt my pantyhose elastic snap and felt the hose starting to slide down my legs. I knew I only had a few more steps before they were puddled around my ankles. I was next to one of our un-used breakout rooms (remember, it was my job to schedule the breakout rooms, so I knew it wasn’t booked). I looked around to make sure no-one would see, zipped into the breakout room, hiked up my skirt to my waist … and realized the room was packed full of people. And specifically all male-engineer people.

    One of our instructors had decided he wanted an extra breakout room and didn’t tell me he was splitting one of his groups.

    I was utterly mortified. I stammered … something that I can’t remember now, yanked my skirt down, pressed my knees together to keep my hose on, and waddle-ran from the room. I made it to the ladies room, stripped off the offending hose, and went back to work.

    At the end of the day my boss (also a woman) mentioned off-handedly as we were cleaning up and setting up for the next day that she had heard from one of the instructors that I had an “incident”. I was mortified all over again until she laughed and told me it had happened in one form or another to every professional woman she knew and that I should probably keep an extra pair of hose in my desk drawer for future use.

      1. Ok then*

        I heartily concur!! I haven’t worn them in over 20 years, and I don’t miss them in the least!!

  66. Just Me*

    I had a new client I had just started working with text me asking me a question about his job. I was working out of the office that day, and didn’t have access to his information to answer. So I texted back, “I’m not in the office today, but will get you the answer first thing tomorrow morning.” Unfortunately, I didn’t proofread before I hit send. Autocorrect changed morning to moron. I immediately saw it and texted “Morning, not moron! I’m so sorry. Stupid autocorrect!” He replied with a laughing emoji and said that I had caught it too fast, as he was just about to reply, “That will be fine, idiot.” (So glad he had a good sense of humor!)

  67. Cat servant*

    It was the middle of April and people were coming in to our small tax office to pick up their paperwork. Many people. All needing a lot of hand-holding. And the phone is ringing off the hook. I had a family in my office when another family arrived so I parked them in my boss’s office (she was downstairs helping another team member). Another fellow came in so I put him in the conference room. After about 45 minutes of “please write your name, not your phone number, where it says signature” and “yes, I’m sorry, you will have to pay this tax bill” and “no, I’m sorry, your underwear is not deductible even if you special order it” and “yes, your address is required information” I finally got everybody settled and cleared out. Just then my boss came back upstairs and I let loose, asking her how the heck she managed to attract such dim-witted clients and did she seek them out on purpose just to make me crazy, when a voice came from the conference room: “Can I come out now?”

    I am never going to live this down.

  68. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

    Ending a call with a print vendor, “Okay, bye, I love you.” at least I got to hang up the phone immediately.

    Answering a call from a vendor, “Thank you for calling [old job from over 10 years ago], this is Curtain.” I have NO IDEA why my brain glitched to a former employer in just that one moment —it had never happened before and hasn’t happened since.

    Low stakes embarrassment instead of mortifying for most, but I HATE talking on the phone and it’s stuff like this that makes me very anxious about calling and answering calls.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I did temp work when I was in college. Remembering the names of the different companies when filling in for the receptionist was one of the hardest tasks, IMO. One place was called “Process Facilities,” a name which really has no meaning, and there were a number of times I’d pick up the phone and go, “Good morning….” and blank on the name. I finally wrote it on a sticky note so I’d remember. (Of course, decades later I do remember the name so I guess eventually it stuck, even though I only worked there for a few days.)

    2. JustKnope*

      I got my first job at a hair salon when I was 16. I was talking to one of the stylists who I knew from church and wanted to share the news, so I proudly announced “I just got a receptionist job at [name of competitor salon across town]!” She looked at me mystified and said “I thought you were applying for a job at my salon?” I had to explain I had a brain fart and said the wrong salon name for reasons I will never understand. Cringe. 15 years later I’m still mortified.

    3. Arrietty*

      My now-job and my last-job company names both were three words, one of which they had in common. I still have to catch myself fairly regularly on the phone, on the brink of saying the wrong one.

      1. Betty*

        I was the lunchtime receptionist at a law firm one summer when I was in college, and fairly frequently I answered our home phone with the name of the law firm. It was so embarrassing!

    4. Twoflower*

      I did this the first time I picked up a phone at a new job. The funny thing was, the job I told them they were calling was one where I never went within fifty feet of the phones, let alone answering them.

  69. Sundance Kid*

    I had an internship at a district office of a state agency about 20 years ago. I was in a small group – 6 of us in a big shared office, no dividers. Desks and computer monitors were all out in the open. It wasn’t uncommon to eat lunch at your desk and idly browse the internet.

    At the time, I was getting into golf and looking for a cheap set of clubs. Close to work was a Dicks Sporting Goods store. Over lunch, I tried to look up their inventory online, and I guessed at their web address.

    I guessed wrong. As this was the early 2000s, aggressive pop up ads were not yet under control. My screen completely filled with pornography ads, and I frantically tried to play whack-a-mole. For every one that closed, it felt like four more came up. And I’m sitting in the middle of this open office.

    After I got things under control (I think I frantically ctrl-alt-del’d my way out of the browser?), I was sweaty, my heart was pounding, and I was so worried about getting fired (porn on a state computer!) that I sent a proactive email to the IT support folks and cc’d my manager explaining what happened and apologizing profusely. Five minutes later, I see my manager across the office start laughing uncontrollably. I did not get fired, but I also got plenty of (friendly) ribbing during the rest of my time there. She was a good manager.

    1. HonorBox*

      Similar situation here. This was previous to Googling something, so I was trying to MSN something.

      I typed MAN.COM instead of MSN.com and got an array of photos and popups.

      I walked down the hall and self-reported to my boss that just in case there was ever a question that came up through our IT vendor, it was me who accidentally visited the site.

      Boss got a great laugh about it. I’m sure I was 14 shades of red.

      1. Ok then*

        Someone at my old job was helping their kid with homework research (a good 20+ years ago) and typed in white house.com rather than .gov. He didn’t lose his job but IT was pissed. We were all reminded that IT can access whatever we browse at work (we were allowed to browse occasionally).

        We all laughed at him and were thankful it was him and not us.

    2. Missspelled*

      Similar situation … was helping a co-worker with her bachelorette party invites and mistyped “stiletto shoe” and it somehow made NONSTOP very graphic pornography fill my screens … had to call our tech team to completely wipe my computer and my co-worker was laughing too hard to help me explain the situation

        1. linger*

          On a related note: one of my students once attempted to explain, in front of a class, the meaning of the (Nepalese English) term “cock shoe” by running a Google image search. If only she had added “Nepal” to the search term, we would have seen a sort of moccasin with a slightly turned-up toe; but that was not what filled the screen. Some things cannot be unseen.

    3. L*

      Not me, but a dear sweet Mormon woman who was my boss in the University Theater’s costume shop. She was tired of having to take the metal corseting “bones” to the scene shop in order to have them grind the ends smooth on their bench grinder. She was going to buy her shop it’s own bench grinder and went online to find best pricing.

      But, she googled “Bone Grinder” (do NOT do this at work). Took a week for her to stop blushing.

      1. Mockingbird*

        My husband (we’re also Mormon) is an avid hunter, and back in this same era he made the mistake of trying something like “montanawildlife.com” on my (!) computer. He did indeed get wild life, but not the kind he was looking for! He couldn’t shut off the porn popup sites and finally got flustered and just turned the computer off completely and left the room. Next time I turned it on, I got an eyeful!

        I ribbed him about that one for several years.

    4. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Similar era, a grad school classmate learned that at the time whitehouse.com went somewhere VERY different from whitehouse.gov . And I’m not sure which of my classmates learned the hard way that if you were looking for tips on using the LaTeX formatting software, you ALWAYS needed to include the word “formatting” rather than just searching for “latex usage manual”.

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        I’ve posted this before, but during my law school summer clerkship — I worked for the government instead of a firm — in the early 2000s, my colleague (I swear it wasn’t me!) typed whitehouse dot com instead of whitehouse dot gov. At the time the dot com site was very NSFW. I happened to be sitting next to him and saw the images start popping up, saw him frantically trying to get off the site, and then saw his computer — and then mine — go blue screen of death and then black. Apparently someone decided to shut down the system to stop the pornsplosion. (Bonus: it was at EEOC!)

    5. Coasterchick*

      I did the exact thing at work while perusing sporting goods on my lunch break, right down to self reporting to IT!

      1. Sundance Kid*

        Why oh why couldn’t Dicks Sporting Goods pony up for the obvious web address in the name of saving hapless sportsball players from lunchtime embarrassment?

    6. Syfy Geek*

      In the 90’s, I was at the public library, and my son wanted to use one of the library computers to look up something super hero related. I signed up with the Desk, we went to the assigned computer and began a search for the X-men. If you accidentally type more than one X and the word men, you get very different results. I was trying to cover my kids eyes and close that browser and hope there wasn’t a porn alarm that was going to go off!

  70. Emoji Illiterate*

    I was in a small college program where for a year we acted as a real company for practical experience and we rotated jobs. This was, I wouldn’t say early, but earlier smartphone/emoji days. I was 23, a little late to the game I guess, and I seriously did not know what the eggplant emoji meant. I thought it was just like random/funny vegetable. So when it was my turn to act as manager, I send some sort of friendly message to all my classmates using this emoji. I was quickly corrected but also teased for my innocence.

    2. Cheshire Cat*

      My sister thought it was a random vegetable, too, and sent it in a text … to her son! He was embarrassed to have to explain it to his mom.

  71. Hohohopeful*

    At a prior job, we were hosting a full day of events. We met at our offices at 6AM and disbursed to different locations around town – I started my day greeting guests at the airport, then I worked a shift at the info desk at hotel the guests where the guests were staying, then I had to run back to our office to change and grab a couple of things before the formal dinner that evening. I was delayed by an issue when I first got back, and as I was running upstairs to my office (where I left my change of clothes) I got a call from our dinner venue with an issue so I was kind of panicked. I ran into my office, slammed the door shut and started ripping my clothes off to change. I was having to shimmy into dressy clothes so as I was standing there, very nearly fully nude and bent over, fighting with my hosiery, I got a call from another employee who said “I’m at the traffic light outside the building, and you should definitely close your blinds.”

    Our office building had glass walls, it was dark outside, and I was changing in my brightly lit office directly in front of floor to ceiling windows with the blinds wide open, right on a busy street – and on the second floor, so visible to EVERYONE. I wanted to die, but didn’t really have time so I powered through. But I couldn’t make eye contact with that employee for weeks.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      “I wanted to die, but didn’t really have time” is brilliant.

  72. Anon4This*

    I got promoted to fill a position previously held for a couple of decades by someone else, “Diane.” Because the position included provided support for our sales force as well as vendor contracts, there was a specific phone number assigned to that role.

    A few months after I took the role, I got a call from one of our vendors asking to speak with Diane. I don’t why, but I said, “Oh, she’s no longer with us.” The caller hung up before I could get my wits about me and clarify that I meant she had left the company. It wouldn’t have been so bad except that a couple of hours later we received a bouquet of flowers from the vendor expressing condolences about the loss of our colleague.

    1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      A coworker with a good sense of humor actually had passed away about a year and a half before I quit my last job. Every once and awhile, I would get people asking for him or complaining that he didn’t reply to their email. He had been there for 40+ years and had done every job at some point, so he was looped in on A LOT. My last week there, I called a vendor to ask why they hadn’t sent in their paperwork (so I could pay them and bill our customer). She said she had sent it to my dead coworker and she shouldn’t have to send it again.

      I had great pleasure in saying, “Well, Coworker is dead, so I doubt he’ll be processing that paperwork. If you’d like to be paid, you should send the paperwork to me as requested.”

  73. Djs*

    Not work, but work related. I was on business trip and on the train going between two terminals. I noticed someone wheelchair bound struggling with the hump between the train and the station. So I helped them out and got them off the train. As the train doors closed, I heard a voice behind me “I think she was trying to get ON the train”

    1. Wren*

      Wait did you… move this person without their consent?! Or even exchanging any words at all?? I just started using a wheelchair and this is my worst nightmare. Obligatory PSA I guess, mobility aids are an extension of people’s bodies, never touch them without being invited to unless it’s an emergency (ie same rules as touching anyone else!). Aaaand this is why you can buy spikes for your wheelchair handles.
      PS Many people hate the term wheelchair bound, ambulatory wheelchair users also exist, etc etc

      1. Djs*

        You raise some good points, and I guess the proper answer is “at the time they really looked like they needed my help. Now for sure I know better”

        And your answer also brings up the real point, which is that I assumed intent without verifying it.

        1. Wren*

          I’m glad you know better now, but I hope you keep making an effort to learn! It’s pretty dangerous to move someone without their consent even aside from the bodily autonomy issue (for one thing I’m more aware of the hazards of being below eye level than someone standing is). I was laughing uncontrollably at some of the above stories but this one hit like a load of bricks and I really hope Alison doesn’t include it in the final post. Speaking for myself it’s really not a funny story to someone who’s been (or even just worried about!) being on the other side.

      2. Aspie*

        I’m a wheelchair user too, and yes people grabbing you without consent is sadly commonplace. Can you imagine going up to a stranger, grabbing their legs and pulling them off a train? You’d be arrested for assault

        1. Wren*

          Aspie this is a much pithier explanation!
          But because I’m never pithy here’s the story rewritten in your scenario (just in case anyone still thinks the issue is that the person missed their train!).

          “Not work, but work related. I was on a business trip and on the train going between two terminals. I noticed someone [short*] struggling [to exit the train through the crowd]. So I helped [by picking them up and pushing through the crowd] and got them off the train. As the train doors closed, I heard a voice behind me “I think she was trying to get ON the train”

          *technically I should have subbed short for a word with similar issues to “wheelchair bound” but… no

          1. Maudite Entendante*

            I have a couple of colleagues who are little people, and that is… not as far-fetched a scenario as it should be.

            (Honestly I’m very glad my power chair is basically impossible for other people to move, though, for exactly this reason. Even though my casters sometimes get stuck in the gap between a train and the platform and it would be useful to be a little more pushable!)

    2. PinkCandyFloss*

      This is why you never touch someone else’s mobility aid without first asking for and receiving consent for you to do so.

  74. Bean Counter Extraordinaire*

    In my first office job right out of college at 22, if the receptionist was away from the front desk, the calls would ring through to the next person on the phone list, and then the next, etc, until somebody picked up.

    A call rang through to my phone, and it was someone looking to speak to one of the executives. Having never gotten a call for someone “important” before, it never occurred to me to transfer them to his voicemail or his assistant’s extension. He happened to be in my line of sight, so I said “Oh sure, (caller), he’s right here, hold on a second”… and gestured for him to come grab my phone.

    10+ years later and I’m still embarrassed.

    1. Meow*

      I had one kind of like this too. I was a college intern and got a meeting invite from “X on behalf of Y”. I don’t know what was wrong with my brain, because even if you didn’t know that implied a VIP, clearly you should be replying to X regardless, right? But naturally, I sent an email directly to Y, asking “What is this about?”. Luckily the meeting was specifically to meet with the interns to ask them about their interning experience, so I’m sure he just dismissed it as kids being dumb young kids, but… oof.

  75. CowWhisperer*

    I was teaching human anatomy to high schoolers in 5th hour. I had been using anatomical coloring book pages as a part of their class notes to help students learn the body parts more effectively.

    My prep was at the end of the day during 6th hour. My principal comes in to discuss how things are running at school – but he’s visibly distracted by something over my left shoulder.

    Finally, he blurts out, “CowWhisperer, can you erase the board. I keep getting distracted by… well… the board.”

    Confused, I turn around to see the whiteboard still has the male reproductive system coloring page displayed in all its glory.

    I turn to my desk and cut the power to the projector.

    Gentle readers, I had colored in the projected coloring page with all the vivid colors made by Expo on the whiteboard.

    Turning off the projector simply removed the scientific labels and outlines leaving far more garish set of genitalia.

    I run to the whiteboard and start erasing. It’s too bad that green and red markers ghost heavily because I couldn’t erase fully a 2 foot tall penis with 6 inch bright red testicles.

    By this point, my principal was laughing so hard he was crying. I started laughing too – and always kept a bottle of whiteboard cleaning spray in arms’ reach during coloring lectures.

    1. Bruce*

      I’m surprised you could keep order in a class of high schoolers while you colored that picture in, I salute you!

      1. CowWhisperer*

        Thank you.

        The trick is to have a honest conversation that talking about reproductive organs can be awkward – but we’re not middle schoolers, right?

  76. CheesePlease*

    I had just finished my master’s program and was job hunting. I had an engineering degree but not the highest GPA or the most experience, so it was challenging to find interviews for me personally. I finally got an internship for a summer job at a STEM / maker space camp as a counselor. I had been emailing with the director to coordinate etc and she was very friendly/casual in our conversations. I showed up for my interview and HUGGED HER!! I was immediately embarrassed. Why did I do that?? I had interviewed before at other much more formal places and never hugged anyone – but I was always interviewed by men? (I’m a cis woman) I truly DON’T KNOW.

    Thankfully she was very graceful and I was still hired! A great summer job!

    1. Mockingbird2081*

      I once had an interview where the candidate, a woman re-entering the workforce after a stint as a full-time mom, gave me a hug at the end. I was so stunned that my brain short-circuited and I froze like a deer in headlights. It was my first and only interview hug, and I figured it was just her being a bit rusty in the job market. I hired her, and it turned out she was like managing a caffeinated, bossy squirrel who thought she knew everything. So, while you had a great summer job experience, I got a memorable lesson in the unexpected!

    2. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

      I was working at a branch office and visited the main site for a day of meetings. I was meeting my sister-in-law for lunch, and just out of habit I pulled her into a hug. She frantically looked around to make certain that none of her co-workers saw her hugging someone at work. We were both Software Engineers, but she’s 15 years my senior and had to fight stereotypes a lot harder than I ever had to. Her reaction was absolutely confusing to me until I had worked another decade in the industry, at which point I was mortified.

  77. Sebum*

    I teach college bio and was talking about ‘sebum’ but accidentally (and repeatedly) said ‘semen’. Thankfully only one woman was really paying attention, but she snickered every time.

  78. free tamales*

    Email subject line: free tamales in the break room. Cue people all over the city running to their breakrooms for tamales, only to find out someone had sent this email to an entire urban area’s homelessness resources listserv instead of their own team

  79. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

    I was walking down a hallway at work and a tampon dropped on my shoe. Looking back, I discovered to my ABSOLUTE horror that thanks to an unknown hole in my pocket, I’d left a trail of supplies down the hall!

    I still remember the dilemma of whether it was worse to go back and pick them all up or keep walking and pretend I had nothing to do with it.

    1. EightLeggedPest*

      That happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Had supplies in my pocket, walked through the town centre, got my lunch, sat down, realised my pocket was bereft of crinkle and… no idea where that went…

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Too funny as I was just walking through the outlet mall with some family members last weekend and there was a “trail” of unopened tampons on the floor! I felt bad for the person who had lost their supplies!

  80. Caroline Bingley*

    I’m not easily embarrassed at work, but I seriously considered quitting (playfully) recently. My office hosts a summer bridge program for new college students each year. On the last day of this year’s kick-off event I was runing all over and helping set up for a skit. The scene was set, the actors were in place, and I just had to lay out one more prop and move off stage. Then it happened. I tripped in front of about 300 students face first, landed hard on my knees and severely stubbed my toe. It didn’t help when our narrator called attention to my fall while saying we were pausing for a quick break. Despite the pain (and I definitely was hurting) I jumped up quickly to a swarm of students asking am I ok. The cast made me promptly sit down and I hid back stage the rest of the event nursing minor injuries. What made it worse was students were filming the skit so there is video evidence floating around somewhere. I now have a fear of going viral on Tik Tok for the wrong reason. Pain is temporary but the mortification is still fresh in my mind.

    1. ferrina*

      There is an epic moment in Taskmaster series 7 of Jessica Knappet doing the most epic fall of all time. The part of the stage that she fell from was renamed the Knappet in her honor (she was just fine).

  81. Healthcare Manager*

    At my work we were required to order items from Amazon urgently using work credit card.

    Credit card could only used with finance on main site where I was, but colleague at different location had the Amazon order in their account.

    Due to IT blocking Amazon on work computer I had to use my personal mobile to do the order (ie small screen).

    Colleague gave me the log in details for their Amazon account so that I could order the correct items and sit with finance to process the order.

    The items were to be sent to the site where my colleague was.

    I logged on to colleague’s account via Amazon app on my phone, diligently ensured finance could see what as purchased was work appropriate (we’re talking thousands here), and clicked buy – send immediately.

    But forgot to check the delivery address.

    Called my colleague in a panic explaining the order was going to their default address, I assumed their home, and I couldn’t cancel it.

    They were silent and then responded ‘that’s my ex-wife’s address’.

    Absolutely mortified. We then had to place the entire order again to get it on time! Thankfully that colleague and I have a great relationship and they laughed (more than I did!!)

    1. L*

      Autofill is evil.

      Coworker got a traffic ticket. Went online, filled in info to pay it, no biggie. Except that autofill was populated with company credit card info, not her personal card.

      LOTS of explaining to do the finance department when the charge showed up.

    2. Betty*

      I did something like this recently. I was visiting my parents in State A. I live in State B. At least twice while I was there, I ordered stuff that I needed THERE and forgot to change the address so if was sent to my home across the country. So I did the same thing as Healthcare Manager and ordered a second item to be delivered where I actually was. When I got home, I had a bunch of returns to take care of.

  82. Juicebox Hero*

    This happened to a coworker, and is shared with her permission. Name has been changed to protect the mortified.

    One day I noticed a wet spot on her dress right over the left boob; I figured she’d splashed herself when washing her hands or something. But it didn’t dry out and actually got bigger, and a second spot appeared right over the other one.

    A male coworker said, completely deadpan, “Prudence, I think your breasts are leaking.”

    She ran to the ladies’ room to investigate and found out what the problem was: she was wearing a water bra, which instead of foam padding has fluid-filled pockets in the cups, and both of which had sprung a leak. She laughed herself silly over it and so did the rest of us. We told her we’d cover for her if she wanted to go home and change, but it was only an hour until quitting time on a slow day so she and her leaking water bra stayed until 4:30 as usual.

  83. Typity*

    I signed off on a magazine cover featuring a well known executive that showed him as the CEO of a rival company with a similar name. The magazine was shipped to an event before anyone spotted the mistake, so it had to be reprinted overnight, along with all the collateral that had the cover on it. I think that was the most expensive mistake I’ve ever been solely responsible for.

    Also, it was our own company’s event, and the CEO was both a speaker and the head of our leading sponsor.

  84. Asymmetrical*

    I once said, “We shouldn’t shoot our whole wad” in a business meeting. Because I was absolutely sure that it referenced a wad of cash and meant you shouldn’t use up all your resources at once. And I was absolutely sure that I had heard my very proper mother use it that way.

    Looking around the room at my colleagues’ faces, I realized in that very moment that that is not the actual origin of the phrase.

    1. HB*

      Actually you weren’t wrong. Orrin Hatch made the same “error” years ago because the phrase actually stems from the Civil War. The “wad” in question is what you use to keep your gunpowder in place.

      1. Asymmetrical*

        Hah! Somebody should tell my mortified coworkers. I don’t know if they ever looked at me the same after that.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        I mean yes, that’s the original meaning, but that’s not what 90% of people will think. Sometimes technically correct is not, in fact, the best kind of correct.

    3. Also Laura Actually!*

      Have a colleague who has said “that’s the money shot” a couple times but no one has gotten the nerve to tell them where that comes from.

    4. Balls to the Wall!*

      I was in a Board Committee meeting and one of the (male) Board members said “we should go balls to the wall.” And was immediately mortified and apologized profusely. It was followed by a brief conversation about how the phrase has its origins in the US Air Force — the balls are the round caps on the throttle. I felt bad for the Board member — he was so nice and was so embarrassed.

      1. The Editor-In-Chief*

        I think it originated with the railways, in fact – the balls are the caps on the throttles of steam engines. Still…doesn’t really *sound* like it’s about railroad engines. :)

  85. Bruce*

    I went into work when not feeling well and had a 1 hour meeting with 3 senior people, 2 of them came down with the flu shortly after and justifiably blamed me. The senior VP was pretty grumpy about it.

    1. Cardboard Marmalade*

      If you don’t have unlimited paid sick leave, sounds like it’s a problem of their own making.

  86. blundermuch*

    I, pharm tech, took a call from a man who needed his Viagra refilled. I checked his profile and saw it had been filled already. My usual line in this situation was something like, “Looks like it’s ready. You can come in anytime to pick it up.” THIS time, I said, “Looks like it’s ready. You can come anytime.” And then my whole body cringed. I’m not sure whether there was actually a pause or that was just my brain freezing. He thanked me. I mumbled something bright and cheerful in response and we hung up. Still makes me cringe and chuckle at the same time.

  87. Fern*

    I confused one senior partner with another one and at a fancy dinner started talking with his wife and went on about their children for a couple minutes (the other partner had told me some stories about his kids that related to something else) until she gently told me that they don’t have any children. As somebody who has dealt with infertility and should know better than to bring up kids I wanted to die.
    On the other hand, her husband got drunk and embarrassed himself far worse that evening by hitting on younger admin staff so she may have forgotten my gaff by the time she dragged him out of there.

  88. Call me George for this one*

    I got my first job out of college as a nervous little trans man who still very much looked like a butch woman. I’d came out to my grandboss at the interview and still got hired. So far so good. On my first day, I got shown around by a colleague who clearly understood the assignment. He’d introduce me to people by being like “This is George, he’ll be working with X team”.

    I’d understand if this wasn’t enough- I still got ma’amed everywhere. What I still don’t understand was that this only *half* worked. All the men responded with “great, he’ll be an asset to the team”. All the women responded with “great, she’s just what the team needs”.

    Nobody teaches you what to do in this situation! So I just kinda … didn’t. I overheard a conversation about my login credentials where one party called me “he” and the other “she”. And they didn’t seem to notice? Meanwhile, I looked both ways before using the restroom and prayed that there was nobody inside whichever one I chose.

    I was hoping this would sort itself out, but after a week, it started to feel like a sitcom with a laugh track that only I could hear. So I made my best guess at who would be sympathetic, sat next to her at lunch, and asked if she could spread the message that I’m a man and half the office seems to have gotten it wrong. She cleared it up within the day.

    Bonus story- after six months of calling me nothing but “he” and “him”, my project manager started slipping up and occasionally calling me “she”. As any trans person will tell you, this means that he suddenly learned that I was assigned female at birth. I guess every sitcom needs a callback joke, but I think it’s hilarious that he missed it the first time around.

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      I’m sorry that happened to you, and I hope that you’re not still getting misgendered!

  89. IncessantOwlbears*

    I was very young, just out of college, and was temping. I was assigned to a receptionist type job for a local government agency since they had a maternity leave slot to fill.

    One day I got to my desk and found a hideous stuffed bear. Believe me when I say this bear was not cute. it looked like something that would come alive in the night and eat my eyeballs.

    I couldn’t understand who would prank me this way. I didn’t have any friends in the office, and there was no note or any indication of who had left it or what it meant. Was it some sort of attempt at flirtation? A warning not to go out to the woods today?

    All day long I mentioned the bear to people, with the spin of “I don’t know who or why someone left me this weird bear.” My sarcastic Gen-X self could not imagine anyone actually liking this bear, so I assumed it was some weird humor I didn’t get.

    Well, that afternoon one of the government employees came by and told me that in fact SHE had left it for me… because she liked me and thought I was doing a great job.

    I was so mortified that I almost melted through the floor. She was a very put-together middle-aged Black lady who unironically thought the bear was cute, and I had just insulted her taste.

    Of course I apologized, and the next day I gave her a hand written apology note with a cartoon of myself tied into a pretzel of embarrassment (literally, I sketched my arms and legs twined together into knots to express how embarrassed I was). She was noticeably cool to me for the remainder of my temping placement.

    1. MsM*

      Still a weird gift if you don’t know your coworker likes stuffed animals. Especially with no note attached.

      1. Dhaskoi*

        Ditto. Honestly sympathetic to OP here – gifting a stuffed bear anonymously to someone you hardly know is a bit of an edge case for office norms.

    3. Square Root of Minus One*

      I have the blurry memory of something like that happening to me with a package of toothpaste.
      No note, nothing, just left like that at my desk. I had been bullied at this job (and in school) before, and that is a known bully move. I threw it in the trash, but never told a soul.
      As I recall it, I learned later (how?) that it was a very nice, very young and naive coworker who had found a few samples and just left them on people’s desks as gifts.
      It never came up again.

  90. Chickadee*

    I got a brand new pair of pants for a three month internship in the desert – lightweight, breathable, perfect for the heat. At the end of the first week, and my second time wearing them, they tore right in the butt when I crouched down to help examine a tortoise. Every time I got up or down, they tore further, until half my butt was hanging out. I was wearing underwear of course, and we were in the middle of nowhere, so decided to just roll with it and accept the humor in the situation – especially after the fourth or fifth loud “riiiip” when my boss told me “At first I felt bad for you, but now it’s just funny.”

    Needless to say the first thing I did when I got back to the field house was throw those suckers in the trash!

    1. Chickadee*

      During the same internship, I accidentally sat on a cactus. Had to duck behind a bush to pull out the spines, but was wearing a much sturdier pair of pants that didn’t tear.

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Ow. Hopefully not a cholla?

        (Pro tip for desert hiking from a former Tucsonan, for those who need it: The first aid kit in your bag should include a multitool with a needle-nose pliers. Tweezers won’t cut it for serious spine removal.)

  91. MadMaddy03*

    Not me but my aunt was witness to something that i find absolutely HILARIOUS but to the individual who did this they were probably mortified.:

    My aunt worked at a federal government agency reviewing and approving/denying grants. one of her colleagues cam to work TWICE in just a dress slip but no other clothing. Both instances were in the winter and said colleague operated on autopilot – putting on her long winter over coat and all winter accoutrements without actually getting fully dressed.

    Gentle readers – the first time she didn’t realize until my aunt told her and the second she did not realize until getting in office and removing her winter coat!

  92. TS*

    I ran the high school’s clothing closet and received a large donation of new socks from a charity ran by kind retirees. I set the box of socks up in the clothing closet and didn’t think anything of it, until one day I had to remind a student not to wear clothing featuring drug paraphernalia. His response was “miss, you’re the one who gave me these.” It turned out he’d gotten them from the big sock donation, and assumed I didn’t know what drugs looked like.

      1. linger*

        TS erred by failing to examine a donated pile of socks for potentially disallowed messaging (e.g. drug references) before sending it to be distributed to students. So this student picked up a pair of such socks, and was then surprised that TS, as the person representing the (officially supported) source, had any issue with him wearing them.

  93. Sweet Summer Child*

    Oooh, I think I tell this every five years. I really hate talking on the phone, like lie awake at night and strategize about answering the phone at work. Example, temp job, receptionist gig, desperate self took it. Ring, ring. “Hello?” Speaker tells me to give a message to boss. Walk to her door, stare at her. Friends, the women shouted “Speak!” I wasn’t asked back.
    So with this in my history, I got a great job doing desktop publishing. I talk to nobody!
    But, I need to set voicemail. My boss says, “come in early when nobody is here and you record your message without an audience.”
    I sneak in two hours early on the day after a rainstorm that somehow crossed the wires.
    So it was discovered over the course of the next four hours (as people came in) that my very adequate third or so attempt at reading:
    “Hi, you’ve reached Sweet Summer Child at 123-4356. Please leave a message and I will call you back as soon as possible. Thanks!” into the phone was EVERYONE’S VOICEMAIL MESSAGE.
    No worries to my reputation, because the very next day (!!) the building reported that there was a technical issue due to the storm.

  95. Shenandoah*

    I was working my first office job after a long stint of “if you can lean, you can clean” style retail jobs. The Olympics were playing in the empty break room, so I sat down for a moment with a cup of coffee. In walks the CEO – I jumped to my feet and blurted out “I was only watching for a second!” He said something along the lines of “ooookay enjoy watching, I sure do!” and was very kind, but oh man, did I ever want the floor to swallow me.

    (It’s Olympics season again, so of course I’m thinking about my full body cringe in this moment)

    1. Dust Bunny*

      I’ve had a respectable, supportive academic library job for going on 20 years now and I still haven’t recovered from my preceding small-business job (not retail but comparable in some ways) where we could never take time off and always had to look busy.

      1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        I quit retail in 2008 and have only had office jobs since. It still feels weird to have the weekends and holidays off.

        Also, people STILL stop me in random stores to ask me where things are. It’s always very obvious I’m a shopper, so I always joke, “I still have retail on me.” The best example of this was when I was in a huge international food market and someone asked me where the turducken was- and I happened to know *exactly* where the turducken was.

        1. Clisby*

          Doesn’t everybody know where the turducken is? Well, obviously not. Maybe I enjoy grocery shopping more than most people do.

        2. Carol the happy*

          I know where the turducken is, too! We used to buy it from a butcher who moved north after Hurricane Andrew.
          But my 9-yr-old loudly refused to even taste it “because anything named “Turd” and “Uck” sounds like it hasta be gross!” (Now we call it “Double-stuffed Turkey”.)

          Yes, that air of competence- and a pretty good memory- stick with a person.

        3. Betty*

          If this is a cartain international food store with giraffe phones and a monorail, I’m SERIOUSLY impressed.

          3. Granny*

            I was a 16 year old clueless and abysmally ignorant girl working at TG&Y back in 72. A woman asked me where the douche powder was. I had no idea what douche meant and assumed she wanted a powder to was dishes. I took her to the dishwashing section and she just wandered off, frustrated but not going to say anything. I told this story to a more experienced worker and was kindly educated. I was totally mortified. Yes, some of us were unbelievably naive back in the day.

            2. MigraineMonth*

              My uncle had been experiencing some hand tremors, so we stopped by Macy’s looking for an electric shaver. Somehow this turned into an odyssey, with different employees cheerfully directing us to different floors. While I was checking the first floor, an employee had shown my uncle to a display of electric trimmers and shavers… for manscaping. Which meant that I then had to explain to my uncle that the electric shaver he’d found was so expensive because it was designed for shaving the groin.

        4. Coffee*

          I was in my regular “quick shopping” place and too lazy to go elsewhere so I asked if they sell wasabi. I had three shop assistants talking about it when I finally found it. There was general confusion if it was funny or embarrassing to everyone involved. I certainly wished I hadn’t said anything.

          1. Paint N Drip*

            Oof, as a shopper there IS a real embarrassment at collecting a gaggle of assistance due to your strange request. But as a ‘service’ person, we are happy to help!!! I always try to remember that even when I’m tomato-faced asking my question to the fifth shop assistant

            1. Coffee*

              I was so sure wasabi is not strange! Sushi was fashion years and years ago! But it certainly is not item that sells in bulk and it is tiny packaging.

        5. WOOLFAN*

          Literally laughing right now because the retail job I was just thinking about, with trauma that has and will never completely leave me, was in a natural foods store. And when I saw “turducken” it gave me a flashback to the “Tofurkey” roasts we had in the frozen food section. Which never sold while I was there, because I started right after Thanksgiving, and that was probably the only time of year that anybody bought those. (Having held and attended more than one vegetarian or vegan Thanksgiving in my day, I wouldn’t have bought one either. Meat imitations are often weird and disappointing, not to mention $$$$$.)

          I’ve basically been whisked back to those days of sadly stocking and fronting shelves, and wondering if anyone would ever buy the tofurkey, because the excitement of that would have been a true highlight in my very depressing days working there.

          1. Quill*

            My brother makes a mean seitan roast for thanksgiving, but… it definitely doesn’t come pre-packaged.

          2. Nina*

            I make really (really) good tofu beef, to the extent that my dad, who is basically an obligate carnivore, eats it and says it’s reasonably convincing.
            I could probably do a chicken version as well but haven’t tried. I also do not buy flavored tofu because it’s always disappointing.

          3. MigraineMonth*

            Meat imitations have come a long way since those sad Tofurkey “drumsticks” spent a year in the back of my freezer when I was in high school. I don’t know how exactly they stack up against meat (it’s been a while), but I love veggie sausages, seitan, and impossible burgers.

            Not a big fan of the faux-turkeys, but then again, I was never a huge fan of turkey. It always seemed like a drier, less flavorful chicken that took FOREVER to cook.

        6. metadata minion*

          Hah, I get the same thing from being a librarian. In the stores I go to most often, I probably *can* tell you where the lemon juice is, but I often have to restrain myself from asking if I can help people who look lost, since I probably can’t actually help them.

          1. Tammy 2*

            Former librarian ringing in. I have:
            *been asked for directions in cities I am visiting, multiple times in different cities

            *had someone try to report me to a manager at Target because I said I didn’t know where something was and then continued my shopping without helping further (I did happen to be wearing a red shirt, but come on–I had my purse, a full cart, and was wearing flip flops)

            *Had this exchange at Trader Joe’s:
            Her: Where are the pine nuts?
            Me: Oh, I’m not sure. If they had them they’d be with the nuts and trail mix.
            Her boyfriend: Honey, she doesn’t work here.
            Her: Well she LOOKS like she does. (Reader, no, I was not wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

            *Actually helped people find things in grocery stores and bookstores on more occasions than I can count, but the phrase, “You look like you know where the Hamburger Helper is” stands out in my memory.

            1. talos*

              I have been asked for directions, multiple times in one day, in foreign cities, in the language spoken in those cities, which I do not fluently speak.

              And I’ve never worked retail or library jobs in my life! I don’t know what it is about me.

              1. Me, I think*

                My partner has had this happen in Central Europe, as their family came from there a couple of generations ago and they look like they could be a local.

            2. The OG Sleepless*

              I’ve been asked “should I get this or that” multiple times in the wine aisle and the baking aisle. Which are both things I’m reasonably knowledgeable about. I guess I just gave off that vibe.

            3. Humble Schoolmarm*

              This is enlightening! I used to get asked where to find thing in retail stores all the time when I worked at the library. It doesn’t happen nearly so much now that I’m a teacher lol!

            4. Yoyoyo*

              I have since shed this but I used to have “resting social worker face” which would prompt people to not only ask me for help with practical things but to also dump their deep, dark secrets and delusional thoughts on me after knowing me for a matter of seconds (no, I had not disclosed my profession).

            5. Not One of the Bronte Sisters*

              In my defense, my boyfriend and I once checked into a motel and he was starving and he wanted a restaurant with a full bar. So I said to a rather nosy fellow guest, “Patty, you look like you know where there’s a good bar!” And she did!

            6. Chirpy*

              There’s something specific about Target shoppers. I once got absolutely badgered by a lady who insisted I must work there…I was wearing a gray jacket zipped all the way up specifically because I did have a red shirt on underneath. She saw that tiny bit of red and *would not* back down.

              I may have even had a giant purse with me, because I did work in a different store and knew you pretty much needed all the “I am currently not clocked in and am shopping for myself” visual cues to be able to shop in peace.

          2. Derry Girl*

            Have done the eager librarian in a few places where I spotted people looking lost asking’ Can I help you?’ Difficultly was, I didn’t work there (it wasn’t always in a library) and hadn’t a clue either. …

          3. NurseThis*

            My spouse has a spectrum disorder which manifests in an astonishing desire to help people in the grocery store or hardware store. I just can’t do it, 3 minutes in the store I want out. But he could assist for hours.

        7. Adult ADHDer*

          I was browsing in the clothing section in Target when a woman approached me and asked if the dress she was holding came in a larger size. I had no idea why she was asking me that, so I looked at her strangely and said “I don’t know, maybe?” She got snippy and said “I’m asking you a question. Can you go look for a larger size, please?” I said “why would I want to help you with your shopping?” and walked away.

          A few minutes later, the woman came up with a manager in tow. She pointed at me and said “that’s the person who refused to help me! You need to coach her on customer service!” The manager looked at me, frowned, and said “ma’am, I can’t do that.” She said “why not? Doesn’t Target care about customer service? Are you going to let your employees be rude?” And the manager looked at her and said “well, no, but she doesn’t actually work here.”

          That’s when it occurred to me that I was wearing a red shirt and khaki pants. She thought I was an employee.

          1. I Super Believe In You, Tad Cooper*

            This is brilliant. Also, after reading all these stories, I am going to have Hey, I Don’t Work Here by Tom Cardy stuck in my head for hours.

        8. Lucien Nova, Disappointing Australian*

          I was just about to ask how this would apply to me, since I’ve never worked retail and people are always asking me where things are. And then I remembered, I did work retail in high school, helping my mum at a charity shop she worked at…

          I lean into it anymore, though, because I have a very strange memory for where items are. People’s faces? Heck naw. Faceblind to the max, I’ve not recognised my own parents in stores before. But if you need to know where an item is, chances are excellent I’m your guy.

          …It does amuse the workers at the pharmacy though, because they’re the ones who most often get to see this interaction play out.

        9. Snoozing not schmoozing*

          Until I got too old and looked it, I always got stopped in grocery stores by random customers asking where things were, and how to cook the item. My husband would keep an eye out and push our cart between me and anyone approaching. I have never worked retail or food service in my life

      2. Throwaway Account*

        I had a public library job where 1 minute late was late and 4 lates in a year had you in HR explaining yourself. I still have not recovered from all the toxicity at that job.

    2. Jules*

      Similarly, my first office job was as a receptionist in a law firm, so it took awhile in the next job to realize I could get up from my desk whenever I needed to and not wait for someone to cover the phone.

      1. Industry Behemoth*

        Understood. I once did a temp receptionist job – only one day, fortunately – at a construction office where it was clear they had no relief arrangement.

        So I asked another employee to “watch the door” for a bit while I went to the restroom. He said, “What if the phone rings?”

        1. Dawn*

          I did a brief stint in security, and I was working on a mall construction project; one night the workers had to bring stuff in through one of the main entrances and so they stationed me on that door to make sure only the workers were coming through.

          And it went on. And on. And ON. And I typically started my night shift with a large cup of coffee, because, no shit I did. And the inevitable happened.

          So I radioed up to the actual mall security (we were an outside contractor specifically for the construction) and they were shocked that I needed someone to cover me long enough to pee. I asked if they’d prefer I went in the doorway, because one way or another, it was happening whatever their feelings. They got someone down there pretty quickly after that.

    3. Alexander Graham Yell*

      Almost the opposite – a few years ago I worked on a team that had a biiiiiig screen at the front of our room. We could show 8 different images at any one time, or combine them into 2 big pictures (side by side).

      So one day I’m alone in the room (most people were on vacation) and this guy walks in and we start chatting about work, about the screen, about the Olympics and how fun it had been to have Euro cup playing on the screens and the Tour de France and I joked that what we really needed to do was grab some beer out of the closet and do a big movie night since it was slow. He laughed, and we kept chatting for a few minutes and then he had to go.

      He came in the next week and introduced himself this time – he was the new global head of operations for my company. I was MAYBE one rung up from the bottom. Two if we’re being generous. I absolutely, positively, under NO circumstances would have joked about that and talked about occasionally getting caught up in the sports during work hours if I had known.

      2. Nina*

        One of my coworkers at a past job got extremely plastered at a company party (normal, we were a tech company of sorts) and spent about ten minutes complaining to someone he’d just met about how our location didn’t have a coffee machine, we felt really left out, how were we expected to do good work without a coffee machine, purchasing had turned down our coffee machine multiple times… you get the idea. Finally thinks to say ‘so what do you do here?’
        The COO introduced himself, and we had a coffee machine the next week.

      3. Jane Anonsten*

        I had to give a “safety moment” at a department meeting when I was a few weeks into my first post-university job. It was almost Halloween, so I said something about watching out for kids on the way home from work on the 31st. This other guy who I’d not met added that we should all practice extra diligence because there’d recently been a major storm and many people had their debris piles near their driveways waiting for pickup, which also makes it difficult to see kids. I said “that’s a great point! I didn’t even bribe him to say that.”

        My boss introduced me to him after the meeting…he was the department director, her grandboss, and known to not have a sense of humor.

    5. MigraineMonth*

      Different circumstances, but my first professional job had a really punitive approach to mistakes. My current job doesn’t, but I still have an overblown emotional reaction when I realize I’ve made a mistake, even when my current boss is like, “Yeah, that happens.”

  96. Brooklynlite*

    I was a Kindergarten classroom assistant at an elementary school during my senior year of college. One day during lunch in the teacher’s lounge, an aid for slightly older students started talking to me about my class. She remarked that I had the most adorable kids in the building. To which I replied, “Yes they’re so cute I want to kidnap them.” Note to self: do not even jokingly refer to kidnapping kids when you’re a teacher (actually ever). She gave me a raised eyebrow but then realized I was 20 and not a danger to students, just in desperate need of a filter.

  97. BookThief*

    I worked in a library and I was helping the librarian archivist with a display up near the circulation desk on the main library floor. I went to move the glass shelf and the hooks in the back didn’t settle in right, so the top glass shelf I was moving fell and hit the shelf below it, which hit the shelf below that one, which hit the one below that one, with just a continued sound of shattering glass while everyone, students, staff, looked up and stared at me the whole time it was happening, which was probably only seconds, but felt like an hour!

    And we weren’t allowed to clean up the glass ourselves, so Maintenance had to be called and it was a whole thing! The librarian was very sweet about it and tried to make me not feel like an idiot, but I still did anyway! Ever since, though, I never let go of a display shelf until I’m 100% certain it is latched correctly in the back! Lesson learned!

  98. Art3mis*

    I was in a large town hall type meeting with several hundred other employees. The executive giving the presentation was going on about sales and revenue and whatnot and said something along the lines of “So sales are up. Revenue is up. But what isn’t up?” Then he paused. I said, I thought, quietly and under my breath, “Raises” and apparently not quietly enough because EVERY HEAD IN THE ROOM whipped around to look at me. My coworker sitting next to me started snorting and giggling. I’m certain the executive heard me, but he didn’t acknowledge that I’d said anything. He just started talking again and everyone re-focused on him as if nothing happened. I’m sure I was beet red and I covered my face and whispered, “OMG I did not mean to say that so loudly.” The person on the other side of me, who I didn’t know, said, “It’s OK we were all thinking it.”

  99. Cranjis McBasketball*

    A few months after I started my last job, my husband’s grandmother passed away. I took bereavement leave and travelled for the funeral, and the CFO sent flowers. Shortly after, my husband met me at work. This would be his first time meeting everyone. I introduced him to the CFO and the following conversation ensued:

    CFO: You’re her husband?
    Husband: Yes I am.
    CFO: My condolences.
    Me: (jaw drop)

    I mean, I knew what he meant, but still… at least we got a good laugh out of that!

  100. SpecialSpecialist*

    I was in a Teams meeting with our parent organization about some project we were in the middle of. I was getting super irritated with the person doing most of the talking, and IM’d a work friend who was also in the meeting and said, “I want to throw Jane out the window.” Then my friend screen shared to show the group something in the system we were working in, but she shared her whole screen, not just the window with the system screen. Guess what else was shared with the entire group? Yep….

  101. SnoozeTheDay*

    My very first job out of college and I was trying my best to dress professionally (skirts, heels, etc.). I was wearing a nice skirt, heels and blouse, walking into the building when my heel caught and I went tumbling down the stairs, skirt flew up over my head and our male HR lead was walking toward the stairs from about 8 feet away. He said absolutely nothing about my superhero underoos, and instead helped me up and helped me inside and got me bandaids for my injuries.
    I never did wear those shoes again.

  102. anon computer nerd*

    In college (late 90s), I interviewed with almost 30 companies during my senior year, trying to land a job offer. In one, the interviewer asked me, “What motivates you?” and my mind. went. blank. Utterly blank. I responded, “I can’t think of anything.” The interview ended shortly after that, and I did not get an offer from that company. In fact, even though it was a good economy and every company was hiring anyone with a smidgen of computer science experience for Y2K, I only got one job offer. I’m convinced it’s because I interview terribly. I have so many good answers for that question now, but I haven’t been asked it since that interview.

  103. Patriarchy is wild*

    One time, someone had set a beautiful flowering plant (jasmine, I think?) on the corner filing cabinet where cookies and candies for sharing went. I was like wow, someone is giving this away! So I took it. A while later, a colleague came in to my office and politely informed me that that was not sitting there as a “free to a good home” plant, it was just sitting there because it belonged to the person with the nearest desk and that’s where the plant fit. I apologized, of course, but this was ~10 years ago and I am still mortified when I think about how I stole my perfectly nice coworker’s plant.

  104. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

    I worked my way through college as a hockey referee.

    I had been doing the job for 2+ years. I didn’t grow up on the ice like most of the players and other refs; I had really learned to skate on the job my sophomore year, and had progressed to the point where I wasn’t a liability. Passable. Decent. Competent… under normal circumstances.

    My Saturday shift was supposed to end at 4:00 pm (this is all IIRC). I had five broomball games from 7pm-10pm game to return to later. None of the refs showed up for the 4-7 pm shift and I got talked into staying until the rink manager could find replacements. Normally, broomball and ladies’ hockey (sexist double standards duly noted) had 1 ref, sorority hockey, lads’ broomball and lads’ hockey had 2, and fraternity hockey had a full team of 3 refs. The 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm games were all fraternity hockey.

    I made it through 3 fifty-five games that were more WWF than NHL. I stopped counting the fights and brawls when I hit double-digits. I had to go through the complete progression on at least two dozen players (2 minute minor, 4 minute double-minor, 5 minute major, match, ejection). And somehow, these guys whose diets were more dead-cheap beer than real food actually had some speedy skaters, so in between the melées, I was doing dead sprints from goal-line to goal-line to try to keep actual score.

    Not a single reinforcement came. I made it through, on adrenaline, willpower, and caffeine. I just didn’t realize how much it’d taken out of me, how shot my nerves were, how badly I’d overwound myself, and how on edge I was at that point. I went back to the smaller rink at 7pm to work my broomball shift… and completely melted down. I was gripping the whistle so tight that I mangled it and had to replace it the next day before my shift. I called the tightest games you’d ever see, even ejected one of my close friends for trying to talk some sense into me (we had some good laughs about it later once I delivered a heartfelt culpa mea to him). It got so bad that both my supervisor and my grandboss, who never came down to the ground floor during their workdays, came to check on me (and talk some sense into me afterwards). Refs who wouldn’t come work the games came in instead to watch me lose it. The last game was a no-show and the scorekeeper locked me out on the ice to cool down (metaphorically and literally).

    And my parents were in the front row, witnessing it all, the only shift of my entire college career they were able to attend and watch me work on the ice.

    1. ferrina*

      Former ref here (not hockey) and you have my heart-felt condolences. That is tough.

      The (dubious) up-side is if you can manage a series of games like that, customer service no longer holds any terror.

      1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        The aftermath was mainly positive.

        I don’t remember either of my parents ever criticizing my work ethic after that (they both felt I didn’t throw myself into schoolwork vigorously enough and weren’t shy about making sure I knew of their disapproval).

        Grandboss reviewed the game logs on Monday (instead of the original schedule) and changed multiple policies; after that, trying to extend the current ref during a no-show became the last resort instead of the first option.

        I did end up off the schedule for a week, but they still paid me for a normal schedule. It was my first PTO ever. I fell down three flights on stairs a few weeks later, which messed up one of my ankles. That took a few years to heal as much as it could, so my days as a thoroughbred ref were over.

        Close friend and I stayed close. It was very gradual, but I came to accept the advice better in time. Close friend was even in my bridal party.

        Finally, I learned/admitted a few things about myself–I ramp up better than down over the short run and I need the reins more than the spurs.

        As my first mentor would have put it, it was an experience and learning opportunity.

  105. Delta Delta*

    I was a brand-new, freshly-minted, fresh-faced public defender. I was sent to court one day to handle emergency bail hearings. With all the confidence and swagger I could muster, I went into a holding cell with a person accused of a laundry list of Very Bad Crimes. This person also had a very long rap sheet, and likely could chew up and spit out an inexperienced lawyer. Not wanting to let on that I was intimidated or new, I confidently walked in and introduced myself. I set my files on the ground and talked to him. The holding cell was a cavern of cement, and was very prone to echo. When we were finished talking, I crouched down to pick up my files and heard a very loud ripping noise. Because of the echo, the sound bounced around and was unmistakably the sound of ripping fabric. I had no idea where the rip happened, so I actually had to turn around and ask my client to look at my rear end and tell me if my pants were ripped. He, uncomfortably, looked at my bottom and told me my pants were fine. Turns out it was the lining inside the pants.

    I have since run into him in the community and he yelled out, “rip!” We both laughed because that’s really all you can do at that point.

  106. Casual Observer*

    I used to work in a kitchen store where we sold high-end cookware. I was stationed at the customer desk that day to help customers with any questions. A customer called to inquire about a special order he had placed recently. This man a frequent customer, so we knew each other well enough that we made a bit of small talk after I had answered his question. Another customer started to approach me at the desk so I signaled to the man on the phone I had to go. He told me to have a good day, and I responded with, “Love you, you too.” I didn’t know what to do so I just hung up.

    The next time he came into the store was when he came to pick up his special order a couple weeks later. Neither of us mentioned the incident and I thought maybe he forgot all about it until he was about to leave. I told him to have a nice day and he responded, “What, no ‘love you’ this time? I’m hurt.” I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

  107. Joyce to the World*

    I had a magical color changing dress shirt. Think blue that turned bright pink in areas where your body temp was warmer. I made the mistake of wearing it to an interview. So embarrassing to have hot pink arm pits and chest area. However, I did not get rid of the shirt. Several years later I had another interview and forgot the color change and wore the same shirt again! I got rid of that shirt as soon as I got home.

  108. yep*

    I’m the GM of a small media company. I was walking down the hallway past an open door where an informal live shot was being filmed. I tripped on air and landed flat on my face. The way they were shooting the live spot, you just all of a sudden saw me flying face first through the air, and then I popped up, and my face was perfectly framed in the shot. It was hilarious and lives on in the video. I was not injured, well, maybe my pride.

  109. Dawn*

    Oh I have a fantastic one this time around.

    Up until recently, I worked for a major major corporation. Like nobody in Canada doesn’t know our parent company, and probably a fair number of Americans as well. It’s that big.

    So last year, I got a new colleague; she came in at the same time as our seasonal associates, doing the same job as they did. I was often a trainer/resource for the newer people, and… let’s say, Artemis and I got along really well, especially when I found out she was staying long-term.

    So one day, a few months after her hire, she and I were chatting socially, outside of work, and our parent company had just made some unpleasant announcements, and had to answer some tough questions from the country’s politicians, not to mention the slagging-off they were taking in the press. And Artemis makes a joke about how she’s going to take Zeus’ – the CEO of our parent company’s – job.

    And I made some crack about, “Oh, you don’t want Zeus’ job. Nobody does. You have to be some kind of psychopath to do that job, going in front of the press and telling them you’re laying off 5,000 people.” And she replies, “Ohh, but he’s such a sweetheart! I love Zeus, he’s a cutie-pie.”

    Me: “Ohhhhhhhhh shit. You’re related to him, aren’t you?”

    Her: “Uh. You’re not supposed to know this, but he’s my uncle.”

    Dear reader, while my attempts to sink into the ground were ultimately unsuccessful, I really did give it my best shot.

  110. Petty Betty*

    Worked with an older guy who really didn’t understand how he sounded. A few memorable things he said during his time with me (I was hired prior to him, and he was fired before I left):

    During a gift exchange: “oh! Women love vibrating things!” when one woman opened up an over-the-office-chair back massager.

    When told he “butt-dialed” someone: “… but my phone was in my front pocket…” I quickly started telling people to just say he “pocket dialed” instead. He never did learn to lock his phone.

  111. Kettle Belle*

    At one of my earlier jobs I worked in an open office and we dealt with a lot of employee files. One of the newbies came in and asked one of the workers if he had a “Johnson”. We all got a good laugh out of that one–including the Newbie.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      First programming job, I had a coworker–not quite a peer, not quite a senior–who was a little uncouth. We composed our own test data, and he liked to fill his with the names of fictitious adult entertainers. I got the impression QC tolerated it because they were giving him rope. I don’t think Management knew.

      He accidentally sent test data to a client at least once. The CSR for that account liked working with me. In the middle of a conversation, the phone rang; he excused himself, answered the call, and almost immediately went deathly pale. It was a Vice President of a Fortune 500 bank, deathly concerned that there might be a Mr. Peter “Twelve-Inch” Johnson in their live data file.

      The poor CSR was mortified, the programmer was mortified during the resulting meeting (it counted as a quality-score hit and a strike towards unemployment), and the rest of us were mortified by association. The programmer left the job and went to a competitor the following month.

      1. metadata minion*

        Ok, this is why our default test patron is Clark Kent. (Whoever made his record spent a hilarious amount of time figuring out what books Clark might have checked out; it delights me.)

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, I’ve had too much fun with test data at times (the X-men, Buffy characters, etc), but I’ve never considered using any test data for my work that was NSFW. *shakes head*

        2. Pixel*

          I do software technical support, and my default test org is The Avengers, with appropriate address, nonsense phone number, etc. One of my co-workers asked me once why I bother with details and hey, if a client wants to go clean up their database, if they don’t by now know that “Dr. Bruce Banner” with an e-mail address of “hulk@avengers.org” is not a real person, that’s on them.

        3. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          Once I got feeling halfway comfortable in the job, QC started to describe my test data as “Great Figures in Roman History.” After a trip to the library.

  112. ggg*

    Making small talk with colleague who mentioned having just returned from a place most people would think of as a vacation area (i.e. Maui, Bahamas…). Oh, that sounds fun, I said, without thinking. Not fun — apparently a relative lived there and had had a medical scare.

    That is not even the mortifying part — about a year later I had basically this same conversation, with the same person, whose relative had just passed away.

  113. pally*

    Interviewing *with multiple people!* with a blouse unbuttoned and opened wide at the bust (close fitting blouse).

    Did not detect until after I’d left the facility. No one said anything either.

    No, did not get the job.

    1. Magnus Archivist*

      I have done this. Fortunately I realized when I popped into the bathroom just after the introductions in the lobby but before the full panel interview.

    2. EllenD*

      In my 30s, I had a rather nice dark blue satin sheen blouse, which looked great, but for some reason the buttons would come undone. I only realised this after a meeting, when walking down the street I realised buttons were undone and I was flashing my bra at everyone. A colleague then said it had happened during the meeting and others had noticed. I always wore a camisole under that blouse in the future!!! It was a nice blouse, shame about the buttons.

      1. KateM*

        I had some that I had fixed with a safety pin on the inside and kept that pin there permanently.

        1. Betty*

          I’ve done that, and I’ve also sewn up buttonholes from one end to make them a little smaller. It’s no fun when your buttons don’t stay buttoned.

        2. MigraineMonth*

          I have done that to one of my favorite shirts with a wraparound-style neckline so it will stop flashing my bra at everyone.

  114. ADD*

    I don’t have a good story to share, but I need to note that I was following the links to previous years’ posts, and got to the one about the “Raisins Walk to the Moon,” and I have literal TEARS in my eyes from laughing so hard.

  115. Nat20*

    One time I got mostly dressed for my shift at a hotel front desk except for my shoes, and slupped on my ratty flip flops just to let the dog out for a quick walk. It was summer and hot so I didn’t want to put socks and shoes on for as long as possible. I got all the way to work (40 minute drive) before realizing I was still wearing the flip flops. Full uniform for a nice resort lodge, and toes exposed.

    Fortunately my manager thought it was hilarious and knew I lived too far away to go back and change, so she told me to just stay behind the desk as much as possible that day. Got a lot of funny looks from coworkers, though.

  116. still beet-red with shame*

    I was new to Zoom midway through the pandemic, where I pivoted from a performance career to a production career (for obvious reasons.)

    In my naivety, I made speedily all three of the following errors:
    – Was unknowingly the host of the dial-in session for the voiceover recording with an incredibly well-known and wonderful actress, and when told by my producer I could “hop off”, shut down the entire session for everyone. (Reloading and restarting was the longest 45 seconds of my life.)
    – Called in to a high-level marketing meeting while walking to work, tripped, and in a brief pause between bigwigs said an audible “…….shit!”
    – In the piece de resistance, baby-talked my new puppy out of chewing on my clothes in a review of 100+ animators, department heads, and production team (“Oh no you don’t, oh no you don’t, Puppy, leave my sweater alone, yes please thank you, leave my sweater alone, thank you thank you sweetums!”)

    1. Erin*

      I accidentally shouted “Oh, don’t you do it!” during a conference call, talking to my dog, who was acting like he was about to start barking during the kids’ nap time.

      Significant pause, and then I rushed to explain and mute myself. Horrifying.

    2. I Have RBF*

      One time I was in a Zoom call at what was then a new job, waiting for it to start, and somehow got defaulted to unmuted, which I was NOT aware of. A commotion was happening outside my home office, so I yelled out “What the fuck is going on out there?” My boss very drily said “RBF, you’re not muted.” I quickly muted. I subsequently set my Zoom to default muted when joining a meeting.

  117. Mags*

    (This is a friend’s story but for clarity I’ll use first person)

    I was taking a medication that was VERY helpful 99% of the time but made me VERY nauseous 1% of the time. One day I could feel the nausea coming, so I quickly made my way to the bathroom when a coworker named Velma stopped me. We did NOT get along and everyone knew it. Velma would not let me end the conversation and even scolded me for coming into work when I told her I didn’t feel well. I could feel my stomach rioting so I put my hand over my mouth just in case…

    Have you ever been watering the garden and put your thumb over the end of the hose?

    There was yelling, then Velma contracted a medical waste company to incinerate her clothes, then there was an invoice for the incineration plus the cost of the clothes, then an HR investigation, then threats of legal action, then I quit and relocated to Alaska. It was just easier at that point.

    1. EllenD*

      A former boss told a story of when he wasn’t feeling well and heading for the men’s loos on another floor and met in the stairwell a colleague who was notorious for sucking up to the bosses and starting talking to him. Despite former boss saying he needed to go, suck-up continued to block way and talk at him. Former boss couldn’t wait and was sick on suck-up’s shoes. Some thought it appropriate and hoped suck -up might learn a lesson to let people go.

  118. Hummingbird Saltalamacchia*

    Once while working at an investment firm I passed the conference room’s wall of windows and noticed that several employees looked at me then hurriedly looked away. It became very clear when I reached the breakroom and realized my dress was completely caught on my tights and hiked around my waist in the back. We were only an office of 8 people so literally the whole office saw my kite-patterned undies.

  119. AX1*

    I once described a coworker as “randy” thinking that it meant mischievous or fun.

    Reader, it does not.

  120. Nesprin*

    My grand-boss, my intern, and my poorly potty trained dog all share a name (say Sam). I stated to my coworkers that I was late one day because Sam shat the bed.

    I had to explain on that no, my intern was doing fine, and neither I was not insubordinate about my grandboss’s new policies.

  121. Methodologist*

    My first briefing as an intelligence analyst in 2011 is still talked about as an example of what not to do. I sat across the table from a senior decision-maker who was tapping away on a laptop. As I was going into my briefing, he would respond back with one word acknowledgments of what I was saying and not look up from his laptop much. In the middle of my talk I paused and asked “do you understand?” in a slow manner.

    People in the room started gasping and whispering amongst themselves. The decision-maker just looked up and said “yeah yeah” and continued typing.

    Afterward, I was made an example of and told to never do that again and to find alternative language such as “how does this sound to you so far?”

    Fortunately, I survived and my reputation in the field is much better today.

  122. Suzzee*

    Years ago my current boyfriend and I used to and our phone calls with “love you”. I accidentally said that when ending a call with a colleague. Luckily he laughed and realized it was just an automatic response. Still cringey. a great grandson

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      I once nearly told a student I loved them. He’d made some really clever point in class with this type of humour he had and I replied with, “see, this is why I love y…um, teaching this class.”

      Telling a 15 year old student I loved him might not have been the most appropriate.

  123. Sonja Henie’s tutu*

    As a keen 18 year old in my first summer job I answered the phone for a highly cultured and glamorous employer. One day her husband phoned and I happily told him that she’d gone to use the toilet and he should call back in a few minutes. Later that day she called me in to her office and said that when she was not available I could tell people she had stepped away for a moment, and then offer to take a message. I blushed… By the end of the summer I had learned a lot about workplace norms from her.

    1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      I was once a receptionist and my desk was across from the bathroom, so I knew when one of the directors of the non-profit I worked at was in there. Almost immediately after she went in, an outside vendor, who was at an apartment building inspecting it, called for her. I knew enough to say she was “in a meeting” and would call him back shortly. I didn’t expect her to be in the bathroom for too long. He kept calling back, even more and more exasperated and demanding that I interrupt her “meeting” so he could do whatever work he needed. There is no way- then and now- that I would interrupt someone in the bathroom unless the building was on fire or some other drastic emergency. Finally, after the fourth or fifth call (to his credit, it was like, 40 minutes), I exclaimed, “SHE IS IN THE BATHROOM I AM NOT GETTING HER RIGHT NOW.” He apologized, but wasn’t happy about the situation.

    2. ICodeForFood*

      This reminds me… Early in my career I was the only employee in a small graphic arts shop. I knew enough to say something like “He’s away from his desk right now,” when I took a call while my the owner was in the bathroom. But he was such a character that one day, when he came back from the rest room and I told him that so-and-so had called, and that I’d told so-and-so that Boss was away from his desk, Boss and I spent the rest of the afternoon riffing on what euphemisms I could use in such a situation. The one I remember him suggesting was, “I’m sorry, he’s taking a mean dump right now!”

  124. mabel pines*

    My first job as a teenager was at a bookstore, and on Saturday mornings we would have character meet-and-greets along with storytime in the children’s section. I was drafted to wear a Spot the Dog (of “Where’s Spot?” fame) costume to meet kids one morning. It was hot in those costumes and you couldn’t wear much underneath them, so I was sent into the manager’s office alone to change into the big fuzzy outfit. I spent a long time struggling to wrangle myself into the suit and put on the head and at last I finally proudly came out into the break room as Spot. Tada!

    Dead silence, and then my coworkers burst out laughing. Someone said, “I don’t think the kids are ready to learn about that yet!”

    I put the costume on backwards. Spot’s tail was . . . proudly sticking up in the front.

    To add injury to insult, once I had the costume on properly and went out to greet the kids, the person who was supposedly to be guiding me through the crowd left me alone in a sea of knee-high toddlers. You can’t see much of anything in those costumes. I then proceeded to run into a small child that was invisible to me.

    I was Spot the pervy toddler-kicking dog.

    1. Meow*

      I had to wear a Giraffe costume for Toys R Us one time. If you were too tall, you couldn’t fit into the costume. I was a little too short, and I couldn’t hold the neck up, but we were short on short people that day, so I agreed to give it a shot while someone led me. It was halloween, and a little girl wearing a giraffe costume of her own ran up and gave me a big hug. I leaned forward to hug her back, and the head sagged down and booped the poor girl on the head! Her mom covered for me, saying, “Oh, look, Geoffrey gave you a kiss!”, so I must not have hurt her too bad, but I felt so terrible. They never put me in the costume again after that, despite the fact it was so hard to find people to do it…

      1. mabel pines*

        Ha! Those costumes are a menace.

        My 5 year old daughter’s best friend went to Disneyland on a very hot day. It was so hot that the characters couldn’t be out in costume. Her parents told her the characters must be hiding. She came back and told this to my daughter, who now thinks that Disneyland is a giant open-air game of hide and seek with princesses. She can’t wait to go.

        1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

          This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.

          I’m 44 and now kind of want to go to Disney to play hide and seek with princesses.

  125. BurgerOfTheDay*

    In my first job out of college at a huge international company, there was one day where I had to set up for a big off-site (local to me, just a different location) meeting with some VP-level execs flying in and presenting. “Set up” meant “come in early, plug in the laptop, and test the PowerPoint,” but I was young and just very nervous to be around all these important people.

    On my way in, I got a coffee at the Starbucks drive-thru and treated myself to a chocolate chip cookie to eat on the way. They asked if I wanted it warmed up, and I said no, because of course I didn’t want to risk embarrassing myself with a melted chocolate stain.

    So I arrive at the off-site, get out of my car, and on my car seat I see a brown streak. I twist around as far as I can to look at the back of my pants. Identical brown streak, the result of a single rogue chocolate chip.

    Okay, it’s early. Very early, but not early enough to go home for new pants. No one’s here yet. I rush inside, find the nearest bathroom, and take off my pants, standing there in a nice button-down, dress shoes, and my boxers. I wash the stain out very carefully, making sure not to get the pants completely wet, successfully remove the stain, and start drying the wet spot under the hand dryer.

    Then someone walks in. In one smooth motion, this person saunters into the bathroom, sees me standing in my underwear in a bathroom drying the back of my pants, locks eyes with me, turns on his heel, and walks straight back out. I don’t know what he thought had happened. But I know what I would have thought. And I hope that he does not think about this moment as often as I do.

    For some reason, and I’m not ruling out subconscious self-sabotage, this is one of my favorite funny stories to tell people (not at work, just in general). Thankfully, I do not often get the opportunity.

    1. My Brain is Exploding*

      If it makes you feel any better, I would have just assumed you sat in something awful (especially if it was clear that the boxers were clean0!

  126. Green Goose*

    I taught English in South Korea, and my first two years I taught 1:1 classes to Korean adults, mostly people in the banking industry because my branch was in a neighborhood with lots of big banks. My classroom was a small office with two chairs facing a big computer screen and it was mostly conversational English for people that worked with international staff/clients or people who were planning to move to an English speaking country.

    Here are two incidents that happened in 2009/2010.

    Patty’s Day
    I was talking with one of my students about the upcoming Saint Patrick’s Day weekend and he asked me what Saint Patrick’s Day was. I described the green beer and parades but felt like I wasn’t painting an accurate picture so I thought, oh I’ll do a Google image search for him so he can see pictures of the Chicago festival etc. I type in Saint Patrick’s Day and go directly to Google image…. It was a page full of drunk people getting arrested in leprechaun hats, barfing, but the very first image was a NSFW image of a woman with no shirt wearing keg taps as a bra. My student and I were both stunned for a second while I swiftly exited the page and tried to sputter that was NOT what I had in mind for my weekend.

    The Diarrhea
    One of my students was telling me about food poisoning he had gotten on his recent business trip and did not know the word for “diarrhea”, I cannot ever remember how to spell that word, I even just Googled it now, so back then I Googled the word so he knew it and knew the spelling and then we continued with our lesson. The computer fell asleep as we spoke.
    My next student was extremely fluent in English, and we sat down at the start of class, I asked them how they were and “woke up” my computer. On the large screen the headlines blared
    “Do I have diarrhea?” “Symptoms of diarrhea” “Is diarrhea contagious”. As my student looked concerned I had to sputter through “Oh, it wasn’t for me, I was googling it for someone else!”

  127. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

    Pushed a website update that added some new people to the “about us” page… with the worst possible typo for “Cynthia.”

    Hint: note the letter to the immediate right of the Y on a standard QWERTY keyboard.

    Luckily I caught and fixed it before anyone noticed. At least, I didn’t get Talked To about it. And I learned to spellcheck certain names and words extra extra carefully.

    2. Someone stole my croissant*

      I remember from my elementary school days, my teacher started to write the word associate on the whiteboard. A kid interrupted to ask a question, so she stopped writing to answer. That was when the principal walked in and saw her partially written word, which brought up a few questions. She then made it a rule to always finish every word she wrote.

      1. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

        OH NO

        Yes, “associate” and “assistant” are two words we learn very quickly to be careful about abbreviating, lol. There are people walking around with name badges that say “Ass. Manager” on them but they are not my doing and shall never be.

          1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

            Have seen on presentations: County with no “o,” Public with no “l,” and “budget shits” instead of “budget shifts” (although the former wasn’t actually inaccurate given our financial situation).

    4. All things considered, I'd rather be a dragon*

      Also, when you’re typing “possible”, the i is next to the o.

      1. Walk on the Left Side*

        I legit just stared at this for way too long wonder what’s wrong with “possoble”…

  128. Knighthope*

    Our Area Assistant Superintendent of our very large school system and I (classroom teacher) were collaborating on his doctoral research. Seated at my computer, I gestured just as he took a step, causing me to brush his fly. 30 years later, I can still recall the feel of the fabric. Eek!

  129. Rook Thomas*

    This is pretty low stakes . . . but I work in a public library and was on the Reference Desk when one of my colleagues from the cataloging department came up to show me and my team member some new puppets. It was quiet (no patrons around), so I was happily making a new rabbit puppet do a little dance . . . when a patron then did walk up, who needed help finding some books. I quickly removed said rabbit from my hand and smiled, but could feel myself blushing. My colleague explained that “testing out” new puppets is something we do in the library.
    I could tell the guy was just trying not to laugh . . .

    1. Juicebox Hero*

      I’d completely love to walk into the library and see a dancing bunny puppet. In fact I’d want a turn playing with it.

      1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

        Amazon just delivered my new monkey puppet that I’m going to use when we play “Singing on a Star” at the ukulele concert next month. Some friends and I co-teach ukulele at a local Senior Center.
        One concert last year I wore a purple face mask and long gloves for “Flying Purple People Eater”.

  130. Lolli*

    I used to manage a small team that was part of a larger team. For my small team, I screened a movie (Apollo 13) a few years before. I am in IT and the troubleshooting after the disaster is very inspiring. Fast forward a few years and my boss asked me to plan something similar for a fun break for the team. I couldn’t think of anything really inspirational so I went with fun. I ultimately decided to screen the 70’s classic hit Airplane. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid and didn’t remember how NSFW it was. I am a woman and there are 3 other women on our team. Each of the other women decided to skip the movie and go back to work. I don’t think they knew how NSFW the movie was; they were just dealing with deadlines. There are racial stereotypes, physical violence, sexual content, and at one point, a nude woman stands in front of the camera during “turbulence” just bouncing all over the place. I was mortified and frankly worried I was going to end up in HR that afternoon. Luckily, everyone laughed and had a good time. I think it helps that I have been with the company for a long time and had a good reputation for not being inappropriate. Lessons learned: don’t show something you haven’t reviewed recently.

    1. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

      Oh lord, Airplane was one of my favorite movies as a kid and I had no idea how much just sailed right over my wee head back then…

      Me, age 6: haha the pilot is asking that kid weird questions that don’t make any sense, this is funny :D

      Me, an Adult: ……oh God

  131. Sjav12*

    In my first (and only, for reasons that will become clear) group interview, I misunderstood the assignment and immediately started answering the same question the first interviewee had answered. They let me finish and then the next person in line said “sorry, are we all answering the same question?” To which they said “no.” I did not get a second question and I did not get the job, but I did get 15 years of shame.

    1. allhailtheboi*

      Oh my goodness, reminds me of little 20 year old autistic me at her first ever job interview (a group interview). The interviewer asked us to each say a little bit about ourselves and I was first. I gave this little spiel about my life, and then when the next person started talking about their career, realised I had BADLY misunderstood the task.

  132. Cheri Littlebottom*

    Oh boy, mine was on live television!
    I’m a sound technician who has been working on television programmes – many big, high-profile and live – for more than 20 years.
    When I was still quite new, I was working on a famous UK charity fundraising television programme. During a live performance of’Any Dream Will Do’ from Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, the lead vocalist’s headset mic stopped working. Being keen, I ran in with a spare handheld mic. I switched it on as I ran in – except it already was on, so I actually switched it off. I handed it to the singer and got off set, when I heard from my supervisor that the spare mic wasn’t on. So I went back towards the set, where Joseph now had a ring of children dancing around him. I crouched down so that I wasn’t in the way of the camera shot, but I realised it must look like my head was now at crotch height… After what felt like an age, I managed to get on stage, take back the spare mic, switch it on and give it back to the singer, pretty much just as the song ended!
    The best bit was that later, the programme interviewed the host of the most popular breakfast radio show at the time, who said his favourite part of the programme was me!
    It’s still on YouTube, as far as know…

    1. Cute As Cymraeg*

      Oh noooooooo. I think I remember that!

      Also, love the username. I’m currently re-reading Thud! ahead of a certain convention…

  133. abreastofthesituation*

    I had just started a new job shortly after having my first child and had to pump in my office. I didn’t have the money to purchase an expensive, hands-free pump so I was using the free pump from my insurance that plugged into a wall and required my shirt/bra to be off if I didn’t have fancy nursing clothes on that day. I figured since I had a private, lockable office I should be able to pump privately without significant issue. I was wrong. Just to be safe, I had made a small sign that said “pumping, please do not disturb” to make sure no one thought I was ignoring them if I failed to respond to a knock. One afternoon while I was just finishing up pumping, I heard a knock at my door. I called out “I’m pumping right now, please come back later.” The person started jiggling the door handle. I experienced a rapid-fire roller coaster of emotions (panic- did I forget to lock the door? relief- thank goodness, the lock worked! back to horror- are those keys I hear jingling?). I could hear the person on the other side of the door so I knew they could hear me. I called out “do not come in here! I am pumping and I need privacy!” and for some reason, the response I got back was “it’s ok!” and they CONTINUED TO UNLOCK AND OPEN THE DOOR. In desperation I yelled at the top of my lungs “I AM NAKED AND IF YOU PUSH THAT DOOR OPEN FURTHER YOU WILL SEE MY BREASTS” as I rushed to try to throw my shirt back on. I caught a glimpse of an absolutely horrified young man in the doorway. After a minute of him freezing in shock, he slammed the door shut and I could hear him saying “oh my God, oh my God” as he ran down the hallway. The worst part? In my panicked rush, one of the containers of my milk spilled all over the room. And all of our cleaning supplies were stored in the Janitor’s office so I got to see my new little buddy almost immediately. I walked in to get some paper towels to find him shaking in the office, trying to explain to his boss what chaos he had just unleashed. Turns out he was a teenager who had only ever heard of pumping in the context of “pumping irons/working out” so he thought it would be fine to just pop in and talk to whoever was lifting weights in the office. The other worst part? My office hallway was (usually) a very quiet, peaceful place so my yelling attracted quite the crowd as people came running over to see what was wrong just in time for the door to be opened. I’m fairly confident all of my new coworkers saw me topless although they were kind enough to pretend they had not. About to have my second child in a month or two so we’ll have to see what happens this time around. Maybe I’ll push a desk in front of the door just to be safe! I asked my boss, who kindly suggested we order a large sign that says I AM NAKED AND YOU WILL SEE MY BREASTS IF YOU OPEN THIS DOOR although we may need to run that one by HR first!

    1. Love a Navy Blue Suit*

      Oh nooooo! Why did this guy think it was his prerogative to go around unlocking office doors in the first place?

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Especially since the person kept saying “don’t come in!” and “privacy please!” Take a damn hint, dude.

    2. ferrina*

      That teenager learned a very, very important lesson that day.

      And it’s very likely that he will never doubt the importance of ensuring that new mothers have a dedicated place to pump.

    3. Ellis Bell*

      I can sort of understand him not being familiar with what pumping is, but not understanding why there is a locked door and not being admitted when he knocks and how that works? Actually, I should know better what to expect. When I have a student taking an exam in an office, it’s against the rules to allow disruptions so I put a sign on the door saying “silence” and “exam in progress” and people (I’m talking adults as well as children) still think that includes knocking on the door and walking in! I use a rubber door wedge when I don’t have a key.

    4. A Significant Tree*

      Oh wow! That is the worst feeling, that the person on the other side of the door just isn’t listening to you and you’re about to be exposed to the world.

      I have a similar story, except the person trying to get into the dedicated mother’s room where I was actively pumping was *another pumping mother* who just wanted to dash in and grab her stuff from the fridge since she was going home. Of all the people you’d think would respect the posted reservation schedule, locked door, and ROOM IN USE signage! I was so upset that continuing to pump was a lost cause, so I just sat in there fuming for the rest of my scheduled time. And read her the riot act when I finally did leave.

  134. Fluffernutter*

    My roommate was in an online class and the class had just started. I was headed towards the bathroom and she asked, “Where are you going?”
    Me: The bathroom.
    Roommate: Don’t. I just pooped and it stinks.
    I laughed and walked towards my room. I hear a gasp and ask what’s up. She said she hadn’t put herself on mute yet so that exchange about poop was heard by the entire class. Thankfully the instructor just plowed through all interruptions.

  135. MKR*

    My first mass mailing at my first real job — in government. Had to notify approximately 1000 people about an action, about 700 affected in way A, maybe 300 affected in way B. Older cranky software, had to retype the letters to make the mail merges work (and also had to print and hand sign all of them. So keep in mind, ink signature, mine, on every letter.) I invited the 300 people in group B to a “pubic meeting.”

    (Was 26, and the person who let me know of the error was an editor at the local newspaper in that town.) It’s been 20+ years and I still feel it in my gut.

    1. CubeFarmer*

      I used to send out “public” hearing notices and write a lot about “public” records. I was so paranoid to make the same mistake that you did that I set Word to autocorrect “pubic” to “public.” I figured that it was a very safe bet that I would have zero reason to ever have “pubic” appear in a professional context.

      1. ferrina*

        I know several other people who have done the same thing. Or set it so that “pubic” is not a recognized word and gets caught by spellcheck.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      I used to work for a local newspaper and if it makes you feel better, that editor probably knew what it felt like to get corrections.

    3. Not Usually A Commenter*

      Along the same lines, I used to work in an on-campus office for students with disabilities, and a Communications professor was the one to point out that one of the accommodation letters we were sending out (for at least 5+ years) was letting them know they would have a “dead or hard of hearing” student in their class.

  136. metadata minion*

    Back when I did end-of-year billing, I once accidentally pasted the patron’s (very long) student number into the amounts field. Luckily when you accidentally bill someone for over $500k in library fines, the bursar’s office calls you right away and you apologize profusely and remove the charge, hopefully before the poor student ever saw it.

  137. HelenB*

    My employee was out with a headache one day and I sent a message to our group about that. Just after clicking send I saw that I had written “{Person} is home in bed with a migrant”.

    I could hear the chuckling before I had a chance to recall the message.

  138. Quinn81*

    I worked retail in the early aughts for a company that was known for using big name models in their catalog and not advertising in any other way. We would sometimes get the male models in the store to shop with their discount. One morning, when the store was completely dead, one of the models came through with his girlfriend. When they came downstairs to pay, my coworker and I raced each other to be the one to ring him up. I won by shoving my coworker into the sale section at the last second.

    The transaction was a mess from the beginning. I stumbled over my questions, bonked my head on the cash wrap when I had to pick up the scanning gun i dropped on the floor. Ripped the tissue paper and got the brand sticker stuck to myself multiple times. Finally when I had his clothes wrapped up, I noticed he had his messenger bag open on the counter. So I meant to ask “Do you want me to put these in your bag?”

    Instead I asked “Do you want to bag me?” My coworkers were diving into fitting rooms to laugh and my manager literally face planted into a pile of cashmere sweaters to cover his snorts. It was not my finest moment.

  139. Anon for this*

    I’ve shared this one before, so here goes.
    Back in the late ’90s, I worked for a staffing firm and we had exclusive contracts with some of the largest pharma companies in the area to provide their contingent staff. I was visiting one of my sites one day, and ducked into the ladies’ room before meeting with my employees. I did not realize that I had tucked the back of my skirt into my panty hose and was walking around with my bum exposed for all to see for a good 30 minutes before someone finally told me. I wanted to die.

  140. Em H*

    My workplace has a big culture of texting to connect with people quickly. I also send a text to my partner most days around mid-morning. You can see where this goes.

    I (twenty-something, female) texted our (sixty-something, male) Director of Facilities a sweet good morning text without realizing it.

    He was cool about it but I couldn’t make eye contact without blushing in embarrassment for at least a week. At least it was a pretty innocent text.

  141. kiki*

    This was a small embarrassment made mortifying by the fact I was brand new in a role and to a team. I had just begun a job that involves me leading a lot of team meetings in the tech sector. This was my first time leading a meeting after a week of onboarding and observing. I was sharing my screen and tried to copy and paste something, but somehow I didn’t actually copy the new thing I wanted and the last thing I had saved was the entire body of a soup recipe.

    So with my brand new team, we’re all just looking at a pasted two-page recipe for leek soup. I hit undo relatively quickly, but it was impossible not to notice this leek soup recipe was randomly on everyone’s screen. After a pause another teammate, who is a true homie, said, “well dish– is the soup good??”

  142. Jaina Solo*

    I was raised in religion and for some reason, the denomination I was raised in had the propensity to call youth group activities that happened after a church service an “afterglow.” At some point I learned what it meant to the rest of the world, but that incorrect use just stuck in my subconscious apparently.

    So one day at work, someone was like “we’ll have an after-meeting meeting” and I just said, without thinking, that we could call it an afterglow. The couple people that heard just laughed and made fun of it. I couldn’t really explain why I said that either b/c of their laughter so it went from mortifying to frustrating and mortifying.

    I’m assuming they didn’t think I meant to be appropriate but I’ve since left that job so we’ll never know.

    1. Lady_Lessa*

      I had to look it up, because the only place I’ve seen it used is in reference to an after concert party by a certain professional orchestra that I have season tickets to.

      But the meteorological pictures are great also.

  143. SnackAttack*

    Haha, I remember during the first month of my very first job out of college, I was making a phone call to someone who’d be providing some services for us. It went to voicemail, so I left a message describing what I wanted to talk about. I got to the end and was about to leave a number they could use to call me back, but I realized I didn’t actually know my office phone number. I ended up ending the message with “you can call me back at…uhhhhhh…..” and hanging up lol. I’ve gotten to the point where I can laugh about it now, but it was SO embarrassing at the time. I didn’t even call back to correct myself.

    1. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

      Haha omg, now you’re reminding me of the time I did this, twice! First time I completely forgot, second time, I noticed that our phones had your number in the corner, but didn’t realize that once you dialed someone else it just reflected your last four digits. So I just went “uhh call me back at mumble mumble 1234!!!”

  144. Love a Navy Blue Suit*

    Buckle up. One summer in college, I interned for a household name politician who was rarely in the office (due to frequent diplomatic trips, charity golf tourneys, etc). When he was due to be there in person for the first time that summer, my fellow interns and I pulled out all the stops to look Super Professional. It being the aughts, I picked up my first-ever suit from J.Crew, which was navy blue and had a 2″ cuff (turnups for you Brits) at the ankles.

    The big day arrives, and I choose to wear a white button-down shirt and then add some pErSoNaLiTy with hot pink accessories: a satin sash for a belt and patent leather, stiletto heels. [Point of reference: at my internship in a different industry the following summer, the head of HR referred to the same shoes as my “hooker heels.”] I get tons of compliments on the way to work, I’m working for an important person, and I am _feeeeeeling_ myself.

    Wanting to show off and check out my fellow interns’ lewks, I take the elevator to their floor, holding my boss’s keys (needed her key fob for access) and talking to someone on my super cool Motorolla Razr. When the door opens on the other floor, there’s a huge group of people standing right in the way. The fumes from my own ego cause me to make a strategic error, and rather than shuffling around the people, I take a Boss Bitch stride out of the elevator. One of my hot pink stilleto heels gets caught in the cuff of the opposite pantleg, and I fall — hard — into the crowd, unable to put out my hands due to the aforementioned keys and phone. Other people are knocked over, and my knees get so bashed up that I end up limping the rest of the week. Mortifying.

    But wait, there’s more. So the politician’s schedule changes and he ends up not coming into the office (thank God!). We interns decide to drink our disappointment away and head for the subway. I’m used to a lot of random people talking to me on the walk from the office to the train, but that day it’s more than usual and extra lascivious. When the gaggle of interns can’t agree on where we should go, I decide to head home for some ibuprofen and ice for my knees.

    I turn around to go, and that’s when a fellow intern realizes why I’m getting the extra cat calls: in the fall (several hours earlier!), I had split my pants wiiiiiide open. And either no one noticed or they felt such strong secondhand embarrassment that they didn’t tell me, so I’d been walking around with my underwear exposed for most of the day. Mortifying cherry on top of mortifying sundae.

    2. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      oh my goodness. Of course, with some politicians that would have gotten you promoted…

  145. ThatCameOffJaded*

    I was planning and hosting a large company-wide meeting and had meticulously attended to every detail. I was headed over to the venue to put the last finishing touches on everything and do the last thing was was to pick up a sheet cake that we were surprising one of our sales leaders with for a milestone birthday. The sheet cake looked lovely with red frosting roses adorning it and everything was spelled correctly. I was all set for everything to go perfectly when carrying the cake outside of the bakery, a huge gust of wind came up (I live in an area where 50mph winds are just a regular Tuesday) and took my cake. I managed to catch it and keep from dropping and shattering it . . .with my face. The cake was still intact but I had frosting all over my face (think wedding cake smashing), in my hair, on my clothes, and a meeting starting soon. The kind employees at the bakery helped me carry it back in, scraped off the top and in record time redecorated the part of the cake that got messed up and did an amazing job. They were not supposed to let me in the back due to health regulations but let me use the tiny restroom in the back to try to get the frosting cleaned up. The red and green from the flowers stained my clothes as well as my skin. I had no change of clothes, did not live nearby and had no time so I had to go to the meeting as I was. I was EXTREMELY embarrassed . . .I was young, early career, and it was my first event I had planned at that workplace, plus the CEO and upper management from all of our locations were there, some of which I was meeting for the first time. It was fine though, everyone was amused and I took a fair amount of jokes about it any time we had cake in the office all the rest of the years I worked at that job.

  146. I have very poor peripheral vision, in my defence*

    I was fairly new in a very junior job on a campus university, working in a department which had a heavy fire door into the kitchen. I came out of said kitchen carrying various important items, including my keys and staff card, in my hands, before realising I’d forgotten something, so shoved my stuff down onto the handy table outside the kitchen in order to push the door with both hands.

    …it wasn’t a handily-positioned table, but rather a secure shredding bin with a slot in the top, into which I had just dropped everything I needed to get into my office (or, indeed, my home). I had to phone the secure document disposal company and get someone to drive to the campus and unlock the bin. People were very sweet and understanding!

  147. SKULL RING*

    I have a lot of these, but this one is my favorite.

    I’m originally from New York, but was working in Virginia. I was transferred to a new department, and was meeting some of the new supervisors. As is with men, they try to bond over sports, but I’m indifferent at best.

    When this one supervisor said, “Oh. You’re from New York, you must be a fan of ______!” I forget the team.

    Instead of saying, “I don’t follow sports”, I said, “I am a fan of nothing.” I suddenly realized that sounded exceptionally weird, and as a nervous reaction, I started laughing like an idiot.

    His eyes got wide. He didn’t say anything, and just walked away from me. He did finally talk to me about a month later (because he had to).

      1. Erin*

        Years ago, my husband was training someone at work. They were new and so they asked him what sports he likes.

        My beloved replied that he doesn’t really like sports. And then, in the ensuing silence, adds “I mean, sports don’t offend me.”

        To which his new colleague responded, “Well, I’m glad sports don’t offend you.”

        We tease Husband about sports offending him to this day.

  148. Seashell*

    I may have told this story before, but one time my husband, while using talk to text while texting with a co-worker, had another co-worker’s name autocorrect to a term for a female dog. And he sent it.

    Luckily, the other co-worker understood what he was going for and wasn’t offended.

    1. Tree*

      …. That’s the most common typo for my name.

      The only time I “complained” about I told my boss “I’m sure it was an accident because even this guy wouldn’t send this to me, but if we need to make a stink here’s your proof.”

      And I had to let the folks at Panera know so they could take it off the board.

  149. TheGoodLife*

    As a young, female engineer, I went to a jobsite with a technician (think: blue collar, drink-too-much, honest, and best-people -you’ll-ever-meet) and a safety guy. I had not met either of them in-person. After working at the jobsite, we went to a local memorial site, which overlooks a beautiful scenic valley. I’m leaning on the railing of the overlook, and the safety guy says, “um…I think there’s a hole in your pants.” I feel my pants, and the rip was from my waist to the start of my pant leg (~10 inches). To make matters worse, I happened to be wearing the brightest pink underwear you can imagine. I was so embarrassed, but they immediately start howling laughing, and got me laughing with them. The technician and service guy were so sympathetic and were teasing me the rest of the evening. It’s been over 10 years, and I still laugh when I think about it. Never take yourself too seriously.

  150. Paralegally Blonde*

    My first professional job out of college was working as a court clerk. It wasn’t a big city, and local attorneys had a pretty casual approach to our office, especially the ones who worked as court-appointed defense attorneys. One day, Jane, one of the other clerks calls over to me, “hey, Jack is on the phone for you.” I’d just gotten married to Jack, so I picked up the line with, “hi, sweetie.” As I’m halfway through “swee–” I hear Jane cry, “Nooo, not that Jack. It’s Jack Miller, the attorney!”

    For the entire rest of my tenure, every single time I saw or spoke to Jack Miller, he opened with, “hi, sweetie” (or darling, or honey, or some other sweet nothing, from a man who most certainly did not address every female that way).

  151. Frandacadho*

    One of my first jobs after college I was working at an event planning company. I felt like it was important to always be busy doing work because that’s what they’re paying me for, right? I finished all my tasks and asked my boss what to do next. She said something like she’d need to get back to me in a bit and I said “Ok, I’ll keep myself entertained.” Why. Why did I say that? Why couldn’t I just say ok and walk away?

  152. Alex*

    I had a job checking membership cards for entry into the establishment. We served a lot of younger people, who would frequently forget their cards. Being a bit older than them, I would try to use a motherly tone about how they needed to remember their cards and that I couldn’t be manually checking them in all the time just because they couldn’t be bothered. One particular repeat offender, a young man of about 18, told me that he didn’t have his card. This young man had forgotten his card for the past three days, so I started my speech about his needing to bring it. But instead of telling him “I’ve done this for your the past three days,” I said, “I’ve done you the past three days.”

    Queue a long awkward silence.

  153. MiddleManagerReplacedByAI*

    Many years ago, a colleague was multi-tasking a little too hard and accidentally pasted the entire text of the online dating profile she was writing into our IM window and clicked send.

    She was lucky it was me, because a lot of our colleagues were pretty conservative. We quickly agreed to pretend it never happened, then we bonded over our respective volunteer work with our local queer film festivals. She wound up becoming one of my favorite colleagues at that job.

  154. I strive to Excel*

    I have one that only happened to me a few weeks ago! This will absolutely identify me to anyone in my office, but here goes.

    I am relatively new to my job (less than 2 months). My boss is very blue-collar and swears frequently. A few weeks back, I had my first major billing meeting with him. I presented him with a billing packet for a client who has been very frustrating. My boss expressed his frustration by first giving me the needed corrections and then jokingly telling me to “be sure to add a finger emoji” to the invoice.

    At which point I apparently lost my head and all common sense and told him that I didn’t think Quickbooks supported that function but that I could do him a nicely calligraphed F*** You.

    Thank God, he thought it was funny. I turned red as a tomato. I doubt I will ever not turn red as a tomato when I think about it.

    1. Paralegally Blonde*

      Honestly, the bosses I’ve had where there was early, appreciated sass were the best bosses I’ve ever had.

      I was at an *interview* once, had met all the lawyers, been on a tour, and was now with the big boss and his deputy. He was incapable of not multitasking, so he just kept working around interviewing me. I’d been at this overall interview 90 minutes? 2 hours? but had actually managed to figure out some of the habits and tools of the office. The boss’s desk was easily 18 inches deep in Stuff Everywhere. He stopped everything, said, “I need . . .” while gesturing vaguely. I, in my infinite 23-year-old stupidity, answered, “a shovel?”

      All sound stopped. He and his deputy just stared at me. I wanted to die on the spot. Then he howled with laughter! And, I also saw the book he was looking for in the sediment of the desk, pulled it out, handed it to him without him ever articulating what it was he needed anyway.

      I got the job, worked there 7 years, and still am in touch with him more than 20 years after leaving the job. Best boss I ever had ever.

  155. Lab Snep*

    I once spent an entire morning at work (before I went to the loo) with my pants on both inside out AND backwards.

    Either nobody told me or they didn’t notice.

  156. To be young*

    In my first real corporate job in a marketing dept we used to get cold calls all the time. One time someone called asking for my boss (I think?) so I went out to the lobby and walked the person back.

    It was a salesperson who walked into our business looking to sell…I don’t know what. My boss had a good laugh. I was 25ish? I was mortified and didn’t pick up numbers I didn’t know after that. Learned real quick that if it rung to the entire dept that it was probably a salesperson and to not pick it up.

  157. RedinSC*

    Ohhhhh

    Back in the early days of the internet run up, late 1990s, I was working support for a business that hosted “Make your own pages” and free web-based email accounts. Remember Angelfire and such? Yeah, that.

    I got a call from a man who was SO UPSET that he was locked out of his free email account. I get it, I STILL use my yahoo email account set up then. But he was totally abusive, and nasty to me. So I asked him to please hold for a moment, so I could complain to my coworker sitting next to me.

    Instead of hold, though, I hit the speaker button and the guy heard every nasty thing I said about him. *head desk*. He said, “I can hear you”. I then asked him to hold again, and hit hold this time. When I got back on the phone first thing I said after I apologized was that I’d be happy to transfer him to my supervisor. BUT he had used that time to also calm down and we were able have a conversation and address his issue, but honestly, I thought I was gonna combust, I was so embarrassed.

  158. umami*

    In my early 20s I was working as a graphic designer for a small ad specialty company, and on occasion I would answer calls if the office manager was out to help customers. So a potential customer called wanting to know about some products that would be good to order for a particular event they were having. I made a few suggestions, one of which was a compartment cup. One of my colleagues was in the office, and she was hearing me say ‘compartment cup’ repeatedly, as the customer keep asking me to repeat what I was saying. Then I would say it a little slower, thinking they would understand better. My colleague starts giggling, which of course made me start to giggle, but the customer then asked me to spell what I was saying, and once I started spelling it, colleague bursts out laughing, which of course makes me start laughing, but I’m trying to restrain myself while also trying to squeak out the letters of ‘compartment’, which of course makes it worse, so I’m laughing/crying/squeak-spelling into the phone so badly that I finally just squeaked out ‘sorry, we have a bad connection!’ and hung up on them. They called back, and neither of us could answer the phone because we could not stop laughing.

    Alas, I do not even remember what the heck a compartment cup is (this was early ’90s).

  159. Toot Sweet*

    If you remember the post-9/11 anthrax scare, you may also remember that some organizations were being overly cautious with mail. I was working at a non-profit that, due to the type of organization, had security guards checking through the mail each day in the basement, wearing gloves and using a metal detector.

    One day, security came across a letter-sized envelope with very thick contents addressed to the CEO. Oh my, could it contain anthrax powder? They were concerned but opened it anyway. Inside was a recent mailing to our major donors ($25K+), folded up with a note complaining about the extra postage we had “wasted” on it. The folded mailer had created quite a bulge in the envelope it was mailed in. Security shared it with the CEO, who laughed and decided he had to respond. CEO wrote a letter to this major donor addressing the cost of the postage, telling him the story, and adding, “John, you made a much bigger splash than you intended.”

  160. Resident Evil (HR Lady)*

    A couple of years ago, our plant was hosting several corporate sales and directors for a planning meeting for our location. We had a super good local barbecue joint down the road, and we live in a state that has a whole Style of the Q, so we catered a huge spread of the good stuff—pulled pork, mac n cheese, multiple types of slaw, green beans, whole big thing of beautiful bbq food. The HR admin was tasked with picking up the delivery and the order was large enough that several people pitched in to help carry things in. Big trays of food, etc—and being cursed with a desire to be helpful, I popped out to grab something to cart in as well. I was handed a paper bag and a small tray of something else, so I tucked the bag into my elbow and grabbed the tray and walked inside.

    Two things of note: for some god forsaken reason, we have carpeted floors in our office are, and since we had higher ups at the plant today, i was dressed nicely, as a manager ought to be dressed, blazer and button down and all that, as it is especially relevant to the disaster that struck:

    The paper bag? Sauce. Just a plastic tub of house made, beautiful red bbq sauce (delicious sauce). In a paper bag (never experienced before). Lid not fully sealed. Not communicated to me that I was being given a bag of sauce (who puts sauce cartons in a PAPER BAG). Would’ve definitely made better life choices had I known (didn’t know, can’t stress enough). I made it past the front door and by my employees’s cubicle when I realized that my elbow was oddly warm (what?), and then a nice, wet shredding sound preceded the sauce carton hitting the ground and…exploding.

    Sauce. Everywhere. Sauce all over me. Sauce all over the cubicle wall. Sauce all over the carpet. I’m soaked through in sauce.

    People saw. Important people (who cares, they’ll feel bad for me). Other managers at the plant (why, uncaring god, would you let them see this tragedy befall me?) who will never let me live it down. The carpet recovered. My blazer did not. They did, in fact, give me hell about the sauce for months after the incident. (Again, who puts sauce in a paper bag? Who doesn’t tell you they’re giving you the sauce????)

    Most of the people who witnessed the tragedy are no longer here, but the cubicle wall still looks like it was part of a gruesome murder scene. The cubicle wall remembers.

  161. Hannah Lee*

    At my first full time job they occasionally had after hours mixers to celebrate a product release, or hitting a milestone or just because. The second one I went to, I a mid-20’s woman, miscalculated and managed to have a little too much to drink in the first hour or so and got a little tipsy.

    Both out of need because of the drinks and because I’d realized my error and wanted to take a moment to compose myself, I went down the hall to the rest room. I took care of business, gave myself a pep talk and decided “why no, I’m COMPLETELY fine, no one will notice. But it’s seltzer for me for the rest of the night. I’ve got this!”

    And then I walked briskly out of the restroom and smack into the VP of Manufacturing, as he was coming in. To the MEN’S room. In my tipsiness, I had gone into the wrong door.

    1. Hannah Lee*

      Oh and at the same job, at one point I was trying to up my image by reviewing my wardrobe, putting together separates, planning an outfit for a presentation I’d be giving. My roommate was away, so instead of calling a friend to give me a second opinion, I decided to set up a video camera and film myself walking in and out of the room, trying out different postures for speaking, wearing a variety of outfits, practicing my opening remarks

      It was helpful, since a few of my “go to” professional outfits actually didn’t look that pulled together. And one of my intros/outfit combos was downright dopey. So much so that I cracked myself up and launched into doing dramatic fake “fashion model” poses in my frumpy baby poop green ‘OMG I have to burn this, how have I been walking around wearing it!!’ Jones New York Separates skirt suit.

      But I didn’t own a video camera. So I’d borrowed one from the corporate trainers who sat down the hall. And a few days after I’d returned the camera to them, I went to review one of the outfits on the tape before I erased it.

      Dear reader, I did not have the tape. I turned my apartment upside down. I loaded and viewed Every Single Video Tape I could find. I Did Not Have The Tape … because I had left it in the camera. I just know the trainers found it … and watched it. They never said anything, but from how they kind of chuckled the next time they saw me, I just knew.
      And I shudder to think who else they showed it too. (Thank goodness social media was not a thing back then)

  162. IncessantOwlbears*

    I do data and analytics. I worked at a place that imposed a four-letter abbreviation for each project, so efforts could be organized underneath it — think CORP-01, CORP-02, etc. for a corporate project.

    My coworker, who was male and outranked me, insisted on using the tag ANAL for an analytics project. So I, a much younger woman, had to spend the next 18 months referring to ANAL-01, ANAL-11, etc.

    The worst part was that it became so normal to me that in my next job I told the story as though it was hilarious. The whole room of women all stared at me as I explained why, exactly, one should not use ANAL as the abbreviation for an analytics project. Halfway through my anecdote I realized I had lost the room, but for some reason I felt like I had to power through and finish it.

    I no longer work there.

  163. Fiona is my Secret Name*

    Back in college, I went to a friend’s 21st birthday celebration. In America, that means copious amounts of alcohol. I was underage so I was just a driver. There was one drink ordered for the birthday boy called a “blow job” in which it’s a shot of alcohol topped with whipped cream, and thus is supposed to be consumed hands free and possibly from between the knees of your crush. It was messy and funny to watch.
    The next day, I was at work at the cafeteria at college, thinking about the party. I turned to a very sweet but clearly nerdy, male coworker and asked him, “Have you ever had a blow job?”, thinking about the drink the night before. It took a solid three seconds before the double meaning caught up with me that I just asked a coworker about their sex life, someone that might have not had much of a sex life and who I thought might have a crush on me. I rapidly clarified and apologized. He accepted me apology graciously and then said, “Nooooo….”

    1. ThatGirl*

      I have to say I’m not sure adding “shot” to that would have been a WHOLE lot better but omg

  164. Beet Juice*

    Not me, but a coworker. Our very professional, corporate-speak, straight-laced boss was having a coughing fit. Someone offered to get him water, and my coworker warbled in a sing-song voice “Something nice to suck on??”

    He started coughing WORSE because now he was also laughing and managed to choke out “Excuse me?”

    Mortified coworker explained that her grandmother’s go-to when someone was coughing was that phrase, meaning a soothing lemon drop or menthol lozenge, and she also tended to automatically make the offer in the same happy sing-song voice. Boss thought it was hilarious and paid it no further mind, but coworker fled whenever she saw him for the next week.

  165. Why Didn't I Just Sneeze*

    Once, I was visiting another building and the office area I was in was so quiet I was afraid to sneeze and bring attention to myself. What happened was I did successfully stop a sneeze from coming out, only for a loud and unstoppable FFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTT to come out my other end.

    I would’ve felt better if that had happened with some friendly coworkers around so we could joke and laugh about it. As it was, I was surrounded by people who barely knew me doing their best to pretend that didn’t just happen.

  166. Sevenrider*

    An assistant in a law firm I worked at sent a letter to a client misspelling “public” as “pubic”, as in (NY State Department of Pubic Aid). The attorney was livid and embarrassed and declared he would never work with that assistant again. I can’t say that I blamed him, but he IS the one who signed the letter, obviously w/o reading it.

    Another law firm, the office manager ordered a massive amount of letterhead (thousands of dollars) and misspelled, “Counselors” as “Councilors”. I disliked her anyway so I thought it was hilarious.

    1. darsynia*

      Oh noooo, that’s one of the all-timer typos, right up there with the slip of ‘np’ and ‘no’ meaning entirely different, possibly drama-creating responses!

      As an adult now I often wonder how freaked out our Band Director was when I was in high school marching band. Our home team were the ‘Quips’ (as a writer, I’m still delighted by this), and we had the individual letters of ‘QUIP BAND’ that we’d place on velcro up for every away game on the visitor band bleachers.

      Well, those letters quite conveniently spell ‘PUBIQ NAD,’ and I cannot imagine the reaction, the first time an adult authority figure saw that proudly displayed above our crew… An entirely different, non-office-related mortifying moment, to be sure!

  167. Former Retail Lifer*

    Our regional manager was visiting our store. He was intimidating to the point where we nicknamed him Darth Vader. No small talk, no positive feedback, just a cold, scary guy. When he was leaving, he apparently meant to shake my hand. However, and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY, something about his stance made me inexplicably think he wanted a hug…so I hugged him. He uncomfortably hugged me back and then hightailed it out.

    Luckily, I found another job soon after or I would have had to call off the next time he was in town.

    1. MsM*

      I’m just imagining the actual Darth Vader (or at least someone in the suit) having this interaction.

  168. darsynia*

    My first ‘real’ office job was as a temp in the year 2000, working at the simulation center where pilots come to refresh their skills. Because of how important the records were, we were stuck in a weird middle-ground between computer and paper filing, which meant that some of my work was using an actual typewriter. While my boss was at a multi-hour meeting, I was instructed to familiarize myself with the computer side of the forms I’d be managing. In my 20 year old infinite wisdom, when I came upon a file that had a bunch of inexplicable spaces between words and phrases (crucially *not* text boxes), I cleaned the file up.

    Later that afternoon I was shown the typewriter. It was set up to where you input about 12 values, printed out a specific word file, set the page in, and the pre-set program would place those values in the spaces provided in the word file. My boss showed me a previously completed page, then left me with some other work to complete.

    Reader, I’m sure you see where this is going. My stomach leaden in my throat, I rushed to the file I’d ‘cleaned up,’ and over the next hour painstakingly recreated those gaps, using the example file. As far as I know, this was before ‘previous saves’ of word files could be restored. I was certain I’d be fired, but as far as I know, no one ever figured it out. It was an excruciating lesson in youthful self-importance!

  169. Someone stole my croissant*

    At my first job, I was generally in charge of answering the phones. One day, I was so tired, I mindlessly answered the phone.
    But instead of answering with my script, I started saying a prayer! It took me a moment to realize what I’d done, and I was mortified.
    I don’t know which was worse, that or dropping an ENTIRE batch of dough on the floor.

  170. lurkinandwurkin*

    Prepping for a job interview, I didn’t realize until too late that all of my good hosiery had runs in them. All I had left was a pair of stockings, the kind that you might use a garter belt for. But these ones were stay-ups, with a bit of rubbery silicone to help them grip your skin and “stay up”. I got all dressed up for my interview and then had to run to catch the bus downtown. Reader, those stockings did not stay up. I ran down the street and flagged the bus, and by the time I got on the bus, those stockings were pooled around my ankles. It was a very full bus, and the only free seat was at the very back. So every single rider saw my ridiculous stockings flopped around my feet while I walked to my seat with whatever dignity I could muster (it was very little). It was the single most mortifying moment of my life, so much so that I have basically broken my shame meter and very little embarrasses me anymore. Anyways, I got the job and I still work there ten years later!

  171. A Disappointing Australian in London*

    In the former millennium, I arrived at work to discover that I had worn out multiple holes in the crotch of my suit pants, through which my underwear was visible.

    I have no idea how they got to that point before I noticed. I’m cringing now as I remember.

    (I excused myself, caught a taxi home, changed into another suit, and returned to work. Bought a new suit at the first opportunity. I paid for some extra tailoring of a silk saddle to add a bit of reinforcement so it Could Not Happen Again.)

  172. Kali*

    This is a recent one, unfortunately.

    I deal with the public regularly and sometimes have to contact the same person over and over, depending on the circumstances. I had a woman who we will call Charlotte who was having a large problem that needed protracted, repeated contact. Unfortunately, while nice enough, Charlotte tended to use me as both a sounding board and an unofficial therapist – I tried to shut them down, but her soliloquys could go for an hour before I got off the phone. One time, I had promised to call another woman right back, before she left her office, but Charlotte called in between. I managed to hold her to about 35 minutes and breathlessly hit “redial” to call the first person back, apologizing for the delay the moment she picked up and explaining that I’d been stuck on the phone with someone that “just talks so much”. There was a pause, and Charlotte replies, “Yes, that was me.” Cue the melting into the floorboards in shame. I apologized profusely. Charlotte took it in stride, admitting that she did occasionally(!) talk too much. It took another 20 minutes to get her off the phone to get back to the woman I meant to call back, and yes, she had left the office. *sigh*

  173. Carole from Accounts*

    I worked a job where phone duties were a part of my responsibilities, so I could only take lunch from 12-1 when we had an answering service take over. I also needed my lunch break to go home and take care of my animals (a dog and a cockatiel), and I was pet sitting a relative’s dog.

    One day there was a call that ended going long, so it was 12:20 before I was able to get off the phone. I raced to the car and drove home, it was about a 10 minute commute. I let mine and my relative’s dogs outside to play and have a potty break. My little bird loved nothing more than sitting in my hair (it was normally styled in a high bun) while I did things around the house, so I got my bird out of her cage and put her on my bun. Then I had 20 minutes to make myself a sandwich, pay some bills, feed the dogs, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Having finished all those things, I got in the car, and quickly drove back to work.

    Just as I got back into the office, clocked in, sat down in my chair and started to put on my phone headset, two little eyes peer down into mine and I realize that I have walked into the office WITH A BIRD ON MY HEAD. In my lunchtime rush and extra animal responsibilities, I totally forgot to put my bird back in her cage. As I gasp and say “oh no” out loud, everyone in the cubicle farm also turns to look at me. Not sure what they were expecting to see, but it was not someone with a bird on their head. Luckily, we could all have a big laugh and someone covered the phones for me while I clocked back out and drove home and returned without my living hair accessory. My bird wasn’t normally so quiet or still like she was on the day of her big adventure, I am still not really sure how I forgot she was up there. I’m also pretty shy, so I died of embarrassment when everyone laughed at me. The rest of my time at that job, whenever we would have customers visit or new employees join, our office manager would always introduce me and jokingly warn people to watch out for the bird on my head. I guess that’s not really the kind of thing you can ever live down.

      1. Wren*

        + 1000
        This would have absolutely made my year had I witnessed it. It’s made my day just reading about it, thank you so much for sharing Carole!

  174. Atomic Tangerine*

    In college I waitressed at an ice cream restaurant (think Denny’s but with an extensive selection of ice creams) where the waitstaff were responsible for making all the desserts. My weight was well over 200 lbs at the time, the relevance of which will be clear in a minute. One busy evening I set down sundaes in front of two young women. One of them eyed her dessert and mumbled something I interpreted as “so fast.” Proud of my mad sundae making skills, after they thanked me I looked her straight in the eye and said with a big smile, “And thank YOU for the compliment!”

    As I walked away I realized she had actually said “so fat.”

    1. Hannah Lee*

      OMG, I can’t believe some people, that they would say stuff to perfect strangers.
      And I’m glad for you that you responded as you did!

      Reminds me of an interaction I had with the stylish and a bit snooty marketing manager at my first job. I was wearing a new dress, with a bright yellow and white flower print. As she passed me in the hall she stopped to say “Oh, look at you wearing yellow! Most people can’t wear yellow.” and I cheerfully responded “Thank you!” being happy the stylish marketing lady was complimenting me. But as I walked away I was like “oh, I don’t think she meant that to be a compliment”

    2. Feral campsite raccoon*

      My guess is that she was saying something like “I’m going to be so fat [if I eat this.]” Then again, I wasn’t there and you were.

  175. Anon ATT*

    I was helping an elderly man with his iPhone, and one of the troubleshooting steps involved getting him to sign into his Apple account. He remembered nothing about that account- his daughter wrote down info for him at his notebook at home, he remembered none of it. Since it was the end of the day and I wanted to go home, it was faster to login with my burner account than it was to try and reset his account. He promised me he’d login to his account at home, we fixed the issue, I figured that was everything.

    Two days later I find out from my coworker he was back the next day because he had a ton of photos on his phone he didn’t remember taking, amd he just needed them gone. I didn’t sign out of my burner, and at some point his phone synced from the cloud. My burner had around 20-30 friend group photos… as well as 500+ male nudity photos I’d saved. All of them were downloaded onto this poor man’s phone.

    If he had complained about what KIND of photos had appeared, I would have been fired in a heartbeat. It was a stressful few weeks, waiting for a possible customer survey that could end my career.

  176. Anon-E-Mouse*

    Should You Eat BBQ Shrimp Naked?

    When I was a second year law student in Canada, I participated in summer job interview week. This is a very regulated process where law students interview in-person with Canada’s “Big Law” firms over a 2 1/2 day period, with breakfast receptions, cocktail receptions and intense lunch and dinner events with top-ranked candidates running from 8 am until nearly midnight. After two days of back-to-back interviews, callback interviews and social events, I was at my second cocktail reception of the day at a stuffy law firm. I made the rookie error of trying to eat skewered, barbeque shrimp on a stick – and managed to drop the shrimp on my light-coloured suit jacket and then watch it bounce through a partner’s legs. But that’s not the mortifying part.

    I headed off to my final event of the day – a group dinner with several other summer job candidates and half a dozen partners at my top-ranked firm. I was trying to keep the stain on my jacket covered up by holding my briefcase over it, but I just looked I was afraid someone would steal my bag. The head of the student committee, who was sitting beside me (on the shrimp side) and could see me awkwardly trying to hide the stain, asked “What have you got in there? Gold bricks?”

    And then, in one of those moments when the din of dinner chatter suddenly stopped, I showed him the BBQ shrimp stain while blurting out loudly (to the whole table, apparently),

    “There are just some foods you should eat naked in a bathtub.”

    In my defense, this was a phrase I learned from my grandmother and we used it in our family when talking about barbeque and other messy but delicious foods. But the other people around the table hadn’t heard the partner’s question, nor had they seen the shrimp stain.

    Dead silence ensued. And then everyone started laughing. And I realized that if this group could laugh at my gaffe, this was the right firm for me. I got (and accepted) the firm’s job offer the next morning.

  177. Czech Mate*

    There is an Arabic song that was making the rounds on Tik Tok not too long ago called “Sabri Aleel.” I was chatting with a coworker over Slack one morning when she said, “I’m so obsessed with this song on Tik Tok–I wish I knew what it meant!” I googled it and found a full translation of the lyrics on a funky, outdated website dedicated to Middle Eastern dance, which I Slacked to my coworker.

    Fast forward one hour–I’m dashing off an email to a client, who is asking for the link to access an upcoming Zoom webinar that I am hosting.

    The client replies a few minutes later, saying, “Thank you so much! I think there might have been a glitch with the first RSVP link however, it takes me to a belly dancing page. Would you mind sending it again?”

    Reader, he had been sent the song lyrics that I’d Slacked to my coworker earlier in the day–complete with the 1990’s-style graphics and word art. “Sabri Aleel,” it turns out, also translates to “I have run out of patience.” Did he think that I was sending him a passive-aggressive statement that I was done with him and his inability to find webinar links on his own? I quickly sent him the correct link, but not before I crawled under my desk and passed away from embarrassment.

  178. Username Not Found*

    I work for a company where it was really common for clients and vendors to give me gifts. I would frequently receive bottles of wine, chocolates, candles, etc., from either clients or vendors, sometimes just left at my desk for me if I wasn’t there. I always gave the alcohol away because I don’t drink. I shared an office with my boss, but partitioned so it felt like we still had separate office spaces. I got a promotion to a new job with a new office in the same building, working directly for the President, that was going to start after I was on vacation for 3 weeks, so before I left I partially cleared my desk and office space and started moving into my new office. Nobody was going to be immediately replacing me so coming back after vacation to finish clearing things out was fine. I came back, started my new position, and then went back to my old office to grab some of my office supplies. Sitting on top of my desk was a very nice, very expensive bottle of tequila. There was no note or card (which sometimes happened when folks left me gifts). Also on top of my desk were a few boxes of stuff that clearly my former boss had set on my desk for storage. I grabbed my office supplies, the last of my personal effects, and the bottle of tequila, and left the office. In the hallway I saw one of my favorite coworkers (our custodian) who I know drinks alcohol, and gave him the bottle. About a week later my former boss stopped into my new office and said she was there to request permission from the President to have our IT check the security cameras… since someone had stolen a bottle of really expensive tequila from her office that she had bought for the President on her trip to Mexico. She had left it on my old desk along with other boxes she was storing there. Before I could fess up, my new boss (the President) walks in, and she continues to explain to him, “I just can’t find that bottle I bought for you!! I was just telling her I think we should check the security cameras….”

    So yeah, I had to immediately own up then and there that I assumed the tequila was for me, since it was on my (old) desk, and given the expensive bottle of tequila intended for the President, to the custodian, instead. It was mortifying. I offered to pay for it, and both of them had a great time laughing at how red my face was and reassured me it was an honest mistake… though why would I assume it was for me, since that wasn’t even my desk anymore?

    In the end, my former boss said she had actually bought 4 bottles, so she had another one at home to give to the President… so he did get his tequila, the custodian had a fantastic laugh once he found out and told everyone how much he enjoyed the tequila, I gave my former boss a very generous apology gift, and I continued to receive gentle ribbing from everyone involved over the incident for about 2 months afterwards.

  179. MrsDonut*

    I started a new diet the same week as our annual multi-state nonprofit conference. After my careful day of eating basically salads, the team decided to pregame with some adult beverages before heading out to the evening activity, which also featured adult beverages. I’m sure you can see where this is going – I was suddenly very, very, very drunk. A coworker walked me back to my (shared, hello nonprofit!) hotel room, where I fell asleep very quickly … only to wake up 2 hours later to vomit. My poor roommate! The next morning I was still drunk, so one of my coworkers had to drive my car full of colleagues back to the conference facility, where I went into an office to sleep it off for several hours, missing the entire morning’s program. Did I mention I was in my late 30’s at the time? Luckily, I’d worked for the nonprofit for nearly a decade, and everyone understood what an aberration it was. This was 7 years ago and I’m happy to report that I’ve been promoted a few times and am now middle management. I stick to one drink max at work events.

  180. AMS*

    This happened on my absolutely worst ever day at work, over twenty years ago, at my first job working in a restaurant. I was maybe 18. It still gives me anxiety remember all the many many things that went wrong that day…. this story is only one small part of that day. I was working a morning weekend shift as a hostess, a normally excruciatingly boring and slow shift. We scheduled accordingly – me, a trainee hostess, bare bones kitchen staff, three servers and a bartender. Like 20% of what we would staff on a Friday night. We got SLAMMED. So much so that after giving out wait times up to an hour, I decided to just take some tables myself and leave the hostess station in the hands of a trainee who was only JUST learning english (another stroke of bad luck – our front of house manager was out sick, and the back of house manager was coming in late. As I said – absolute shit storm of bad luck). I’m serving a table of 12 assholes who all wanted separate checks. As I’m running around frantically trying to keep the whole restaurant turning, grabbing checks and cash and cards to get all these people cashed out I’m trying to squeeze through the tables they have sprawled out around. Squeeze behind someones’ chair and the booth directly behind it. Booth has a coat hook on the end, just at chest height. It catches my button up shirt without me realizing, and as I move as quick as I can it rips all the buttons off and I flash the restaurant. Mortfied, I run to the back trying to cover myself, as my lovely table laughs their asses off at me. I was meant to be waiting tables for my second shift anyway, so luckily had my other uniform with me. Quickly change my clothes, make change, head back to the table. To hear complaints about how long I took to return their change and credit cards, so they left me awful tips for my subpar service. Remembering all this is equal parts mortification and rage. Though the older I get the more rage I feel, and the less mortifying it seems.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      yeah you are not the one who should be ashamed of yourself there! Those guys were dillweeds.

  181. BlundersAbound*

    I worked for local government. I was taking some items to the city council president for signature and she happened to be at her desk, which was unusual. I asked if she could sign a few items and she jokingly asked if she was signing away her firstborn child. Several replies ran through my head but what came out of my mouth was “Wouldn’t they be too old for that?”

    If looks could kill..

  182. Sheepherder*

    I was working my first real job after college at a small CPA firm. One of the partners hosted a post-tax season party at his house, which I attended and proceeded to get very drunk. The next day, I realized my glasses were missing, and I needed them for almost everything. I called the partner at home and asked if he had found a pair of glasses. Indeed he had – next to the toilet that I had vomited into before going home the night before. I was mortified when I had to go to his house to retrieve them.

  184. FromOneGMtoAnother*

    When I was very new in the the corporate world I staffed the front desk meaning everyone else had to walk past my desk to get to the kitchen or leave.

    I was broke when I started and had a very small number of outfits that were work appropriate. After my first few paychecks I proudly bought a stylish blouse that had buttons running down my back instead of my front. It was versatyle, perfect for work, and not from goodwill and I loved it.

    We had office chairs with a sort of wide plastic mesh on the back rest. About an hour and a half into my shift I suddenly felt a very distinct breeze against my back…. to my horror I realized that the mesh on the chair at caught the buttons on the back of my shirt and undone every single one of them and my shirt had fallen completely open across my entire back. I very quickly backed into a corner did them back up and then sat ramrod straight and away from the chair rest all day. I spent the weekend sewing the back closed and the shirt remained a favorite but I’ll never forget the feeling.

  185. Don't Come....*

    Okay this one will come with a warning for vulgar language…………

    I was in my first year of teaching and was being shown around by the custodian during the week of in-service before school started. He and I immediately got along and could recognize the smart ass in each other. He was sure to show me that I had a TV that got full cable and that The Price is Right is coming on soon. In response, I had intended to say, “Hey I’m gonna be in here taking a nap. Whatever you do, do not come in here” as a sort of way to say, Yeah I’m gonna hunker down and watch TV while I should be working.

    Readers, instead, I told this 60 year old man I had just met, “Hey I’m going to go to sleep. Do what you gotta do, but don’t come inside me”.

  186. Dawn*

    There’s another good one, I was doing emergency calls for our local One Call service, and it was the very tail end of my 10-hour overnight shift; one of the standard questions we ask during this call (because they’re emergencies and we don’t want to keep the caller on the line longer than necessary is) “Can we use the cell phone you have on file?”

    But me in my fatigue-induced stupor asked this man instead if we could use “the cell phone on fire”.

    He was very confused.

    1. Dawn*

      Another one from that same place, but my coworker this time, he was a French-Canadian transplant. One day, on a call, he forgot the English word for ticket – just blanked – and he used the French word instead, “fiche”.

      Unfortunately, to the English-speaking ear, this sounds the same as “fish” and a customer was terribly confused to be asked by a locate service, “Did you want anything else on your fish?”

  187. TheGoodLife*

    I had a coworker lose his house in a wildfire, only 1 month after he bought it. He didn’t normally work in the office, and would visit about once a week. One day, he’s in the office, and I commented on his new shirt, “Hey, I love the color of your shirt! When did you get it?” He looked at me, “TheGoodLife, my house burned down. All my clothes are new.” I wanted to disappear in that moment…

  188. Usoki*

    I was working at a phone job where we were required to greet the customer while also making sure they had authority to talk with us about protected info. My go-to opening was “Good Morning, my name is Fergus, may I ask who I am speaking with?

    Well, one afternoon insomnia has been kicking my butt the whole day, and all I can think about is skipping lunch to take a nap. My opening becomes “Good Morning, my name is Fergus, may I ask who I am sleeping with?”

    1. MsM*

      I don’t know what would be worse: an offended caller, or one who wanted to take you up on it.

  189. Sidewalk Crosswalk Mixup*

    This one is relatively minor, but one time at my previous job, I caused a lot confusion by mixing up the words “sidewalk” and “crosswalk” for at least 30 minutes (maybe even an hour?) during a meeting with my boss. We were working on a project that involved both sidewalks and crosswalks, and the sidewalk part of the project was supposed to be already done (by a different team). By mixing up the two words, I accidentally implied that the sidewalks were not, in fact, already done, causing a bit of chaos for the other team and nearly getting to the point of calling IT to recover the “missing” sidewalk files. Then suddenly towards the end of our meeting, I snapped out of it and said, “Oh my god, have I been saying sidewalks this whole time? I meant crosswalks. Yes, the sidewalks are done. I’m so sorry.” I will never forget the look my boss gave me – mostly relief mixed with amusement, a little bit of judgement, and a healthy dose of secondhand embarrassment on my behalf.

    (Clarification: English is my first language. I had no excuse. It was just a good old fashioned brain fart.)

  190. Dawn*

    Going back, I had a guy call in who had a last name that probably got him made a bit of fun of, and he obviously wasn’t over it; when I asked (as per our script) if I could please have his first and last name, he replied, emphasis his, “James… BUTT,” as if daring me to make anything of it.

    Gentle reader, I can handle names like that just fine under normal circumstances if you act like a normal human being about it. But I could not handle having “BUTT” essentially shouted at me. I had to hang up on him. I felt really badly about it, of course, but I absolutely could not.

    1. Usoki*

      A call center I worked at would populate the caller’s name and info based on the phone number. One call started with an aggressive “It’s pronounced Ee-NIGH-ma” before I could start my greeting. I look down at the auto-fill to see “Enema Smith” in the name field. The trauma this woman has endured.

      1. Dawn*

        Sometimes I genuinely wonder why people don’t just give up and get it changed. I changed my name, and it was a bit of a process, but it wasn’t actually difficult per se.

        I think some people are stubborn about it, but…. probably aren’t doing themselves any favours by being so.

        1. Usoki*

          Truth. And you’re allowed to change the spelling but keep the pronounciation! James Bhott and Enyma Smith would have a few less issues, I hope? The court makes it tedious I’m sure but… is it not worth it?

          1. Dawn*

            It wasn’t even all that tedious for me; I had to fill out a form, get it signed by a guarantor (who could either be a member of certain professions who’d known me for at least two years – so like a doctor is fine for most people,) pay a small fee and mail it off.

            Now that’s Canada, but I don’t think the process is all that much different in America. You also have to explain why you are changing your name, but “my current name is Enema” is probably going to be considered a good reason.

            1. Adultiest Adult*

              In the U.S. the process is more complicated. You have to file with your local court, many jurisdictions require you to place an ad in a local paper about your name change for a certain period of time, and last I checked, in my area the fee is $1500. (Yes, I’ve looked into it.) Changing your name actually requires a court order for anything other than marriage.

              1. londonedit*

                Wow. A local paper? What’s the purpose of that? Here you can just change your name legally by what’s called deed poll – you just fill in a form and pay a fee and there you go, new name.

                1. MigraineMonth*

                  Presumably, it was originally to keep people from skipping out on obligations under their old name. So in the days when people read local papers and didn’t do Google searches, if “Carl Smith” owes you money, the announcement in the paper would let you know that you would now have to go after “John Smythe” to collect.

                  Obviously it no longer makes sense, but that’s true about a huge number of our laws, and any effort to change them will probably get caught up in culture wars.

  191. Zombeyonce*

    I was venting via DM about a colleague who didn’t do the bare minimum for something they were working on. Somehow, and I still can’t figure out how, I sent my complaint TO THAT PERSON instead of my boss. It was so embarrassing and I apologized and then had to explain what they did wrong and how to do it differently next time.

    I guess it ended well, but it could have blown up in my face so badly. I’m sure it messed up their day as well. I still feel bad that I approached it that way (I was just so frustrated!).

  192. Mortified(?)*

    Does it count as mortification if the other person isn’t mortified?

    At a previous job, I had a somewhat elderly coworker whose memory wasn’t the best. One day he approached me and said “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Naturally, I was alarmed – moreso because this was only a few months after a family member experienced a health emergency. I managed some sort of confused reply, to which the coworker said “Didn’t you lose an uncle recently?” I just responded no, I had not, perhaps they were thinking of someone else. Cue the coworker walking off with a very puzzled expression.

    I think there WAS someone at the job who had lost a relative, however we looked nothing alike and had very different names so I would think it’d be hard to confuse us.

    1. Dawn*

      I’m imagining a scenario where he heard something like “the new guy lost his uncle yesterday, he might be out for a bit,” and got confused about exactly who “the new guy” was, rather than mixing up two explicitly-identified people.

  193. Tinker Tailor Solder Dye*

    Oh, I’ve a fun one. Due to…way too much going on at home plus not sleeping enough, I’ve been slipping BADLY whenever replying to customers.

    What I meant to say:
    “Hi there, folks, how’re we doing today!”

    What I said instead:
    “Hi there, f*cks, how’re we doing today!”

    Or:
    “What can I help you f*cks with?”

    Thank God my brain slips into a thick accent enough that no one’s noticed (or called me on it if they did). I’m making a considerable effort to fix this, but daaaaaamn I’m still mortified.

  194. Mairzy Doats*

    I used to support a C-Suite executive who had monthly meetings with a peer who was a retired Navy Admiral. He had a commanding presence, but was the nicest, most down-to-earth gentleman. One time he came in when I was exhausted after a rough night with my then 9 month old twins. As he was leaving my boss’ office he asked for a trash can to throw away his empty coffee cup. I said I had one behind my desk and I’d throw it away. As he handed off the cup, he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Mairzy,” to which I replied, brain-dead as I was, “You’re welcome, Sweetie.” It took a few seconds to realize what I’d just said, then I froze…OMG I JUST CALLED A RETIRED NAVY ADMIRAL “SWEETIE”! He had booked it out of there, so I ran into my boss’ office to tell him what I’d done. He just laughed it off with the reassurance that I’d probably made the Admiral’s day. The next month, I apologized to the Admiral for my slip-up. After he got done laughing, he quipped, “My dear, I’ve been called much worse.”

  195. Over Analyst*

    I can laugh about it now, but two weeks after I started my first office job, I had to cover a meeting for a coworker that was at the time I typically eat my morning yogurt. During the meeting I started feeling nauseous until I finally abruptly left to go vomit… Only I didn’t. I made it four steps before my vision went black. I managed to stay upright, thought I found the ONLY cubicle in that area that I knew the person who sat at it, and collapsed onto the floor.
    An ambulance came, they gave me oxygen and water, my new boss came, my much older coworker came, and they all stood around me while I regained full consciousness and refused the ambulance ride. My coworker wouldn’t let me drive home and insisted on driving me an hour away, in the opposite direction of where he lived, and thankfully I was planning on spending the night with my boyfriend who drove me to work on his way into his own job the next morning.
    I don’t skip my morning yogurt anymore. I’ve also never had anything similar happen before or since.Over

  196. EEK! The Manager*

    When I was sixteen, I was helping out at the reception desk of the agricultural warehouse where my dad worked. This was harvest season, so all 30 or so workers were on site. I once received a visitor who announced that they were there to serve the owner with a subpoena. The owner was not in his office, and so I was excited to to use intercom that blasted all over the site to call him up, like the office manager had showed me. I announced to everyone: “[Owner], you need to come to the office. There is a subpoena here for you. I repeat, you have a subpoena.” Owner was very gracious to me but my dad and I had a long talk on the drive home about how I probably shouldn’t have been so specific over the intercom.

  197. Mayor of the Abyss*

    I once worked as a junior staff member for a prominent organization with very well-known leadership. When traveling with said leadership, I was responsible for setting up press conference calls. This was pretty simple; I requested a conference call line and then sent out a press advisory to media with the dial-in information.

    After one particularly prestigious event in another country, the organization wanted to hold a press call to extoll our success. I dutifully got the number and emailed it to hundreds of national and international reporters. When the time for the call came, it was quickly discovered that I had inverted two of the digits in the number. Instead of hearing from the respected and famous leader … reporters got a sex line.

    And yes, I AM typing this from the abyss into which I leapt and now live as a permanent resident.

  198. Hannah Lee*

    Once while working on a major project roll out, I visited the country HQs for my company in several different countries. During the visit to Italy, the Managing Director hosted dinner at a nice restaurant for my, my teammate and several of his senior staff. Lovely dinner, delicious food, good conversation, and excellent wine in very big glasses.

    Now I tend to talk with my hands a bit anyway, but give me a glass or so of wine and it ramps up. I was sitting across the table from the MD, and at some point managed to knock my glass of red wine over, into his glass of red wine and the contents of both wound up all over the front of his very stylish, Italian, tailored blue and white checked dress shirt. I was mortified! He tried to be gracious, said no problem, complimented me for picking up the Italian way of talking with my hands. I just wanted to crawl under the table.

    The next day, I went into the office and immediately his assistant very seriously summons me go see him right away. He, also very serious, very gruffly gesturing to the shirt he’s wearing. “look what happened! I tried and tried and could not get the wine stains out. What are you going to do about this.” And then burst out laughing.

    He was wearing a dress shirt *identical* to the one he had on the night before, only it was blue and PINK checked. Bless him for knowing how awkward I felt and setting me at ease like that. The rest of the visit went great and I will forever have a soft spot in my heart for him. Clever, funny AND gracious!

  199. Not the way to retain volunteers*

    Years ago I was working at a non profit where we had a lot of volunteers in leadership/mentorship roles. One of them, a long-term volunteer, had been bad about coming to meetings or getting back to people. But every time I did speak to her, she said things were fine, she was just busy. So I was discussing her over email with the person in charge of volunteers for the whole organization, as well as with another person who worked on my team, about what we should do to bring her back into the fold, see what was going on, and so forth.
    At some point in this conversation the volunteer manager sent me a new email with a link to a volunteer satisfaction survey and a note, suggesting that the volunteer use the survey to share her thoughts. I replied something along the lines of “I don’t see the point, she’s probably just going to flake out on this too.”
    Except the volunteer manager had cc’d the volunteer on the survey email, which meant when I replied all, she saw what I said.

  200. Dana*

    i was working at my first big girl library job at a small liberal arts college doing resource sharing and acquisition. the dean of the college came in to chat with me about some items he needed for a project he was working on. after he left, i began researching and found i had questions for him. i drafted an email, but wasn’t sure what to call him in it. dean? dr? mr? i put in “yo, walt!” (his name was walter) as a joking placeholder before asking my boss her opinion. i proceeded to get slammed with work and was sidetracked. come closing time i saw i had an email to him in drafts and sent it without remembering what i’d left in place of a formal greeting.

    the next morning i had an email back from him. it began “yo, d! glad to see we’re friends already!” i was so embarrassed but also so relieved he thought it was funny. i still think about this story all the time and am so grateful that he rolled with the punches!!

  201. AnonymousForThisOne*

    My work phone and my husband’s phone looked almost identical.

    I was on a work Teams call and had put my phone down on the counter. For some reason he grabbed my phone and not his…and took it into the shower with him.

    Luckily no one saw anything and I got it from him quickly…but I was traumatized. I heard people on the call yelling that it seemed the phone was in the shower. (!!!!)

    He was mortified (and naked this story could have been SO MUCH WORSE) and I couldn’t decide if I needed to explain what happened to everyone (I didn’t want them to think I was showering during work calls) or if I should pretend it never happened. I went with an approach somewhere in the middle and explained to people I knew well who were on the call and left it there.

    I got a pink glittery case for the phone after that.

  202. Delicious Eggs*

    I spent most of my career as a tour guide at museums and historic sites. I’ve got tons of stories of visitor misdeeds and tour guide misspeaks. Especially as we were reopening after Covid closures, and relearning how to talk to the public. One memorable occasion my coworker forgot the word “forest” of all things and came up with the replacement “Lumber farms.”

    My own personal “best” worst moment was on a school field trip, explaining to a class that the president had once been a visitor to the mansion where I was working.

    Me: And President McKinley dined in this room!
    Kid: He DIED??
    Me(not getting it): Sadly, yes he did. He lived a long time ago.
    Kid: How did he die?
    Me: Well, unfortunately, he was assassinated
    Kid: IN THIS ROOM?!?!

    I used “had dinner in” instead of “dined” after that tour.

  203. English Rose*

    I was conducting a face-to-face interview with a candidate for a job working as an aide to a woman who was partially sighted and had a guide dog living with her.

    In this context, I intended to ask the candidate “Are you a dog lover?” Except… for some deep unknown twisted Freudian reason what came out of my mouth was “Are you a good lover?”

    Cue blushing, stuttering, explanations that almost made it worse. Not sure which of us ended up more embarrassed.

  204. umami*

    I work at a college, and not long ago had a scheduled phone call to discuss commissioning research project with a professor at a different college, but when I made the outgoing call at the allotted time, I hit 9 and 1, accidentally double-tapping the 1 . Which of course sends the call to 911. I IMMEDIATELY hang up before the call connects and then dial the outgoing call properly. But wait! Apparently even if you don’t hear the call connect to 911, it does, because a campus police officer calls my line right as the professor answers the phone, so I have to tell her I need to put her on hold to take a call from the police. Which in my mind does not sound the least bit alarming.

    Unfortunately, I don’t click over soon enough, so I go ahead and get back to the original call. With a breezy ‘sorry about that’, we start talking about the project when the officer calls again, so I tell the professor that I need to take this other incoming call from the police, Which in my mind does not sound the least bit alarming. I quickly pick up the call and explain how I had accidentally hit the 1 twice when trying to dial an outside call, all while he’s asking me whether everything was OK and do I need assistance. The officer then asks me what my office number was, and I … don’t know, because a few weeks prior my building had flooded, so I say something vague about not being in my usual office, I’m in such-and-such building temporarily. Which in my mind doesn’t sound the least bit alarming. I tell him I’m kinda busy and everything is fine, I didn’t mean to call 911, blah blah. He insists that he needs the room number, so I ask him to hold on so I can go look on the door, but instead of putting him on hold, I accidentally hang up on him. Which in my mind still doesn’t seem the least bit alarming.

    I get the office number and get back to the phone, which is now ringing again with a call from the officer (mind you, I still have the professor on the other line, just … waiting and not knowing anything other than I had to take two calls from the police). I give him the information and assure him again that everything is fine, hang up and get back to my phone call. I explain the delay and apologize, and we start talking about the purpose of the call.

    But wait! A few minutes later, the officer is knocking at my door wanting to double-check that everything is OK, and he can’t get in the door because we have those doors that stay locked unless you physically undo the lock from the inside, which I never do, and this temporary office is in a pretty isolated back corner of the building, and I am starting to realize that the whole situation does seem somewhat alarming. So now I’m just so embarrassed by all the trouble I am causing this poor guy who is convinced that I must be in some type of distress and he can’t get into the office I’m in, and it takes me considerable time to convince him that everything is, in fact OK. He still looks suspicious, but after a few more questions and a few minutes looking around the office and the surrounding areas, he finally takes off.

    Now I’m getting back to the call, apologizing profusely and explaining to this person I’ve never met how I accidentally called 911 when I tried to call her, and how it just snowballed from there. Luckily, she understands and we are both pleased that my campus police take 911 calls VERY SERIOUSLY and thoroughly investigate no matter what you tell them!

    1. AFac*

      I once had college police come and find me because I accidentally called 911, and similar to you, they wouldn’t take my word I was fine over the phone.

      My accidental 911 call was because my college had phones with an emergency button, and the receiver slipped out of my hand while I was trying to make a call and fell smack on the button.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      This is why, no matter how embarrassed you are that you misdialed, it is best to stay on the line with the dispatcher and explain the situation rather than hang up.

    3. Katherine*

      The area code for my town is 919. Miraculously I somehow have only accidentally called 911 once.

  205. Auto-translate vs auto-correct*

    My favourite moment was when a colleague sent out an all staff email about technical difficulties to our bilingual (English/French) staff. He had popped “Please bare with me” into the auto-translate service and hit send.

    As you might have noticed, he used the wrong “bear.” So this otherwise inoffensive grammar error of course auto-translated to “veuillez-vous déshabiller avec moi” — or “please get undressed with me!”

  206. Boggle*

    I was an IT contractor working in a large company and remember talking to my colleagues, in what I thought was a space only accessible by IT, about another employee. He worked in a different department, and on a different floor, he was rather a jerk (everyone agreed with me), and I could smell alcohol on him. So, there I was talking about him, about how he was probably an alcoholic, he comes around the corner into our space which was only separated by filing cabinets. No idea to this day if he heard me, he did not say a word, but I knew I needed to keep my mouth shut the rest of the time I was there because you never knew who was nearby.

  207. squirmet*

    Our team went to a conference out of state and booked several hotel rooms on site. Since some of us were only going certain days, leadership opted to save a dime by having some of us “share” rooms, one of us occupying the room the nights we were there, and another occupying the room only on their nights.

    This led to some hassle at check-in, when I (Scully) tried to check in for my room that was booked under my boss’–and other occupant’s–name (Mulder). It was awkward when the concierge tried to clarify by asking if he and I were staying there “together.” But the cherry on top was walking into my room and seeing “WELCOME MULDER & SCULLY” displayed on the TV screen. Big Ick!

    I’m insisting on my own room this year.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Does that even save money? Most places charge the same for 3 nights for one person and 4 nights for another as they do for 7 nights.

  208. J-Name*

    I was a freshly-minted PhD, asked to fill in as a Lecturer (course instructor) for a faculty member who became seriously ill mid-semester.

    The department chair accompanied me to class to introduce me as the substitute, then initiated a “name game” where each person had to introduce themselves with an adjective that describes them and starts with the same letter as their first name, e.g. “Hilarious Hannah.” As each new person introduces themselves, they must first name everyone else who has gone before them, e.g. “That’s Hilarious Hannah, and I’m Amiable Ayesha.” So the name game becomes harder as things progress.

    My name starts with a “J,” which isn’t the best letter for this game, but there are some options (I was going to call myself ‘Jolly’). Mostly I was focused on remembering each student’s name, as I thought ‘acing’ the name game would make a good first impression as their new instructor.

    We were going around a circle in this class of 20-25 students, and I was seated a little past halfway, so at least 12-14 students went before it was my turn. Much to my surprise, there were quite a few other people with ‘J’ names in the room! “Jolly” got taken right away, and then another one and then a *third* ‘J’ name took the only other adjective I had thought of.

    At that point I was starting to panic, because trying to think of good “J” adjectives while also paying attention to the new names was Too Much and my brain was not rising to the occasion. The only word I could think of was “Judgmental” but that didn’t seem like the best way to introduce myself as their new teacher.

    Before I knew it, it was my turn. I started repeating back everyone else’s name who had gone before me, but I hadn’t yet come up with an adjective for myself. I hoped something would come to me when it was time, but my brain was blank. And then, out of that void came…the nickname my girlfriend-at-the-time sometimes used for me! “Juicy.” So that’s how I ended up introducing myself as “Professor Juicy [J-Name]” to the first class of students I taught post-PhD.

    As if that wasn’t bad enough, there were still about 10 students and the department chair left to go after me, so “Juicy [J-Name]” was repeated multiple times over the course of the next few minutes as they each took their turn.

    Still by far the most embarrassing professional moment I’ve had, inside or outside of the classroom.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Amazing!

      Also, why on earth did the chair decide to do a name game?? Especially for a substitute, that seems like such a waste of time.

  209. VeryAnonymous*

    I hold a senior role at work. We had a major change coming up in the organisation and I had been discussing with the rest of the senior team how best to communicate it; I thought it was best that we should inform the managers first so that they could help handle their teams’ reactions to the news when the full public announcement was made.

    There was a long email chain all about it amongst the senior team, with some of them arguing that maybe it should only be a subset of managers who are told, but different people having different opinions about which ones should and should not be told. I replied to the email chain with a draft message for us to send to the managers and wrote a load of stuff at the top saying things like “I don’t understand why there is so much confusion about this, we need ALL THE MANAGERS to have this information, as I have laid out below”. I intended to send this to the senior team that was on the rest of the email thread for their review, but I somehow managed to send it to the “all managers” mailing list!

    Welp. I guess now “all managers” have that information… and also know that the senior team can’t agree among themselves about who counts as a manager and who does not, and who thinks which managers should get info ahead of their teams, and that we get a bit snappy with each other on email threads sometimes!

  210. Kesnit*

    I posted this in the weekly thread when it happened. Someone recommended I submit it to Mortification Week, so here it is…

    Last January, the eastern US got hit with a massive winter storm. Where I live, we were lucky enough not to get snow or ice. We did, however, have high winds, tornado warnings, and so much rain that some roads were flooding.

    Boss decided to close our office so people could get home during a lull in the storm. I went to talk to him before I left. Just after I left the office, he called out “go home. Drive save. Love you.”

    I know the last was said out of habit. My boss is a single father of 3 kids, ages (then) 14-19. He’s a great boss, one of the best I’ve ever had. His oldest is about to start her sophomore year in college (so was a freshman at the time) and it’s clear from the way he talks about her that he’s a nervous dad. His middle child has a driver’s license and does drive himself places. Youngest child obviously cannot drive himself, but is active in things at school and often gets rides with the parents of schoolmates.

    I didn’t say anything and just kept walking down the hall…

  211. Extremely Cautious Sex Educator*

    First time commenter here, but I have a story that was made for this. Pardon the fact that it’s a little long.

    About ten years ago, I was teaching sex education in a large charter school known nationally for its innovative work. For that reason, people often toured the school to learn more about the model. It’s not easy teaching sex ed to high school kids, particularly when it comes to ensuring everyone uses the scientific name for certain body parts rather than slang which, as you can imagine, can be quite crude. I had a great exercise for combatting this – on the very first day, I’d allow the kids to say whatever they wanted. Once. So, I’d name a body part, and the large class was allowed 5 seconds to yell whatever word for that body part they wanted, and then promise to never say it again. You can’t really make out specific words when a class of 40 kids are all yelling different things at once. Well, I got to a certain body part held by those assigned female at birth, and apparently the entire class only knew one word for it. So I say the proper term, and it was as if a choir of angels came together to scream this one, extremely crude, word in unison. Seriously, it was as if it was rehearsed.

    So I’m horrified, and I look to my left to see the far more horrified faces of some sweet old ladies from Alabama who had come to tour the school and happened to walk by my classroom at that very moment. Miraculously I was not fired, and I never used that activity again.

    1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

      Ha, my first post-college job was with a nonprofit that taught health/sexuality education. One class started with “myths and facts,” where we’d let kids ask about things they’d heard. Most were commonplace, like “I heard a girl can’t get pregnant if she douches.” Until one day a boy in one of our youngest classes, maybe 11, said “My brother says AIDS came to America because a white guy went to Africa and f***ed a monkey.” I admit, 22-year-old me was not ready for that one, and I had to think of something to write on the blackboard because I was cracking up! Thankfully there were no visiting dignitaries, and the “real” teacher was scolding the boy for cursing, so she didn’t notice I was laughing my ass off.

  212. Next to Godliness*

    I’ve always been a bit of a germaphobe, and used to keep a separate pen for use at my desk than the ones I used in meetings (my reasoning being that anyone could use the meeting pens but I kept my, supposedly cleaner, desk pen in my drawer for my own use). The meeting pens went into a cup on my desk so anyone could feel free to grab one if needed.
    One of my co-workers, “Lynn”, who had a similar mindset, was at my desk when she needed a pen and started to take one from the cup. She then stopped herself and said, “I’ll get one from the supply closet because you probably don’t like people using your pens”, and started to walk down the hall. I got up from my desk and CHASED AFTER HER (still have no idea why I didn’t just let her go get a pen – think my concern that my quirk was inconveniencing her overrode whatever logic I had in the moment), then yelled down a hallway of filled cubicles, “No, Lynn, it’s fine! Those are my ‘dirty’ pens!” (as though that somehow made them more appealing for use). Not sure what was worse – chasing Lynn down the hall, yelling across the department, or admitting to the entire office I classified my pens by cleanliness level.

  213. squirmet*

    Oh, there was also the time that I interviewed a legally-blind individual for a job. As we wrapped up the interview, I led him to the door and as we exchanged final pleasantries, force of habit caused me to end the interaction with, “Drive safe!”

  214. Dirty Dirty Mouth This One Time.*

    I was leading planning meeting for the opening of a museum and I accidentally said, “We need to decide who is going to do the ribbon-cunting.” Dead. Silence.

    I still pause for a full second every time I have to say “ribbon-cutting.”

    I work in PR.

  215. Forrest Rhodes*

    Late 1980s, I’m an adult full-time university student working part-time for a couple of Civil Engineering professors. Prof #1 needs a document typed, printed, and copied for one of his graduate seminars.

    I’m a fast typist, it’s 35 pages, there’s a quick deadline, and the elderly-even-then Mac has an old keyboard, which (it turns out) I apparently can out-type. I get the document done in time for the prof’s seminar, hand him the copies, and we go on with our lives.

    The next day, Prof shows up at my desk, laughing. It seems that every time I typed the words “does not,” the keyboard misplaces the space and enters it as “doe snot.” I did run spellcheck on the finished document before copying it, but since “doe” and “snot” are both recognized words, Spellcheck gave me a “100% clean” message with a thumbs-up icon.

    Prof said his students started reading the document during the session, and one by one started to giggle. He wasn’t upset; he said it was one of the few times he was absolutely sure that every student read every word of his handout.

    For the next couple of years—until they all graduated—those students would always greet me with, “Hi, Doe Snot Lady!” And always, because the greetings were in public, it had to be explained … sigh.

    1. RavCS*

      Chaplain here. I can’t begin to tell you how many of my visit notes say that patient doe snot have any signs of pain……

  216. My Nemesis Pants*

    Back at the turn of the century, I was hired by the National Park Service as a seasonal guide. This is a fully uniformed position, Smokey the Bear hat and everything. The casual uniform was olive jeans and a baseball cap, while the dress uniform had olive wool slacks and the wide-brimmed hat. As the uniforms are expensive to purchase, I had exactly one pair of dress pants,. On my first day, I wore the dress uniform just so I’d look official. My boss instructed me to hike up to the ridge where there was a stunning view of the park. For some reason, I did not change into the casual uniform.

    So there I am, standing atop the rocky ridge, striking a majestic pose. The wind, which tends to howl and strongly gust at that elevation, caught under the brim of my hat and, because I was told to tighten that sucker down so it doesn’t blow away, knocked me right over. As I landed on the sharp rocks, I felt the back of my dress pants split wide open. I picked myself up and scuttled back to the parking lot as fast as I could, thankful that there were no cars in the lot when I got there.

    Except now the lot is filled with cars. As soon as they spy me slinking through the underbrush, parents herding a large group of children blurt “Look! There’s a park ranger! Go ask about (whatever it was I don’t remember)!” By this time, I had managed to get back to the park truck and pressed my backside against it, trying to look casual the whole time, as I’m mobbed by overly excited kids shouting questions over each other.

    I somehow managed to satisfy the questions all with my butt staying in contact with the truck, though that did require some awkward sliding back and forth because I knew the second I stepped forward, some kid was going to see my bright red undies. Once I got in the truck, I breathed a sigh of relief and got back to the visitor center, where I realized I had to walk from the parking lot to the front door in full view of anyone milling about. And naturally, I left my jacket at the visitor center so I couldn’t even hide it. I walked sideways down the walkway with my backside exposed to the plains below, which had no hiking trails and likely did not have any people around. I got a lot of strange looks as I sidled my way into the visitor center, praying no one needed first aid or to know what to call that weird bird.

    I then continued to sidle along the wall, ducking corners until I got into the offices in back and fled to my cubicle where I could change into the casual uniform jeans. I didn’t feel like trying to make a run for the restrooms so I just changed in the cubicle, then asked my boss what to do. Once she was done wiping away the tears of laughter, she directed me to another employee who was an expert darner and let me borrow a spare pair of dress slacks until mine were repaired.

    I thought that was the end of it. On my final day at that park, I was standing on the same ridge admiring the view, when the wind caught under the brim of my Smokey hat and blew me over where I felt the back of those same dress pants rip right open.

  217. Just Me*

    My office has a large reception area with an open front desk and a smaller back office for the non-customer service admin (processing invoices, etc.). One day, I walk into the reception area and see that the whole admin team is standing at the front desk peering into the back office. They explain to me that there’s a wasp inside, and they’ve been standing out there for about twenty minutes waiting for it to go out the window. I–an animal lover with an unfounded belief in my own bravery–go into the office and close the door, with the intent of shooing the wasp out of the window.

    I emerged triumphantly after about five minutes, expecting the admin team to be excited and grateful. Instead, they were all giving me these odd looks. One says, “We…DID appreciate hearing how nicely you talked to the wasp.”

    I hadn’t realized it, but the whole time I was trying to shoo the wasp out the window, I was also mumbling to myself, saying things like, “Now, c’mon man–you have places to be, I have places to be” and “Other way, my dude, other way.” That was just my internal monologue–I didn’t realize I was saying anything out loud. I also hadn’t realized that the door to the back office wasn’t sound proof.

    I just awkwardly said, “Oh…did you hear that?”

    1. Quill*

      My whole office talks to the spiders but… we’re veterinarian-adjacent. And “Ma’am, get OFF THE EQUIPIMENT” is a different sort of talking to the bugs.

  218. Streaking Babies*

    Last summer I helped out with my nephew since his daycare was only 1/2 days and I worked from home.

    He was 2.5 last summer and that was the summer he decided he didn’t like clothing. At all. All of us had a hard time keeping him dressed, he was a full-time streaker. One day I got a call from my CEO about a sudden mandatory emergency meeting. I checked on my nephew, and he as asleep on the sofa, fully clothed. I went to my office and logged into the emergency meeting, watching him from the open door. Still asleep, still fully clothed. Twenty minutes into the meeting, I check and he’s still asleep, still clothed.

    I look away and look back and he’s gone – here’s a trail of clothes leading into my office. I didn’t even hear him move. Everyone’s face on my screen was frozen in horrified laughter. It was the ultimate “he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” moment.

  219. Jigglypuff*

    One of my staff members called my personal cell phone while I was on my lunch break to ask me to bring toilet paper to them. The added kicker is that this was not a restroom I would normally have entered.

    I have run out of toilet paper in the past, but “call my boss and ask them to bring me more” was never an option I considered.

  220. Jam on Toast*

    I was teaching at a community college about ten years ago during the summer term. The class was held in one of those big lecture halls and in addition to the lectern, someone had left a plywood folding table at the front of the auditorium. I tend to stroll when I’m lecturing so when I stopped to answer some questions, I leaned casually against the table. Except all of a sudden, one of the table legs just lets go and the table collapses. Next thing I know, I’ve landed *hard*, and gone head over heels in front of nearly a hundred students. I’m bruised. I’m upside down and disoriented. My tailbone is on fire and of course, this is also the day I’d chosen to wear a cute sundress, so while I was digging my way out of the wreckage, I also had to worry about accidentally flashing my underwear at any students unlucky enough to be sitting in the front row. I was mortified.

    But the embarrassment didn’t stop there. After class ends, I file a safety report and call Facilities so they could remove the damaged table. I’m at home that night making dinner, nursing my bruised ego and my bruised behind, when the phone rings. It’s the VP of college’s Occupational Health and Safety team, calling to follow up on the incident and inquire about the well-being of my butt. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a more horrifying phone call, as I tried to diplomatically answer his well-meaning and earnest questions about just how far the bruising extended and was I experiencing any difficulty with bowel movements after my tragic workplace accident? Just…no….please.

  221. Jenny*

    I was traveling for work and had to visit an inner-city hospital in Birmingham. To put it bluntly, I was the only white person I saw all day. And in a (VERY) small way, I had a brief taste of what it would be like to be a visible minority. So it comes time for lunch and I plan to eat in the cafeteria. As I go through the line, I think everyone is watching me wondering what I am doing there. Obviously, they are probably not. I grab my food and try to high-tail it to a table in the corner so I can read my newspaper. And then the heel of my shoe plants and I start to fall. I fall SPECTACULARY. It’s in slow motion and my arms are flailing. I hit the ground hard and am surrounded by my food tray, meat loaf, and stewed tomatoes. At that moment every eye IS on me. And before I can gather myself up and get up, a teenage boy is right by my side making sure I’m OK to get up. I assure him I’m fine and then the nice people insist on getting me another tray of food and eventually I settle in at the table in the corner.

    While that is my most embarrassing work moment, it is also one of my favorite things because I do feel like I gained some perspective. And I know that a teenage boy in my midwestern state never would have rushed over to my side if I had fallen at home.

  222. Gloria*

    A boss once referred to our staff room as looking like a glory hole. She had never heard the more modern, sexual meaning of that term. Most of the rest of us had never heard of her meaning, which was a messy, disordered place.

    You never stop building your vocabulary!

    1. Czech Mate*

      Haaaa I have a friend who teaches an undergrad philosophy class called “The Ethics of Sex and Love.” He’s an ethicist who really only knows about sex in the academic sense. First day of class, he’s leading his students through a discussion on the definition(s) of sex, and he explains how there is an argument that sex can be described as a consensual act between a giver and a receiver. One of his students says, “So, by that logic, a glory hole is sex because one person is viewing and one is consensually performing?” Dear friend did not know what a glory hole was. A student in the class had to explain it to him.

      1. Dawnshadow*

        And now I’m confused… I thought, to put it in an SFW way, a glory hole was a hole in the wall of a bathroom stall that a man put a different part of his anatomy than his eye to.

  223. An Astronut*

    I split my pants in front of an astronaut.

    My company sponsors a large STEM event every year held by a local non-profit and usually an executive or manager would speak. As an active volunteer for the non-profit, I’d be involved in coordinating and get to spend a work day helping out.

    One year, the executive’s flight was delayed and, knowing my passion for the topic, they invited me to speak in their place. I quickly ran home, threw on a suit, and jotted down some talking points. I’d be sharing the stage with the non-profit CEO and an astronaut, speaking on the importance of STEM education for developing future career skills. I was pumped!

    The speaker seats were in a row just off stage, my seat was on the end adjacent to a display of spaceflight artifacts in a plexiglass case. When I arrived, the CEO and astronaut were there chatting, I went to place my water bottle next to my chair intending to join them. My lack of kinematic awareness bit me in the rear, figuratively and literally, as I bumped my rear on the sharp corner of the case and it sliced right into the seat of my trousers.

    Nobody noticed until I let out a loud “oh crap!”. Of course, it was too late to go back to change or try to save it, the event started in a few minutes and the audience was already filtering in. Thankfully it was mostly hidden by the suit jacket and I was careful at how I angled my body on stage. But I still had to walk directly in front of the CEO and astronaut to get to and from the stage…

  224. ialwaysforgetmyname*

    While HR Manager of a hotel for a well known upscale international hotel chain I attended our internal nationwide HR conference. During a break several of us were walking through a lobby, I was in front, turned a corner… and slammed into and knocked down the 70ish year old CEO. Thankfully he was fine. I could barely get any words out because I was so horrified and embarrassed. Afterward, the group I was with teased me “that’s one way to introduce yourself!”

  225. Hospital PT*

    Not me, but a former coworker… As a new grad she had been hired for her first job and was in the building to complete her pre-employment physical and get introduced to everyone in the new department. Unfortunately, when she did the “squat and lift this box” portion of the physical… she completely split the seam open in the back of her pants. Fully unsalvageable and with the good fortune of having worn a sweater or jacket that she could discretely wrap. The department manager at the time was a bonehead for many reasons. No surprise that he declined to reschedule the meet & greets, but worse, he insisted my coworker wear a pair of “one size fits none” medical office style paper shorts! So she literally met her soon to be coworkers wearing knee high black socks, dress shoes, a nice sweater… and horrible paper shorts. Worse, that prompted her having to explain repeatedly WHY she was wearing the shorts in the first place. I still can’t believe she didn’t bail on the job entirely.

  226. MissMaple*

    While gazing appreciatively and contemplatively out the window of my new office (trying to look serene, actually thinking “a window office, clearly I’ve made it, I’m a real adult!”), my coworker startled me and I whacked my forehead on the window, which made a huge thunk and smeared half my makeup across the window…they ignored it and just kept talking, but I could see the giant makeup smear out of the corner of my eye the whole time. Clearly I’ll never not be an awkward teen at heart.

  227. Rose*

    I was working at a vet’s office and helping a client hold his dog while the vet was examining the dog’s tail. The owner and I were both near the dog’s head and he must not have realized that in addition to holding the dog, I was moving my hand to pet the dog’s head to comfort it. At this exact moment, he bent down to kiss his dog’s head and ended up kissing the back of my hand. we both just stared at each other for a second and then pretended it didn’t happen while the vet continued her exam.

  228. datachick*

    I have two.. one from very early in my career (“first real job”) and the other from a couple of months ago.

    FIRST STORY (first job)
    In my early 20s my girlfriends and I used our work emails to email each other back and forth about personal life and mundane items (terrible idea, I know, but back then we thought we were “so cool” to have “real jobs” and felt very adult lol). I was sharing my screen with my manager to go through a project and on Outlook when you receive an email, a little popup banner would come up on the lower right side of the screen that showed the first 2 lines of the email. My girlfriend had a hookup and emailed me to tell me the story and the first 2 lines read “I was so drunk when I was giving him a b*****b, I threw up on his ****” (redacting adult content here but imagine something VERY NSFW). I FREAKED OUT but I didn’t want to X it out because I thought that would draw more attention to it. She never brought it up and we switched to gmail after that…. SMH looking back I can’t believe how dumb I was to do that.

    SECOND STORY (a few months ago in my well established career)
    There was a Sr. Director at my work who I did not report to but my company is fairly hierarchical. He had been pestering me non stop about something that was not a high priority for us nor the business, which had been communicated to him by my leadership. However instead of working with my leaders, he continued to slack me incessantly demanding updates. I had vented to my coworker about him “Puddlefoot is being such a PITA!” “He is riding my a** about something that we’ve already said isn’t a priority” “WTF” you can imagine other venting things here. I was in a meeting with Puddlefoot and instead of sharing my screen with the presentation I had for him, it shared MY SLACK CONVERSATION VENTING ABOUT HIM. I was mortified and X’ed out quickly but clearly mortified still, as it was super unprofessional. Promptly switched to text after that snafu.

  229. Mags*

    I was an interview for a job I really wanted and it was going well, all the way to the end. We all stood up to take our leave, the interviewer extended his hand, and I stepped forward to shake it….right into the glass coffee table between us. I managed NOT to shatter the table, but at the cost of throwing myself forward into the interviewer’s arms.

    I got the job though!

  230. Barb*

    First year on the job. Sat in on a contentious school meeting for a child with special needs. It was contentious enough the parent was recording the entire meeting. Instead of using the work affected, I said, “Afucked.” I’m giggling now thinking of it.

  231. Movie Theater Shenanigans*

    Does it count if I wasn’t mortified at the time but should have been? And if I ABSOLUTELY caused mortification to someone else?

    I worked at a movie theater in high school. I have very fond memories of that job–it was all people my age working together, you got free popcorn and drinks on your breaks, and you could see movies for free when you weren’t working. Great, great job for that stage in my life.

    I got promoted to selling movie tickets (this was 10 cents more an hour; I was very excited!) and took my job a little too seriously. Specifically carding for rated-R movies. On a busy Friday night I carded a guy, definitely on a date, for a rated-R movie. He was … not happy about it. “Oh, you’re going to be so embarrassed when you see how old I am,” he said, as he pulled his ID out of his wallet. Reader, I was not embarrassed. I didn’t care at all. The man was 25, probably 30, at minimum. He was definitely old enough to not be carded for a movie. And he was ON A DATE. I now cringe in secondhand embarrassment for the poor guy, but teenage me was blithely unconcerned and deadly serious about the whole thing.

    I like to believe they got married and still laugh about the overzealous ticket seller at the movie on their first date.

  232. Bubbles*

    ….not entirely sure this one actually qualifies. I WAS mortified, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t do anything wrong.

    I had been in a new job for about a year and I was chatting with my boss about the interview process. He confided that it had come down to me and another woman, but in the end I was the obvious choice.

    Because of my skill sets? My fandom honed videographer skills? My passion for the work? The fact I lived nearby?

    No! It was because I was ugly (I would have said, at the worst, cute!) and apparently my grandboss had been sued by the woman who had the the job before me for making ‘a joke about her rack’. So when he saw little homely me in the running for the job? Wouldn’t entertain another candidate.

    ….that was good for my self-image.

    (Honestly, at my previous (first!) job I had also been voted ‘the one most likely to put out for free, because she wants to be liked’ by my boss. So, I guess the whole situation is a combination of a bad environment and maybe being a bit of a doormat back then, I guess?)

      1. Polly Hedron*

        She had already been in that second job for a year when her boss told her why he had hired her.
        (Oh, Bubbles! How long did you stay in those first two jobs? I hope your jobs got better after those.)

  233. Jane Anonsten*

    I was less than a month into a new job and 3 months pregnant with my first child. I shadowed a colleague at a pre-bid meeting and site visit she was conducting (contractors interested in bidding on a job all come to a meeting about the requirements of the job and then walk the job site). This job site was the grounds of a plant that had very specific access and safety requirements, in an area where only certain vehicles were allowed to drive. We all parked our vehicles outside the security fence, and we were only allowed to take a notebook and pen through security (my colleague and I were allowed to bring the paper copies of the presentation, but no phones, water bottles, etc.). Because of all the restrictions, plant vehicles drove us and the bidders to the actual job site 10 where we conducted the pre-bid meeting — it took 10 minutes to drive through the plant to the job site, a literal field with no buildings or facilities nearby.

    It took about 25 minutes to go through the presentation and then bidders were walking the site asking questions when I realized that I was very hot (it was about 40 degrees Fahrenheit that day), a little nauseous, and was beginning to see spots. I walked up to my colleague, who was answering a question for a bidder, and said quietly “I don’t feel well, I need to go sit down.” I made it back to where the shuttle vehicles had parked and was able to open a vehicle door and sit down — I don’t know how I managed to not actually pass out, but I did not actually pass out. When the site visit was over, every single person asked me if I was ok as they filed back into the shuttle vehicles. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me!

    I later found out that my colleague blamed herself for me feeling faint and was mortified that she hadn’t put any accommodations in place for me — I was able to let her know that I hadn’t know that I needed any, so how could she?

    2. I Have RBF*

      Ummm…. 40 degrees Fahrenheit is actually kinda cold. Do you mean Centigrade? (40° C == 104° F)

  234. Illogical*

    Something about tech leads to a lot of these (tip: “cmin” is not a good out loud word), but this one was extra embarrassing, because, really, how did I do this?

    Several jobs ago I did software development for a news company. A small subset of my job was getting data into or out of my systems for other departments. At some point, another department, let’s say finance, needed some aggregate monthly numbers out of my team’s database. I quickly wrote a script to generate what they needed, got the format approved, set a schedule for YYYYMM_monthly_analysis.csv to be generated and sent to the appropriate people, and immediately went on to other things. Great!

    Several months later, finance needed a few tweaks to the report, which struck me as a great task for our new junior dev. I added some tech notes to the task ticket, and sent it off to my junior dev. A short time later he asked me to swing by his desk because he had some questions. I got to his desk, and he didn’t say anything, he just pointed at his screen.

    Reader, the variable I had used in the script to store the in-progress report was monthlyAnal.

  235. Mozzarella Manatee*

    Ah yes…the story of when I told my boss I loved her.

    I spent my first summer after college working at a summer program for gifted teenagers. I had a really long night dealing with drama between two of the program’s participants. I sent a long text to my boyfriend at the time explaining the situation. I ended the text with something like, “I love you and I can’t wait to snuggle you soon.”

    Except I didn’t send the text to my boyfriend—I sent it to my boss.

    She responded immediately: “Um…I’m not sure if this was meant for me?” I apologized profusely. Thankfully, my boss was an understanding person and we never spoke of it again. I’m currently in a customer-facing role and have an irrational fear that I will accidentally tell a customer I love them as we hop off a Zoom call!

  236. Meg*

    I worked at a mall jewelry store and frequently wore cute, work appropriate fit-and-flare dresses. One morning I squatted down to unlock and raise the gate at opening, and my skirt caught on the handle and went up with the gate, over my head.

  237. Red*

    I once went to the bathroom at work and when I was done unknowingly tucked the back of dress into my underwear so my whole backside was visible. I then left the bathroom and walked to my desk the path of which took me down a long hall, past our kitchen, and then past our guest hit desk where we had a guest that day. The CEO, various coworkers, and our guest all potentially saw my high rise panties. Thankfully, my coworker who sat behind me, once they saw my goof, rushed over and yanked my dress down. No one ever mentioned it to me (other than the coworker who saved me and then roasted me for months), but to this day I always double check my rear before leaving the restroom lol

  238. B’Elanna Torres*

    At the orientation during my very first grown up job, a gentleman came up and gave a presentation about short-term disability benefits and supplemental retirement accounts. I personally found this topic boring, so I (this is real) took out my laptop and started WATCHING AN EPISODE OF STAR TREK IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. I wasn’t in the corner or anything, I was at a round table in the very center of the room and did absolutely nothing to hide what I was doing. Worse yet, when my boss came up afterwards and suggested I … not do that in the future, I was quite put out. After all, I had the sound off and subtitles on! I wasn’t bothering anyone!

    Needless to say, the autism diagnosis a few years later was a surprise to exactly no one.

  239. SD95*

    I work at a university so we hire student workers to help cover our front desk. One of the funniest moments was one who was finishing a call and said “Talk to you later. (pause a beat) No I won’t because I don’t know you.” Then she hung up. My co-worker and I just burst out laughing.

  240. ThinMint*

    In trying to explain to my prudish boss how someone had previously dealt with a tree that was leaning too much into a structure, I said “They gave it a strap on.” Then there was silence. Then I changed the subject.

  241. Dog Walker*

    Many many years ago, I was a new hire in the advertising department of a major grocery chain. Suddenly, and for the first time in my career, I was occasionally included in client or supplier meetings and dinners. I thought I had finally hit the big time! One such dinner was hosted by a chicken supplier who had been dropped by the chain after customers complained that their packaging contained too much water and they were paying for water rather than chicken. The supplier planned to convince the grocery chain that the problem was solved. Dressed in my new tweed blazer, feeling hugely professional, I entered the Marriott, where hordes of high school kids were twirling in diaphanous pink prom dresses celebrating prom night. I felt sophisticated and cool. The conference room where the chicken presentation took place featured a long banquet table covered in various packages of raw chicken parts with a massive turkey as a centerpiece. The grocery execs were circling the table like vultures and the wife of the grocery buyer was actually caressing the turkey as she passed. Apparently, this array of meat was meant to go home with us and the turkey was the prize in a drawing, thus the big turnout. Although I was far and away the lowest paid employee present, I was determined to show myself to be above this crass poultry avarice. I would discuss chicken with insight and wit! After a truly ghastly film showing chicken processing in gory detail, we had dinner (steak, thank God), the turkey was awarded and all the grocery execs fell on the free packages in a frenzy. I remained cooly above the fray, trying to talk to the chicken suppliers who wanted nothing more than for me to shut up, grab some giblets, and go home. When I didn’t take the hint, one of them stuffed a paper bag with the undesirable leftovers, shoved it at me, and walked me purposefully to the conference room door. As I stumbled through the prom go-ers, clutching my sack, still trying to look like a CEO, I suddenly realized that the chicken supplier and had not, in fact, dealt with their water problem. The paper bag disintegrated wetly in my arms and a giant pile of bloody chicken necks and backs cascaded to the carpet. All eyes were on me as I knelt on the floor, desperately scraping up the offal and clutching it to my new tweed lapels. Lesson learned: I now snatch the freebies and sprint for the door!

  242. ThinMint*

    I still think back to this White Elephant Gift Exchange that occurred at a work party in 2010 and wonder how I missed the nuance. Here’s the invitation:
    ________________________________________________________________
    During the Staff Appreciation event next Tuesday, everyone is invited to play a game- this one is a ZERO COST white elephant exchange!

    If you want to play, here’s what you do:
    1. Find something in your office, dorm room, car, garage, neighbor’s garage (kidding!) or otherwise obtain a free item that you don’t mind giving away.
    2. Wrap it up using fancy paper, creative repurposing of the Chick-Fil-A bag, old OFA handouts- whatever you can find.
    3. Bring it with you to the event at 3pm next Tuesday 12/7. During the event, we’ll play a game and anyone who brings a white elephant gift will leave with one as well 

    Please, please don’t spend any money! Get creative 
    _________________________________________________________________

    I was new the the working world and didn’t realize that I was supposed to find something that hadn’t been used but that was still desirable. I thought the whole thing was meant to exchange “presents” no one wanted, not presents that weren’t a good fit for you but someone else might like. So I looked around my office, grabbed the old plastic ergonomic foot stand that had yellowed it was so old and was full of crusty dirt, wrapped it in copy paper I had printed the 3 Wolves on, and eagerly brought it to the party. As my gift continuously got skipped over as the next one to open and I saw more and more people delight at the amusing and unused gifts they were opening, I was mortified. My boss ignored all instructions and brought a restaurant gift card. Finally, there was only one gift left to open. And there was only one participant left as well, the only student employee who had contributed. He opened my gift. All chatter stopped. People looked around to see who claimed the gift. I hid in the back. Finally, our IT guy came up with his gift from an earlier round, a *new* skull candy jar, and gave it to the student before picking up the foot stand and saying “I’ll just bring this back to the equipment room.”

  243. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

    Giving my senior presentation in undergrad, one of the judges was a notoriously frosty woman, we’ll say Dr. Freeze.
    At the front of the classroom was a laptop connected to a big projector, so everyone could see the PPT I was about to bring up. I logged into my email to retrieve the PPT. And my email had one bolded, unread message. From a classmate. With the subject line, “FREEZE STINKS.”
    Someone gasped. I lost my voice. Dr. Freeze looked like she had smelled sewage.

  244. Overgrown Mint*

    In my 20s, I taught high school shop classes. One day, I was running late for work and grabbed a pair of jeans out of the dryer. All was well until I was doing a very animated lesson and a pair of lacy, risque panties fell out of my pant leg. I didn’t even notice. What I did notice was that my entire class (all males) were staring at the floor.

    When I asked a question I expected all of them to know, one of the guys in the front row gingerly raised his hand and pointed at the floor. “I think…you dropped something, Miss.”

    I was mortified but just grabbed the panties, shoved them in my pocket, and continued my lesson on calculating board feet.

    Thank God this was before every kid had a smart phone or there would’ve been photo or video evidence of my choice in underwear in my 20s.

  245. Katherine*

    Just yesterday I went to the bathroom to wash my hands; I turned on the tap and wet my hands at the sink like a normal person but when I went to use the soap dispenser no soap came out but the lever jammed and remained sticking out vertically, I then tried the foaming soap dispenser on the other side of the sink, which happily sprayed foam all over the counter and my shirt, so I then went to the paper towel dispenser to clean up the mess, pulled on the end of the emerging towel, and the front panel of it fell forward. A colleague emerged from a stall just in time to see me stare in bewilderment at my unwitting destruction of the bathroom. We probably just need to update our facilities but it felt like I had accidentally stepped into a slapstick comedy set up or something.

    1. Maudite Entendante*

      Oh my gosh, this reminds me of one from a couple years ago!

      I was filming a training video for people who were doing architectural accessibility surveys. The first shots we filmed were demonstrations of how to take measurements in bathrooms, including a shot where I reached across a sink. Relevant detail: I’m a wheelchair user, and also very short anyway, so sinks are roughly boob-height. I got a huge water spot on the front of my sweater and then filmed a bunch of close-up interview segments without anyone giving me a heads-up.

      I’m very proud of the content of the videos, but they’re excruciating to watch because all I can see is what looks like a lactation disaster as I’m trying to explain cross-slope and turning radius…

    2. Adultiest Adult*

      Oh, this reminds me of meeting our new psychiatrist at the clinic I used to work in. I walked up to introduce myself just as she was using the foaming hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall. Well, she hit the push bar a little more vigorously than usual, so the conversation as I approached was, “Oh, hello, you must be Doctor… “(SPLAT! as sanitizer foam flew all over her shirt and chin). Fortunately she had a sense of humor about it, and said, “That’s one way to make an entrance!” while I ducked into the nearest office for some tissues.

  246. Anax*

    In my first job after college, I had a certain amount of downtime, and would often browse the internet on breaks. Of course, although my knowledge of office norms was still a little wobbly, I made sure to browse only sites I knew were safe for work.

    This was around 2014, so one of my favorites were individual Tumblr blogs – there were a lot that focused on a very specific topic, so I could be certain that the content would be appropriate. Cat behavior blogs, for instance, or pictures of medieval armor.

    I didn’t realize two things at the time:

    One, some bloggers would mark their Tumblr NSFW in the blog settings, even if the content was completely tame. I’m still not sure why!

    Two, our firewall recognized and logged Tumblrs which were flagged as NSFW. Again, even if the content was completely tame.

    I didn’t find these things out until a couple of years later, when I was added to a security initiative, and our network security folks were speculating about these weird sites that showed up in the logs. Who kept accessing heck-yeah-anemones.tumblr.com?

    Oops.

    Apparently, IT had been observing my anonymized browsing habits the whole time, and since my “””NSFW””” browsing was a lot more interesting than the usual gambling and salaciousness, it had been a topic of mild speculation for years.

    I did not own up to this, but I did start bringing physical books to read on my breaks instead.

    1. persimmon*

      Marking blogs as NSFW on tumblr (now at least; not sure how it was in 2014) makes it so you have to be logged in to view them and prevents them from showing up in search results. Some people mark their stuff for that reason.

      1. Anax*

        Interesting – that makes sense! I’m sure I wasn’t logged in at work, but I wouldn’t be surprised if folks wanted to avoid the search results.

        Thanks! That solves one mystery, at least.

  247. The Mapquest Era Error*

    It was my first job out of college working in a communications role. I worked for a local utility and was traveling with executive leadership to our field offices for a traveling town hall event series. I was in my own rental car caravanning behind our COO and CFO through rural eastern Colorado. I somehow missed a turn and ended up in Kansas, four hours away from my intended destination. I not only missed the next event, but I sheepishly had to let the two executives know that I had gotten royally lost while following them. And because safety is such a priority in the industry, the COO alerted our 24-hour control center and safety operations team. When I finally got to my intended destination at 1 a.m., I had to check-in with several parties – including calling the COO.

  248. DF*

    Shortly after I started a new job, I needed to send a fax to someone who could not receive the document I was sending them any other way. (This was in the year of our Lord 2021, by which time I hadn’t sent a fax in several years). At my institution, you had to be registered to send faxes through the email system. Since I was relatively new, I hadn’t yet been set up, so I asked one of the other women in the office if she would mind sending it on my behalf. Here was the conversation:

    Me: “I need to sent this fax to Mr. Smith, but I’m not a registered sex offender. Could you send it for me?”
    Co-worker: *blinks in shock*
    Me, realizing what I said: “Oh my goodness. I meant that I am not a registered f.a.x. s.e.n.d.e.r. FAX SENDER.”
    Co-worker: *erupts in laughter*
    Me: “I do feel like I should emphasize that I am also not a sex offender, registered or otherwise.”

    Making this even more embarrassing was the fact that this job was at a seminary.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      You know, I’m not going to feel bad the next time someone looks at me oddly for saying “faximile” instead of “fax.”

  249. arbitraryname*

    I live with two elderly people who struggle with bowel issues, and last year we took to jokingly telling each other to have fun when someone announced a sudden, urgent bathroom visit.

    Then one day, my much younger male direct report (I am a woman) told me he was going to the bathroom, and my knee-jerk response was, “Have fuuuun!”

    1. Anonythis*

      I have literally this second realized that that could be read as meaning you think the person is going to the bathroom for some nsfw alone time and am considering all the times I’ve said that to coworkers and friends who announce they’re going to the bathroom.
      In my family ‘have fun’ is the normal benediction for anyone going to do anything that cannot reasonably be described as fun. Going to work? Have fun! Going to call the bank? Have fun! Going to clean the bathroom? Have fun! Going to use the bathroom? Have fun!

  250. Kara*

    Oh, another one, not quite as mortifying as my first, but in my 2nd job out of college, I had moved across country and was working for a family owned clothing manufacturer. My job was to write the clothing specs that got sent off to the factories to sew the clothes. This was in the pre-internet, pre-computer days. I’d type everything up into a pre-designed form on my IBM Selectric typewriter, then make copies on the Xerox machine, then send those via interoffice memo to the sewers and cutters on the factory floor, along with fabric swatches, button samples, thread samples, etc.

    So for example, the designer would give me the measurements and instructions and fabric numbers for the sample size (I think at the time a size 6) and I would have to size up and down through our range and then indicate things like vents and darts and buttons and cuffs and so forth. I had been given a tunic top sample to write up and it had, among other details, 3″ embroidered side slits.

    Except I wrote it up as “embroidered side sluts” and sent out 38 copies of the spec to our various sewers and cutters. I never lived it down. To the day I left people, including the VP, would ask me if my latest garment had “side sluts”.

  251. ILoveLLamas*

    Once upon a time I had the opportunity to part of a VIP visit to a new office that was being constructed for a huge global company. The CEO of this huge European company was visiting so the local folks were all aflutter about this visit because it was going to be featured in communications both internally and to customers. I (female) was the building owner representative who was to guide them through the construction area, etc. No problem, I’ve done this hundreds of time. VIP shows up, we don our hard hats for the cameras and off we go.
    Camera and film crew are everywhere. I’m in my nice suit for the occasion and capably lead everyone through. My little snippet is maybe 10 minutes. I’m next to the CEO for most of this, so I am DEFINTELY on camera. I returned to my office with a satisfied sigh of job well done, plop down in my chair and discover my fly was down the entire time. LOL. My team and I laughed for days.

  252. Ann*

    I was mid-sentence on a Teams call when my screen froze and the error message came up saying “Hold on, looks like something went wrong. We’re trying to get you back into the meeting.” I have a tendency of talking out loud to myself, so I said “Oh man, did the call drop? *Fuck!*” Immediately after this the call reconnected, showing everyone laughing hysterically. My boss said “Your audio did not cut out” and they continued to laugh while I hid my face in shame.

    Luckily it was an internal call and everyone found it funny, but I was still mortified and apologized profusely.

  253. Prudence Snooter*

    I once casually jogged into a clear glass door trying to join a board meeting in progress.

  254. Laeral Silverhand*

    I’m both a huge D&D nerd and a queer woman. Years ago, I saw these mousepads for sale that… well, you know those mousepads with anime girls drawn on them so that the wrist rest is their breasts? Okay, imagine that, but with a muscular orc woman. Obviously, I ordered one. It turned out to be shockingly comfortable, so I started using it at my desk, figuring there was no way my coworkers would ever see it since I work 100% remotely. A while later, I was chatting with a colleague (“Istus”) and mentioned that I’d recently gotten a wrist tattoo. Istus asked if she could see it, so I took a photo of it and sent it to her.

    I’m sure you can see where this is going: I only realized after Istus had already seen the photo that, behind my arm, the orc mousepad was in full (albeit somewhat blurry) view.

    As I was panicking, I thought, “I bet if I wrote in to AAM about this, Alison would encourage me to openly acknowledge the thing making me uncomfortable”. So I sent a message to the tune of “Also, uh, sorry about the sexy orc mousepad; I didn’t realize it was visible.” Istus replied that she had not actually noticed until I pointed it out, and then said (in what I think was an attempt to reassure me) that it was “extremely on brand” for me. To this date, I don’t know which is worse: that I sent a picture of my sexy orc mousepad to a colleague, or that apparently my personal brand at work is “person who would own a sexy orc mousepad”.

  255. Fake Kirkland Coffee*

    When I was a teenager, c. 2005, I worked at a boutique home goods store, part of a small chain in our metro area, as a cashier. The vibe of the place was very upscale. The staff was great and friendly, and we were all supposed to be charming, friendly, and calm with the customers.

    We had a store intercom system for calling for assistance, and this was back in the days of old-school cash registers. If something went wrong with a cash register, you had to get a manager to solve it for you – opening the cash box, reprinting a receipt, etc. To ask for a manager via the intercom, there was a code system: “Manager _ to the register, please”, where the blank was a number that indicated what kind of help was needed. A general request for any manager who could solve any problem (rather than asking for a specific manager) was 2. I guess no one had thought to put together a guide or cheat sheet about which numbers meant what, it was all conveyed word-of-mouth. So in my first week, as a little 17 year old baby, when I needed to endorse a gift certificate (yes, this was the dark ages) I picked up the intercom and accidentally said “Manager 1 to the register.”

    “Manager 1”, unbeknownst to me, was the cue for “THERE IS A BIG EMERGENCY AND I NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET”. Managers came RUNNING. Doors banged open across the back office area. A swarm of women in pantsuits appeared at the register, all of them two seconds from a heart attack. No one had ever told me this secret code would release this ride of the Valkyries. They all breathed a sigh of relief when they realized nothing was actually on fire, and I wanted to hide under the counter.

    As an adult, I can laugh about it, and also wonder why no one thought to put together some sort of document that included that information. But at the time, I was absolutely mortified.

    I now work in training, documentation and process improvement.

    1. Broken Lawn Chair*

      I bet you weren’t the first newbie to make that mistake. Probably not even the first one that year!

  256. boomchickapow*

    Back in 2017, I wrote a piece for a biology textbook about Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, and I turned it into the editor with Harvey-Weinstein written in more than a dozen places.

  257. Madre del becchino*

    Today I had to call a coworker to come let me out of the small restroom I was using in our old parish center (the wooden door had stuck due to the humidity.)

  258. Broken Lawn Chair*

    A store manager was helping me with an unusual customer problem and I said something like “we could do X to get him on out of here.” I meant “get him what he needs so he can go on with his day since standing at the grocery store service desk is not how most people want to spend their time.” I guess my manager thought it sounded like “get this nuisance out of our hair,” because she said something, I don’t remember exactly, but like “oh, we’re not trying to get rid of you!” I quickly said, “oh, I didn’t mean it that way!” I probably shouldn’t have bothered, since he probably knew what I meant – and if he did think I meant it the other way, explaining probably wasn’t going to help.

  259. DreddPirate*

    I had just returned from a vacation, and was chit-chatting with several co-workers about it in the break room. One of my co-workers (Phil) asked whether the scenery was as spectacular as it looked in the pictures he’d seen. I meant to say, ‘Phil, it was absolutely gorgeous. What actually came out of my mouth was, ‘Phil was absolutely gorgeous.’
    Never gonna live that one down.

  260. anonogyn*

    I am responsible for the ban on popcorn at an academic medical center. Our hospital has a mechanical floor above the OR, so my unit is on the 8th (really the ninth). I was covering L&D for OB. Family Medicine was also there with their patients. I popped in some popcorn and thought I programmed in 2 minutes. Just then someone rushed in and called for help. So I went. And I had programmed in 20 minutes. Smoke, flame, windows open. As in many buildings the elevators shut down when a fire alarm go off. The poor firefighters got to come up 9 flights of steps in full gear. For popcorn. I could not lie so I got a very firm talking to. I was junior faculty so essentially plankton in the scheme of things. I even got to be an incident report. 30 years later I’m still embarrassed and only do stovetop popcorn.

  261. NotJane*

    My previous job was working in the office at a roofing company and I got used to hearing lots of “colorful” language. I already have a bit of a potty mouth so being in that environment made me a little too comfortable swearing without thinking about it. I changed jobs to work in a law office and a few weeks after I started, my boss sent me to pick up lunch for everyone. As I was unpacking the food, he was standing next to me and remarked “Oh, they forgot my sauce!” and I automatically responded “Those m**ther f**kers!” Thank goodness he burst into laughter because I was DYING of embarrassment.

    1. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

      I’m sorry, but I LOVE that particular kind of over-the-top response to mundane disappointment. It just adds buoyancy to a conversation and helps me remember not to sweat the small stuff.

  262. Zoom Mishap*

    Started a new job about 6 weeks ago. Entire team is remote, and there are two weekly all-staff meetings** (a couple dozen people).

    Like everyone else in office-type jobs, I’ve been using zoom for multiple meetings a week, sometimes several in one day, for years. And I think I honestly have not had a “mute” mishap in the past. Guess I was a bit too smug about that….

    This week I am visiting my elderly father in a city two hours by plane from my own, as one of the perks of this job is they are fine with staff working from wherever. I’ve been doing my work in the room that is usually my father’s study.

    Important note: the day I arrived my father asked what my schedule would be over the week. I told him it was zoom-heavy (lots of other mtgs in addition to the all-staff ones) and that I really needed to focus during the zooms. I also gave him a print-out of my calendar for the week so he would know when I could be interrupted.

    Also relevant background: beloved parent is *severely* hard of hearing, even while wearing both hearing aids.

    Tuesday afternoon I logged in for the all-staff meeting. The person leading it started explaining the agenda and intended outcomes. Just as she was moving into important content that I needed to hear, my father walks in the room. He starts talking to me, oblivious to my gesturing toward the zoom screen and then to my saying at normal conversational volume “I’m in a meeting now, can’t talk.”

    So….there is a set of understandable factors in play…but the undeniable fact is that a meeting of two dozen people was disrupted by their very new colleague, whose job involves representing the org with powerful, connected people…and who is 57 years old…

    …shouting at the top of her lungs in the unmistakable tone of a peeved teenager, “DA-ADDDDD! I’m on the PHO-O-O-O-ONE!!”

    The meeting leader said quite calmly, “You’re not on mute, actually.”

    I know there are worse ways to become known in a new job, but what haunts me is not the tech screw-up but that awful resemblance I had at that moment to a really bratty, self-absorbed 15-year-old. It truly sounded like a sitcom character who deserves a comeuppance by the end of the episode.

    Ah, well. I guess I’ll live it down over time.
    __________
    **These are not the classic meetings-that-should-be-an-email because we have several quite distinct departments operating in a sensitive external environment that can change very quickly, so folks need to know what their counterparts are hearing and saying.

  263. Cat Mamala*

    Years back, as a relatively new manager, I went into a meeting with a couple people (when in-person meetings were still the norm!). The three of us started a conversation about how to handle our task. One asked me, can “John” do this? I was WAY too casual and thoughtless, responding “oh no, he’s not good at that.” Then John pipes up from the conference phone, “That seems harsh.”

    Face palm. Making it worse? John was one of my reports. Luckily he had a sense of humor, and accepted my red-faced apology.

    Two lessons: make sure you actually know who is participating in a meeting, and don’t let yourself get so casual in a work conversation that you say the stupid.

  264. Nicole Maria*

    The summer I was 19 I had both my first internship and my first girlfriend. I’m not sure how to word this politely, but my girlfriend and I were having a lot of fun to the point where I would regularly show up with hickies on and around my neck. Apparently it was bad enough that my supervisor (the managing editor), felt the need to send an email a few days before I was interviewing a prominent local figure to remind me that hickies are not considered office appropriate, and to please wear a scarf, especially when meeting with important people.

    Kirstin, I am sorry.

  265. Broken Lawn Chair*

    This wasn’t me, but I think the person concerned was mortified. Working at a university, a lot of your customers and student coworkers may be… inexperienced. So we had a student employee. Not her real name, but let’s say her name was Tyra Watters. We had to explain that her choice of first initial plus last name might not be the best idea for a username. (This was back in the dark ages when nobody had any kind of login name before university.)

  266. EmF*

    I worked in a call center where our clients were frequently dealing with a lot of personal stress. Calmness, kindness, empathy, and professionalism were emphasized in our training for this role, and I did my best to always exemplify those qualities.

    The role also involved putting them on hold a lot to look stuff up. And I am someone who gets songs stuck in my head. And I was working from home. And hold buttons are not foolproof. Imagine:
    Client: is pouring their heart out.
    Me: I am so sorry to hear that (thing) is happening, I can’t imagine how exhausting that must be. I’d like to help – can I put you on hold for a few minutes to see what resources we have in your area?
    Client: yes, okay.

    And then the next thing this client hears is me, in full “I am onstage at Carnegie Hall” belt, singing “I… I WAS STANDING. YOU WERE THERE. TWO WORLDS COLLIDED… AND THEY CAN NEVER TEAR US APART!”

    Fortunately the client thought it was hilarious.

  267. Headphones are your friend*

    One evening, I really couldn’t face the rush-hour commute, so I decided to kill time by cleaning my office. Since it was after hours, I hooked my iPod up to my speakers and put it on shuffle to keep me energized.

    After a little while, I stepped out to go to the bathroom… and returned to find my grandboss (the ED, and kind of an Awkward Office Dad) standing outside my partly-open office door, cheeks aflame. Apparently he hadn’t gone home either, and had wandered over to my end of the office to see who else was around. My iPod had picked that moment to play – at top volume – a song called “Do You Take It In The A**?” by The Wet Spots, which I could have sworn wasn’t even on the playlist.

    As soon as I came into view and we both realized what was happening, my grandboss just stammered out “I’m going home, don’t stay too late and remember to get the lights” and bolted out. I tried to apologize but it was clear that neither of us wanted the moment to go on any longer than necessary. We went the next two years pretending nothing had ever happened, but I also never assumed I was alone in the building again!

  268. The Leirum*

    When I was job searching several years ago I got a voicemail from a hiring manager asking when I was available to talk. I was excited so I called back immediately and was trying to be very cool and confident on my voicemail back so I used his name several times in my message, like “Hi Matthew, thanks for your call I am available…” and wrapping with “I look forward to speaking to you soon, Matthew”. Then I listened to his message again and it turns out his name was very much Anthony, not Matthew. I immediately called him back and left a message owning my mistake and assuring him that I was in fact a competent Quality Auditor, in spite of that evidence. He must have believed me, because he did interview me and I did get that job.

  269. I didn't say banana*

    For the purposes of this story, I’ll be Jo. When I was in college, I got an office job on campus. They day before my first day, I got a message from my manager, Bill, saying “I’ve been called into a meeting tomorrow morning. Meet my assistant Anne in the lobby at 9, she’ll give you a tour and get you settled, I’ll be back at 10.”

    The next morning, I’m in the lobby at ten to nine and a woman approaches me and says “Jo?” I nod and say “Anne?” She says yes, we start chatting, and she gives me a tour. It’s a weird tour, nothing is really relevant to my job, but I figure she’s been told to occupy me until Bill gets there.

    Anne takes me into a conference room and I meet about 20 other people, all very friendly and welcoming. They invite me to take a seat, and then they begin to pray. I’m confused, but it’s not like I can ask what’s happening. Then the guy two seats down from me says “I’ll kick us off this week” and begins a personal prayer. Everyone is nodding and saying “amen”.

    Then the woman next to me starts. Oh no, it’s a circle and I’m next. I’ve never set foot in a church and couldn’t string together a fake prayer if my job depended on it. When it’s my turn, I blurt out “I don’t know how to do this!”, but everyone is so encouraging so I mumble something about keeping my loved ones safe and everyone nods and claps.

    It takes a while for everyone to have a turn and it’s almost 10:30 by the time we’re finished. I ask Anne if we should go find Bill. “Who?” she says. “Bill, my manager”. “What manager?”. I ask her surname and I realise I have the wrong Anne!

    I excuse myself and rush through the building until I find the correct Anne, who is unimpressed that she waited in the lobby for me for 20 minutes and I’m rushing in 90 minutes late. She gets Bill, who is equally unimpressed as I try to explain that my parents gave me the most common girls name of the 80s so I accidentally joined a prayer group instead of coming to work.

    For the year I worked there after that, I occasionally ran into members of the prayer group who often invited me back, and it made me want to crawl into a hole and disappear every time.

  270. Bulu Babi*

    When I was a PhD student, I searched for an eminent professor at a conference to tell her with great relief: “I’m so glad to see you well! I just dreamed that you had jumped out of a balcony and died!”

    We were both speechless as it dawned on her (and me) what I had just said. I think that eventually I managed to awkwardly excuse myself.

    It’s been a decade and I still don’t know what possessed me to tell her. Maybe my dream scared me so much I couldn’t keep it inside. I’ve since learned the value of boundaries.

  271. Lucrecia*

    I’d just started working in academia as an HR specialist. We were trying to recruit a new PR director/ university spokesperson. I was just a lowly peon back then, but somehow, I got to run the final stage of the process, that is, a face to face meeting between our strongest candidate and the university’s two highest-ranking officials: the president (rector) and the general director. This was my first time coming in such close contact with the top authorities – whom I admired tremendously – and I was very self-conscious not to make any mistakes.
    It just so happened that the university president’s last name was very, very similar to the name of a doughnut shop I visited (and spoke of) frequently. Think “Johnson” versus “Johnsoon” for example. So I was literally telling myself before the meeting: “Don’t call him Johnsoon, don’t call him Johnsoon…”
    You can easily guess what happened next. I did introduce the president to our potential new PR director as Professor Johnsoon. But then, instead of apologizing for the slip of the tongue, correcting myself quickly and moving on, I… started to tell the whole story, how the university president’s name was so similar to this doughnut place and how I was much more used to calling out the doughnut place’s name than the president’s name and how their doughnuts were oh-so-delicious and all…
    After quite a few moments of this madness, my brain finally rebooted and I managed to shut up about the doughnuts. I still had to run the entire recruitment meeting between those three people in the president’s fancy office, though, acting as professional as if nothing had happened. It was the longest hour of my life.
    The candidate got hired. I did not get fired. :D But still. Ever since then, I’ve taken to calling the doughnut place by my president’s last name. Just in case.

  272. Anonymous For This*

    I used to work with Fergus, a snotty, self-satisfied blowhard. Men like me merely found him obnoxious, but women especially disliked him because he treated every one of them like his own personal assistant. However, he was senior and well-liked by the C-suite, so nobody beyond my immediate team would share criticism of him, and thus it was all just rumors and whispers and hints.

    That is, until Jane’s last day. She had worked closely with Fergus for several years, producing the reports that it was his job to present (and thus get credit for). Never once would she say a bad word about him, until a big group of us took her out to lunch on her final day. There, she unloaded years of embarrassing stories about him, and had us in stitches with laughter. It was glorious to hear someone corroborate our experiences with his nonsense at last.

    Things returned to normal. Months went by. I started a project with Mary, a popular longtime employee who was not intimidated by Fergus’s stature. A week into laughing and getting along well in our work together, the conversation turned to Fergus. I told her some of my team’s frustrating experiences with him, she told me a couple of amusing stories like Jane’s, and it felt like such a relief to be able to laugh about him with someone. Suddenly, I remembered how we treated Jane to that lunch where she opened the floodgate of Fergus stories, and I wanted to hear more from Mary. In the middle of laughing at her latest anecdote, I blurted out, “That’s hilarious! I’d love to buy you lunch to continue this conversation.”

    She froze. I froze. I knew immediately how it sounded. Worse, my wife worked there! Mary and her husband lived in our neighborhood and I’d met him! My brain started spiraling and I couldn’t speak. To clarify what I’d actually meant would have required explaining the entire convoluted context, which seemed impossible to do in the moment. (It took me three paragraphs just to summarize it now.) After a few seconds, Mary got very serious and from then on would talk only about the project details, and I followed her lead out of respect and shame. I never discussed Fergus with anyone again.

  273. Funkywizaard*

    My coworker and I were in a four hour meeting with a client. We finally had a bathroom break after three hours. I looked in the mirror as I was washing my hands and saw a long booger hanging from my nose. I asked my coworker how long it had been there. It was there the entire time.

  274. Josette*

    In the early 1980’s, I worked for a small, conservative savings and loan association. It was my second full-time job, and my appearance was presentable but not especially polished. Specifically, my make-up regimen consisted of mascara, lipstick, and a little blush. I came to learn that was not sufficient.
    One morning, my manager sent me to HR for a meeting, which turned out to be a makeover. The HR staff person had a full make-up kit and started “teaching” me to apply foundation, blush, eye shadow and liner, two layers of lipstick – the works. At the end of the session, HR sent me on my way and I went through the rest of the day, meetings and all, made up to the hilt.
    When I got home that evening, my husband took one glance at me and exclaimed, “ What did you do to yourself?!” I took a closer look. Turned out, the foundation selected by my “tutor” did not match my skin tone, not even close. I had gone through the whole day at work looking as though I were wearing a mask.
    I guess I should have been suspicious when the HR person said, “I don’t really have the right color foundation for you, but I think this will work.” It didn’t.
    The next day, I went to work with mascara, lipstick, and a little blush on my face, same as before. Nobody said a thing.

    1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

      This is hilarious and awesome as you tell it but I am also HORRIFIED at the notion that your HR lady MADE UP YOUR FACE! Truly a different time (and a different vibe, I am a non-makeup-wearing woman so this is extra horrifying to me I think).

      In other news I just had to stop autocorrect changing “also” to “ alstroemerias”, wtf autocorrect

  275. Daisy23*

    I was conducting a deposition at opposing counsel’s office. I was newly post-partum and it was early 2021: a weird time.

    I wanted to come in cool, calm and confident. What I actually did was walk into the office and spot my associate who was supposed to be meeting me there. I had not seen her in person ever because she was hired during the pandemic. I promptly introduced her as “my associate” to opposing counsel and they both looked at me like I had grown two heads. She was not my associate… she was opposing counsel’s wife who worked in his office!

  276. TANSTAAFL*

    This happened back in the early 90s. I was an EA to a VP and he left me a not me to call a vendor to get a copy of a book that had the word “paradigm” in its title. Friends, I had never heard of the word before. Instead of asking him how that was pronounced I went ahead and called the vendor and attempted to sound out “paradigm” which came out something like “para-dige-em”. The woman who answered politely said the book title, took the information and sent it promptly.

    I was mortified.

  277. libearian*

    At my previous job, I worked with youth ages 11-18. During a Zoom-based program, I came in to give staff a lunch break and ran Jackbox games for the kids who got back from lunch early.

    One day, I had a group of teenage boys and we decided to play Fibbage 3… and I forgot to change the content settings. Third question in: “When a male bee orgasms, his testicles… [players fill in the blank]”

    We sat in silence for a moment until I tried to cover my mortification with, “Well, I guess forgot to turn on family-friendly mode.” They roared with laughter, I later emailed their parents apologetically explaining the situation, and the rest of the week the group greeted me with, “Hey, ‘Family-Friendly’ is here!”

    (I kept one email I got back from a parent who thought it was hilarious and put a great spin on the situation that’s a perfect conclusion to “Tell us about a mistake you’ve made” interview question!)

    1. Beancat*

      Oh my god, this is my worst nightmare. Kudos to you for how gracefully you handled it!! And that definitely is an amazing spin to it!

  278. Mortification Squeak*

    Bless you for having Mortification Week, and behold, this week of all weeks. I’m no stranger to mortifying myself at work, but I just managed to greet my notably classy former boss by knocking her hot coffee out of her hand during an overly enthusiastic hug, thus creating a small steaming java lake on the floor of the conference venue my current workplace is hoping to book at her new workplace. Of course, she had arranged the tour, and of course this happened in front of all her colleagues, including the ones giving my team the tour and of course, my profuse apologies only compounded my awkwardness. Luckily, everyone’s outfits and skin were unblemished – just my dignity was scalded…

  279. XXX Accident*

    I was fresh out of training for a customer service job with the last local cable company and not yet familiar with the channel lineup. A customer called to report that channel “555” was not working. I proceeded to check that same channel on our office tv… and found the programming to be very much NOT office appropriate! In a panic, I hit “channel up” and found that channel 556, 557, 558, and 559 contained similar programming!

  280. Annie G.*

    While preparing for my first offsite brief at a *labyrinthine* gov’t office complex with no public directory, I forgot to pack 2 critical items: my customer’s office number and my umbrella. Having begged information from several poor folks I encountered in the halls — none of whom was prepared to deal with a panicking, rain-drenched lunatic—I eventually arrived at her door 13 mins late, soaked through to the skin and escorted by a kind custodian. It was roughly 800 years ago, and the memory still makes me cringe!

  281. Paper Liger*

    During the first couple weeks of this particular job my boss and I smushed into his office looking at his computer screen. I had a large water bottle and (although I did not know this yet) I had improperly attached the lid

    His office was cramped because he had 3 desks. One had a computer monitor & the other two contained towers of paper – imagine the den of a wise wizard who was also an event planner, because everything was incredibly organized. Paper stacks had crisp, even edges and 90 degree corners. Every stack had a distinct purpose and was labeled with, what I later learned, was a complex color coded system of post-its. (This was well before digital replaced paper)

    I was leaning back against the desk behind me when I bumped into my water bottle. A liter of water immediately flooded the desk, soaking neat stacks from above and below. Of course, I was mortified and apologized repeatedly, but friends, my boss was so, so kind. He said “I was meaning to clean that up anyway” as we made several trips to the recycling bin

    I worked there nearly 15 years and never again saw that desk empty. I told this story at his retirement party and he didn’t even remember it had happened. Additionally, nobody else had ever heard it, so he had kept my embarrasing mistake to himself all that time

    1. Ancient Llama*

      Opposite of your boss: my assigned college advisor, a math professor. I walked in his office to meet for the first time. He had 3 desks, two were pushed together and there was a mountain of papers at least 2 ft high consuming the top of this basically 6×6 surface. I am sure they started as stacks but over time had merged into one large lump. I said “I am so happy to see I don’t have to be organized to be a math major” meaning I also was disorganized. By the insulted look on his face, I don’t think he took it as the “we have similar characteristics, that puts me at ease” intention I had meant.
      Your boss was great.

  282. Doh!*

    When I was in my early 20s, I was a leasing consultant at an apartment community near a major medical center. We had two golf carts that we used to drive potential residents to the model units that we were supposed to return to a garage at the end of the day. One morning, my co-workers and I noticed that we had forgotten to put the golf carts away the previous evening. It had rained, so we dried off the seats and figured everything was fine. I then started talking to a potential resident who was moving to the area to be near the medical center. He clearly had a medical issue and was carrying a medical device with him. He sat on the back of the golf cart, I turned it on and started backing out of the spot, and a deluge of water poured off the roof of the cart directly onto him. Needless to say, he did not lease an apartment from me. More than 20 years later, I still cringe about this incident a lot.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      That sounds excruciating, but it also sounds like it would have been one of those moments of step-on-a-rake physical comedy that are awful to actually experience but hilarious to witness.

  283. Owlette*

    A colleague once walked back in the front door in the middle of the day. When asked where she had been she responded “Just helping Chris get a quickie in the back of the van”.

    A Quickie is a type of wheelchair and the equipment supplier, Chris, just needed help loading said item. Most of us knew that but not all…

  284. bd*

    My male boss once sent an Outlook invite to a new female client for our initial “lickoff” meeting (typo – the invite should have said “kickoff”). She refused to accept until he changed it.

  285. Homer Jay Simpson*

    When I was still in the Navy, I got into a conversation with the senior-most enlisted guy in my department (my great-great-great grand boss) over drinks on the pier. He gave me some advice in a fatherly way, and as I was walking away I said “Sure thing, love you dad.” He said “Love you too”. Multiple people heard. And then I heard about it many, many times over the remaining deployment.
    Making it worse, the advice he gave me was concerning a young man who was inviting me out for the evening.

  286. Open mouth, insert foot, mute at wrong time, make it worse*

    10 years ago I worked for a contractor to a govt agency. There was a weekly meeting for the PMs and sr staff of the govt agency & my company. My boss would go to the meeting but they had a conference phone line and I dialed in (I worked from home) since occasionally she asked me to look up info for questions.
    One day my kids (around 15 and 12) were home from school, but knew I was working and should be quiet. They started goofing around, slowly getting louder. I intended to yell from where I was “if you don’t settle down, I will give you hours of chores.” It was at the point that I finished saying “…down, I will” when I realized, horrified, I was not muted. So I quickly muted the phone. Which made it worse since I can only imagine the meeting attendees expected I said something to the effect of “…I will beat you within an inch of your life.”
    The phone call went silent for 3 seconds, and then laughter from the meeting room, and they resumed the meeting. While I have a distinctive voice, there were enough people remotely calling in and I was only in the role a few months by then, that I HOPE they never figured out it was me. At least my boss never brought it up.

  287. M*

    I had a work study job my freshman year of college, and I used to like to go to the gym before or after work, so I’d leave both work clothes and gym clothes in the bottom drawer of my desk. I also obviously left a bunch of (clean!) bras and underwear in there too.

    The last day of my job before summer break we took some stuff home with us but since we were planning on coming back in a few months, most people left a few things at their desks (our office wouldn’t be open during the summer).

    For some ungodly reason, I took my clothes out of the bottom drawer, but left the bras and underwear (why why why why why). Sure enough, I ended up transferring universities over the summer and never got a chance to go back and collect the rest of my stuff from my office.

    A decade later and I still cringe thinking about my very formal, very buttoned up boss opening my bottom desk drawer to clean it out for the next person and finding a bunch of my underwear. At least it was clean underwear?

  288. Lukraak*

    Many years ago, during my PhD, I routinely had to work in the radiological lab of our University.
    It was in the basement and for obvious reasons you had to go trough a safety test to get in our out, which took 5 minutes each time.
    Since the experiments required swapping out a fluid every 10 minutes or so three times it made no sense to go back to the main lab while doing that task, but you could not take anything from the outside in either, so the actual ‘work’ was 10 seconds of exchanging the fluid followed by 10 minutes of waiting in a room in a hallway of similar rooms.
    One morning I was there very early and pretty much still half asleep. I guess I fell asleep on my feet, looking out of the window. When the alarm went off and I snapped awake the main supervisor of the lab was standing directly in front of me on the other side of the window looking at me. Gave me the fright of my life. He never let me live it down.

  289. zyx*

    One summer I took an internship at a tech company as part of a program for STEM teachers. The company built custom converged infrastructure units for data centers—refrigerator-looking things that contained storage, server, networking, and computing components. It took a couple weeks, but finally I got cleared to go to the data center to see the units and help set some up! I was really excited.

    Since summers in Silicon Valley can get very hot, I often wore skirts to the office during my internship. None of my (mostly male) coworkers warned me not to wear a skirt to the data center. In case you have never visited one, all the machines give off heat, so many data centers have fans blowing all the time. Including straight up from vents in the floor.

    I managed to get through that day without any Marilyn Monroe moments, but there were some close calls. Do not wear a skirt to a data center.

  290. Been There*

    I once told a coworker he wouldn’t be able to donate blood for a while. In my mind I had added “because you’re going on a trip to the US”. The coworker was also gay, and donating as a gay man is still not legally allowed.
    Everyone just looked at me in shock. I was mortified.

  291. NoamChimpsky*

    My partner and I were in our 20s, and we had just moved across the country for my grad school program. He got a job at one of those hipster tech startups that had an office equipped with Nerf guns and beer taps. True to type, the company culture was all about ironic parties, and two months in, we were invited to an after hours moustache party at his office.

    This was in 2008, when hipster tech startups and Movember still seemed like novel amusements, and I’m a sucker for a good theme. I went all out — but not TOO all out – with a cute cocktail dress, a nice bushy stick-on moustache from the dollar store, an eye patch, and a pirate hook. My partner looked a bit doubtful, but I pointed out that the moustache made NO SENSE without a pirate patch (“like, what’s the narrative??”) applied a kicky red lipstick, and prepared to network.

    It … did not go as I had imagined. Remember this was still early 2000s tech: someone had stocked the party with what I can only guess were models hired to make it seem cooler. The path to the front door was lined 2 deep with very tall, very blond women wearing small black dresses. They did not have moustaches, or eye patches. They smoked their cigarettes and stared at us in dead silence as we walked the gauntlet to the bar. It was too late to turn back — too many people had seen our grand pirate entrance. All I could do was straighten my moustache and work my way through the party, shaking hook-hands with my poor partner’s coworkers as I went along.

    My partner worked at that company for ten years and I never saw those tall blond girls again. He has also never again let me win an argument about dress code.

  292. Michigander*

    The summer before I turned 17 I worked at McDonald’s to save money for a used car. I worked at the counter but we did handle food and for some reason they didn’t make us wear gloves (We were handling money and then serving fries and ice cream with those same bare hands!) One day two women came in with kids and ordered ice cream. As I was making a cone I got some ice cream on my hand and I LICKED IT OFF. While holding the ice cream cone. I went to give it to the woman and she said, “I saw you lick your hand. I’d like you to make me a new cone.” Did I then profusely apologize and immediately make a replacement? Of course not! I stupidly said, “Oh, it’s okay, I only licked my hand, not the cone”, thinking that of course the problem must be that she thought I licked her food. She said yes, I know, I’d still like you to make me a new one. I did make her a new one and didn’t really give it a second thought until years later, when I realised what a horribly unsanitary thing it is to lick your bare hand while holding a customer’s food.

  293. Michele S.*

    My 3rd interview for my very first managerial job involved me flying into Chicago where I would be meeting with “The Big Boss” right at the airport.
    Finding each other, he suggested we get a table at one of the restaurants where we both ordered sodas. As he was speaking, keeping my eyes focused on his face, I bent down to take a sip of my soda. My straw went way up one of my nostrils! Neither of us said anything and I prayed he somehow had not noticed. I got the job! Years later, it was time for me to move on. On my last day, that same boss called me in to say good bye. Grinning ear to ear, he asked me if I remembered what he called “The Straw Incident” when he had first interviewed me. (As if that was something I could forget!)

  294. Madame Arcati*

    I might have told this before but what the heck.
    I was I at my desk in a fairly large open plan office when a colleague at the adjacent desk had a question about a system, so I leaned over to point at his monitor screen.
    Reader, in my keenness to help, I leaned too far. Despite being on a standard office chair, fairly stable with five leg-things extending out from the pedestal, I tipped over and both I and the chair clattered to the floor with a crash from the chair and a yelp from me. My then manager rushed over in horror lest I should be injured, to find me flat on my back declaring, “gravity thou art a heartless b!tch” and my colleague practically having a hernia trying not to laugh (he gave up quickly). It was probably fortunate I was not new to the workplace nor the office itself and am pretty chill about looking like a buffoon, but a more sensitive or newer person would quite reasonably have been planning to move to Burundi.

  295. History Lover*

    I used to work at a National Park that did historic weapons demonstrations. I was firing a replica 18th century musket and following the spotter’s instructions. As soon as I had taken the safety off the weapon, my colonial britches just…. Fell down. About 100 people saw my not-period-appropriate underwear while I waited for the spotter to give the order to fire (which he couldn’t because he was laughing so hard). Finally was able to fire and correct myself, but it felt like an eternity. Oh I was mortified!

    Best round of applause I ever got after a program, though!

  296. Lizzay*

    Not *at* work, but during my senior year of college, interviewing for a job. And yes, I’m definitely outing myself to anyone who knows me b/c I tell this story all the time.

    So being a broke college student, I sewed a lot of my professional/nicer clothes with my mom’s old sewing machine (for classes, it was obviously all jeans & t-shirts). My mom had some beautiful navy pin stripe wool suiting she wasn’t using, which she kindly let me steal from her. I picked out a dress pattern and got to work. When I finished, I checked myself out in the mirror – it was a double-breasted wrap dress, so sort of looked like a suit jacket, just longer. Standing, looking at myself in the mirror, I thought I looked very professional with my heels & hose (yeah, this was a loooooong time ago). One other thing to note – I’ve always hated panty hose, so I was wearing these thigh-high hose that held up themselves – with rubber around the top, no garter belts. The interview was with 2 people, one of whom was a few years older (late 20s-ish), and the other guy, who had graduated just the year prior & who I’d had several classes with, though we never spoke in class, as he was tall, blonde, really good-looking, and I thought he was out of my league. So I get to the interview, shake hands with them, they invite me to sit down. When I sit down, two things happen simultaneously, one of which I think anyone who’s ever sat down in a suit jacket without unbuttoning it can understand – on the top half, the lapels pop to the sides revealing that, as a broke college student, I’m wearing only my ratty old bra, no camisole; and down below, the wrap part of the skirt parts to show off WAY more leg than I ever wanted. I spent the rest of the interview with my portfolio desperately pressed onto my legs to keep the skirt closed, or at least hide my thighs & tops of my hose, while also leaning way back, trying to keep the lapels flat. I didn’t get the job.

    Side note, the one interviewer later left that firm & the field entirely, went to med school, then on to some fame in reality & talk-show tv.

    1. Lizzay*

      Oh yeah, and note to self: ALWAYS check out an outfit by SITTING in it, not just stnaidng & admiring yourself in the mirror.

      1. totallyrad*

        I used to wear those hose too and I think the last straw on my last day (of 4) at a Big 8 firm was when I sat down in a meeting and everyone could SEE. I wasn’t all that fazed but apparently they were…next morning I got “this just isn’t working out.” Other things I (probably) did wrong included wearing pants to work and having my Walkman earphones on in the elevator rather than stashing them after morning commute.

  297. flamingoAudacity*

    long ago I was in a job where I was on call 24/7. I had a problem around 2am and called my contact to make changes to the project. Half-asleep, I told him the problem, what I wanted changed and he agreed to make the changes. I finished the call with “thanks, I appreciate it. Love you, goodnight” and hung up the phone.
    My mortification was complete when the next day I went to profusely apologize and he let me know I was on speaker phone. His Brand New Wife got to hear a strange woman call in the wee morning hours and profess her love to him.

  298. Will*

    Once I was in the parking garage at a hotel/convention center for a week long work event. The parking had one of those digital meters that you had to put your license plate into to pay for parking. I was in line to pay behind a very short woman who didn’t remember her license plate. I’d seen her walk out of her car while I was walking up to the meter and was tall enough to still read her plate. I was just trying to be helpful so I walked up to her and read her license plate to her. She looked terrified while I was talking to her and then basically ran away as fast as she could finish the process.

    In hindsight, a strange man telling a lone woman in an empty parking garage that he had watched her get out of her car might not have seemed as helpful as I’d initially hoped.

    We spent the whole week at the convention and I just pretended like she didn’t exist but died a little on the inside every time we walked into the same room.

  299. squids for all time*

    This is a little NSFW- I was in a team meeting describing the success of some pyramid shaped parts we were making using a new manufacturing process. I was describing the different iterations- “this one is a little dome-y”, “this one is a little “sphere-y” ect. until the last one… “this one is a little “octopus-y”. SEVERAL TIMES before I realized what I was actually saying. Yikes. At least it was an accurate description.

  300. Our Lady of Shining Eels*

    My time to shine!

    14 or 15 years ago, I was a middle school librarian, teaching a library skills class. For some reason, I cannot remember why, I had one of my classes and I had no lesson plan for that particular day. Fine, I’ll throw on an educational DVD about Arts, Music, and Literature of the Renaissance.

    My seventh graders were not thrilled by this. There was moaning, whining, why can’t we play on the computers, etc. I kept telling them to settle down, we’ll learn something, etc. etc.

    And then … then the David appeared on the screen. I froze. If I didn’t react, perhaps my students would not react? Michelangelo’s greatest sculpture filled the screen. Surely they have seen a naked statue before, I know they went to the Met Museum in sixth grade.

    “Miss! We can see his pee-pee!” the students crowed in glee. I wished for the DVD to hurry up and get on to something else, like the Sistine Chapel. Or the plague. Or the fire of 1666.

    No, my wishes were not answered. And oh no, the DVD froze.

    I jump in, as the students are happily yelling at male nudity on the screen. Not only has the DVD player froze, the projector will not turn off. I am in front of the screen —

    “Miss! It’s on your face!”

    I think at this point I wished the earth to open and swallow me whole, while the seventh graders are suddenly having the most entertaining library skills class.

    I finally get the darn thing turned off, and while I was telling my students “Go on the computers! Have fun!” they were countering back with “No! Put it back on!”

    Truly, there is no winning when it comes to seventh graders.

  301. Double Shelix*

    This won’t rise to the level of being showcased, but not 30 minutes ago i was presenting the approved slide deck to an internal auditor for a Mock PAI (Pre approval inspection, an FDA audit prior to a drug’s approval) and between last night when i practiced and this morning someone, clearly a non-chemist, EDITED MY SLIDES.

    To say i was caught unprepared is an understatement. I am mortified, horrified, and livid at the person who edited them. The director. The freaking QA director incorrectly and sloppily edited my slides and didn’t tell me.

    I have to go back in there around 1330 and help present a different Very Important Slide Deck and if it has been tampered with i might just explode.

  302. HelllloNurse*

    First time posting, oh I’ve got this!

    I was a bedside nurse in the hospital and one of my coworkers was incredibly busy, and I offered to help. She asked me to check the blood sugar of a diabetic patient before the next meal.

    I entered the room and met the patient and son, and explained why I was there. Patient told me that they were in pain. as I was poking their finger and doing the glucometer check, I used my standard, bubbly young nurse question- “ please rate your pain from 0 to 10, with zero being nothing, and being both your legs are cut off and you’re on fire.” (For those unfamiliar, pain medication is usually given based on severity of pain, and many people tend to exaggerate. This was my way of adding a little levity, and I never used it when I could see a person was truly in distress).

    Patient replied “that’s not funny. They want to take my foot.” Patient’s son burst out laughing. I was unfamiliar with the patient, since I was just going to do a quick task and was unaware of his diagnosis. I quickly apologized, got his pain score and literally ran from the room.

    I then met the primary nurse in the med room, and relayed my shame.

    I saw the sun in the hallway later and apologized again; he was very gracious and understood the spirit of how the question was asked.

    And this is why medical professionals have dark senses of humor.

  303. Two Bobs*

    My new boss and my husband shared a common first name – Bob. Friday afternoon of my second week, the woman sitting in the cubby next to mine is chatting with me as we did low-level work to wrap up the week. In response to her question about my weekend plans, I replied that on Saturday Bob and I were going out of town to visit his family and on Sunday we were going to shop for a new mattress. Silence. I looked over and she’s frozen. We both had a laugh when I reminded her that my husband is also named Bob. We shared the story around our team and my husband became known as Mr. Jones at my work.

    Three years later someone in the company asks me, sincerely, if there is a reason why I refer to my husband so formally. Religious? Cultural? They’d never seen anyone do it before and wondered. So we got to tell the story to a new group of colleagues.
    My boss Bob was a great sport.

  304. UnwittingAccomplice.*

    Well, quick one.

    I touch type, a skill I picked up over the years.

    I was in a teams meeting with my boss and another senior (female) manager. I then found out that the reason for the meeting was that I was being moved to the other managers department. Not a big deal since we were in a re-org cycle at the time.

    That asked if I had any questions, and my response, instead of “No, got it” was, of course:
    “No, go tit.”

    On IM. And I didn’t read it before I hit send.

    Of course, she was one of my favorite managers even after that start.

  305. Lizzay*

    Early in my career, had a senior woman who was known to be a bit prickly looking over my shoulder while I calculated some stuff in Excel. As she’s watching, I’m trying to do a count on some field … and I accidentally skip the ‘O’ in “=COUNT(…)”. To this day not sure she noticed (and to be clear, I did not consider her one & would never have called her that!)

  306. Daisy*

    I (a female attorney) had gone to an attorney’s office to review some documents for a case in which we were on opposite sides. After doing so, he walked me back to the elevator and asked, “Do you need to go potty before you leave?” He was immediately mortified! I laughed and responded, “no, I think I can make it back to my office!” He apologized profusely and said he was in the midst of potty training his toddler and “I guess I’m asking everyone that question automatically.” I thought it was hilarious but he could not stop apologizing. If he hadn’t been a decent guy I can see how I might have taken it as creepy instead of just funny.

  307. K*

    When I was 18, I was doing an internship (my first-ever job!) and me and the other interns had a (bad) habit of gossiping. One day, the topic turned to how one of the other interns was dissatisfied with our boss and CEO and might leave soon, and I said something to the effect of “can’t wait to see that”.

    Then, like a sitcom, my boss appears behind me and says “can’t wait to see what?”. I’m usually pretty good with words, I like to think, but that day I just mumbled something meaningless, and my boss said “you’re a weird guy” and walked into another room.

    He then called me over to talk to him and I was so shaken up that I kicked over an empty trash can in the process of getting up.

    The other interns really enjoyed that one. I asked them afterwards why they hung me out to dry and they said “we wanted to see what would happen”.

  308. All things considered, I'd rather be a dragon*

    I worked in a cube farm across the aisle from Dan, a nice guy nearing retirement. Dan was a discreet but clearly devout Catholic, because he’d occasionally answer a certain ring tone on his personal phone with a chirpy, “Deacon Dan, how can I help you?” He was also the Senior X, so was required to input the X team’s weekly accomplishments into what I will call the Multi User Database. I’ve never heard the M.U.D. talked about without A) expletives obviously deleted and/ or B) stifled groans from the audience.

    One Friday afternoon, it’s dead as a doornail in our part of the office and I can clearly hear almost every noise coming from Dan’s office. From the sound of the keyboard taps and mouse clicks, it’s obvious that he’s becoming more and more frustrated. I take it for granted that he’s in the M.U.D, but I still was not expecting the following from Deacon Dan: “God!” (tappa tappa click tappa tappa) “I hate you!”

  309. Burned Out Banker*

    This didn’t happen to me thankfully but I still get secondhand embarrassment when I think about it! My company was working with an outside consulting firm (Consultants Inc) to implement a new document management system, and we had twice-weekly Zoom meetings that included me, my company’s president, CEO (my boss), a marketing person, head of HR, and a couple of other higher-ups, plus the two consultants from the outside firm. My boss was notoriously picky and hard on people but she had very high standards and produced great work. One of the Consultants Inc employees had apparently had enough of her questions and nitpicking so he started to compose an email to the other Consultants Inc employee saying “I don’t know why I bother, Mary has a problem with every single one of my ideas,” forgetting that he was sharing his screen… we all watched in horror until the president of my company smoothly said “John, we can see your screen,” and continued with whatever he was saying. To John’s credit, he apologized to all of us at the end of the call for his unprofessionalism and requested that Mary stay on the call so he could apologize to her separately.

  310. Nannerdoodle*

    One day at an old job, I had just started eating lunch when a “minor work emergency” (read, not actually an emergency, but the person whose issue it was needed everything done RIGHT NOW and in this case it was easier to do it than deal with them complaining the rest of the time until it was dose) came up that I had to deal with. I scarfed the rest of my food and chugged the soda I was drinking, picked up the office phone, and dialed the much senior coworker I needed an answer from regarding the topic. I was sent to their voicemail because they too were eating lunch. The “please leave your message at the beep” happened, I opened my mouth to talk, and immediately burped longer and louder than I ever had before or since and, in shock, immediately hung up the phone. I sprinted up 3 flights of stairs to the office of the coworker, burst in the door, and yelled “Delete your voicemail”, which obviously led to said coworker listening to the voicemail over and over and making sure as many coworkers as possible got to hear it.

  311. totallyrad*

    Not me but my boss…many years ago, the department senior manager sent out an email to everyone on the team reminding us that tomorrow would be picture day, so “remember to wear your [Company] shits!” I was so glad that for once, I wasn’t the one embarrassing myself in front of the whole crew.

  312. Name Nerd*

    When I worked at a mid-size non-profit, all our previously in-person meetings moved online at the beginning of the pandemic. Before COVID, high-level donors and board members had special lunch meetings at a posh location that regular employees weren’t expected/able to attend. But after COVID boosting attendance at the virtual meetings mattered, so these strategic meetings became required for all employees. In searching for something to talk about, the leadership asked me if I would present a small amount of my work in front of these “big wigs”. It was a huge honor, and I took the assignment seriously. I practiced the presentation many times and even got feedback from coworkers and my partner who was at home working as well.

    The big day came and I carefully set up a room where things would be quiet, checked camera angles, and made sure my slides were ready to go. I did a great job presenting but was so relieved when it was over I forgot to turn off my camera and microphone when I was done. All the important people on the call got to see me jumping excitedly around hear me clapping and saying to myself that it had gone well. It wasn’t until I had about a dozen texts from colleagues all at once that I realized my mistake! So embarrassing!

  313. PinkSoda*

    I’m a work-from-home project manager with a lap-cat, Fluffy (the names have been changed to protect the innocent). When Fluffy wants attention, she paces back and forth on my desk. She gets plenty of attention, so the passive-aggressive pacing can get annoying.

    My work laptop is docked to my desktop workstation. The power strip is on the floor next to the desk. This is important later.

    I was on a meeting with an important client, who was transferred to me due to an initial bad experience with our company. I was here to “save the day,” but to this client I was coming in on thin ice. They were polite, but not pleasant. The calls were tense, and I was determined to win them over with kindness (and a job well-done!). I was in the middle of my update with them when Fluffy decided she needed attention. After several rounds of her jumping on my desk and me putting her back on the floor, she disappeared around my desk. CLICK! The power to everything shut off as I was mid-sentence and I yelled out, “FUFFY! GODDAMMIT! GET OFF THE POWER STRIP!”

    Fluffy skittered away, and I scrambled to turn everything back on and rejoin the call.

    “…PinkSoda, we’re still here. Only your monitors turned off.”

    I forgot my workstation was actually a battery-powered laptop. The internet was also unaffected since the modem is in a different room. And did I mention all my calls are recorded? I apologized professionally and quickly moved on to the next topic. They offered no condolences.

    I apologized, again at the end of the call, and then messaged everyone I knew to tell them what had happened. I was embarrassed beyond belief, but it was too awful not to share!

    1. Pixel*

      Earlier this week I started a meeting with my boss and my technical lead by saying “Out! Get OUT OF THE TRASH, you ridiculous creature!” to the cat*. I was not muted. My technical lead says “I would like to say that that was the most on-brand way to start a call.”

      He’s not wrong.

      *The cat likes to lick plastic, and for some reason she decided to go prospecting in the trash under my desk RIGHT THEN.

  314. Mentally Spicy*

    I know I’m really late to this but I thought I’d share this story. It’s quite long!

    I was working on events for a sport National Governing Body. These organisations administer coaching, events, rule codification, etc. for a particular sport. I won’t say which one, but it was an Olympic sport. In 2016 our NGB was revealing the athletes that we were sending to the Rio Olympics. We set up a big announcement event which was attended by various stakeholders as well as members of the press.

    My role was running audio for this event. As well as happening live it was being live streamed on Facebook. Normally for this sort of event you would have two audio engineers – one running the live PA and one dedicated to the live stream. I was told that for budgetary reasons I would have to do both jobs. I pushed back HARD on that because they really are two different roles with different responsibilities. I was told to just make it happen.

    Day of the event was chaos. As I predicted I really didn’t have enough time or bandwidth to do everything. Wearing my “live stream” hat I had placed a microphone at the back of the room so that there would be ambient sound on the live stream. (It’s important that when people first view the live stream they can hear some sound, even if it’s just quiet crowd noise, otherwise they tend to think that there is no audio.) I thought I had put the mic far enough away from any people that individual comments wouldn’t be heard, just general buzz of conversation.

    Wearing my “live PA” hat I then had to ensure that the TV broadcasters had sound feeds of the mics. This took forever, and in fact the live stream had already been started while I was doing this.

    I couldn’t monitor the sound for the live stream because I was far too busy with the live sound. This turned out to be a huge problem because the ambient mic that I’d put out was NOT far enough away from the crowd. And one person in particular was VERY audible on the live stream. And not just any person. This guy was well-known as an ex-athlete who now did all of the TV commentary for the sport in my country. A guy with a VERY distinctive voice. Let’s call him “Johnny Mouth”.

    Johnny Mouth could be very clearly heard on the live stream talking about a recent wedding he’d attended and making many, many unsavoury comments about the size of the bride and her overall attractiveness.

    We didn’t know about this. That is until the Facebook comments started. “Oh my god, Johnny Mouth doesn’t know we can hear what he’s saying!” “Someone get Johnny Mouth to stop talking!” “OMG this is car crash!” There were many, many comments like that in a very short space of time. Luckily our social media team saw what was happening and alerted us, and I was able to mute that microphone. But yeah, damage done.

    My boss was livid and, after the event, tried to throw me under a bus with HR. Luckily I was able to say words to the effect of “I said this was a bad idea, and this is precisely WHY it was a bad idea” and suffered no repercussions. The CEO of the org even took time to assure me it wasn’t my fault, after tearing shreds off Johnny Mouth for being a loud idiot.

    I’m no longer at that org but still in the industry. I am careful to the point of paranoia about where I put microphones these days.

  315. RedHeadFred*

    My old manager had a habit of unintentionally doing/saying something inappropriate without grasping just how bad it was.

    During a meeting, she opened a soda that immediately started to bubble over. Rather than close the cap or grab a paper towel, she deep throated the bottle and slurped up the overflow.

    At an all team meeting regarding a rather difficult end to a software development cycle, she announced “whip out the Vaseline, we’re shoving it in”.

  316. Nina_B*

    First proper job around age 25. Needed to speak to my manager, Dave, so began to call out his name to get his attention across the room. Instead of “Daaaaave”, called out “daaaad”. He looked at me. I looked at him. Awkwardness ensued.

  317. RowdyRed*

    This true story takes place in Texas where every once in, like 13 years (give or take eight years), a tsunami of black crickets erupts from the earth, or from whatever rock they hide under, and invade EVERYTHING.

    Black crickets with spiky legs are literally everywhere there are bright lights. They are super attracted to parking lots with the large overhead security lights, trundling their little cricket selves into supermarkets, schools, homes, work.

    One of my first jobs as a young twenty-something was as Admin Assistant at a defense-contractor company. “Normal” office space was a scarcity, so our department was tucked into a converted airplane hangar, across a huge concrete parking lot (again with the overhead security lights) and up a flight of stairs. It was bad enough having to walk across the lot and dodge the crickets as they went about their crickety-business, but particularly annoying if we found them upstairs.

    On returning from the bathroom one fateful day, somehow one of those beady-eyed crickets got caught up in my drawstring pants in the tummy portion.

    I wasn’t reaching in to dig him out, oh no…Instead I panicked and started doing a little jig back to my desk where my boss and a senior engineer were discussing a technical document. My dislodgement dance was also punctuated with, “There’s a cricket in my PANTS!” “There’s a cricket in my PANTS!” with drawstring pants pulled far, far away from my torso.

    My Dance-of-a-Thousand-Crickets has somewhat dislodged Jiminy, who thankfully, has released his spiky-legged hold on my underwear, shimmied down the inside leg of my pants, and is now resting on the tip of my shoe. To get the insect even further away from my body, I perform an AMAZING high-kick wherein the cricket is startlingly airborne… and boinks Boss Man in the head.

    Cricket has somehow managed to land behind a huge, oak credenza, which unfortunately for both of us, could not be moved – so there he stayed, singing his infuriating mating call until he succumbed to the countless dust bunnies under the office furniture.

    Fun side note: Senior Engineer sent me a lovely bouquet next day. Tied to the bouquet was a “Get Well” balloon.

  318. touch your sky*

    First day working a front desk with two buttons under the counter: one to unlock the entrance to let clients in, one to call the police in an emergency. Guess which one I pushed?

  319. Skeptic53*

    Summer between 1st & 2nd year of college I ran a day program for school-age kids at the YMCA. I had to come up with all the morning activities at the Y and every afternoon we went on a trip or tour, which I had to locate and arrange. Fridays we did an all-day trip. I was not supposed to repeat these excursions. It got harder to come up with new ideas as the summer wore on. I had saved two of the more obvious choices for when I was really stuck, and they both turned into disasters. The first was an outing to a bowling alley a few blocks from the Y. Unbeknownst to either me or my boss (we both were new in town) the bowling alley was a notorious brothel that featured aging, down-on-their-luck alcoholic prostitutes. The women were thrilled and delighted when all these kids came trooping in, but it didn’t go over so well with the parents. The second was a bus trip to the hobby farm owned by one of the wealthy board members of the Y. To my surprise most of the kids had never seen farm animals. An aggressive rooster provoked panic in the ranks. Both horses and cows peed and pooped a few feet away from the kids, causing an uproar. The counselors and I decided to lead a walk into the woods, where things really went south. Several kids ignored our warnings to stay on the trail. and got into stinging nettle, The weeping and wailing that ensued was impressive. However, that was small potatoes compared to the two boys who took the dare to pee on an electric fence, which the kids had been told to avoid and which we had kept the group far away from. The trip was cut short and we drive a bus load of crying kids back to the Y. Because the farm belonged to a board member, none of us got in trouble, much to my amazement. I expected to get fired.

  320. DawnShadow*

    When I used to open front end at the hippie grocery store I worked at, I had to come in before 6am. One winter morning I was particularly bleary, running late, and grabbed a shirt out straight out of the dryer to wear, donned my winter coat and went in. I hung up my coat in the office and went about my morning chores.

    When the second cashier came in an hour later she came out of the front end office and said “hmmmm closing shift must have had a VERY exciting night last night.” I walked into the office with her and there was a pair of my (thankfully clean) underwear lying on the floor. It had been stuck to the back of my shirt via static cling when I grabbed it from the dryer, and came off when I took off my coat it fell to the floor and I hadn’t noticed! My face was so red!

    I did explain what happened so that closing shift personnel weren’t unjustly accused of anything that shouldn’t have been happening in the office at night.

  321. lolly*

    I’ve lost count of the number of work colleagues I’ve inadvertantly proffessed love to. On the phone my family (parents/siblings/children) have for decades ended calls with “love you, bye”. I apparently can’t tell the difference between a work conference call and a family phone call as I REPEATEDLY sign off work phone/video calls with “love you, bye”. Many’s been the time I’ve had to ring people back to explain that whilst I very much value them as work colleagues I don’t actually love them, and I’m sorry if my sign off made them uncomfortable… most people laugh, and understand, but some very much have not :(

  322. I spend all my nights at the museum*

    I’m a veteran and this happened while I was in the Marine Corps. For context, we have a training exercise for basic water survival that is required to be done every other year and six months prior to deployment. Highlights of this pass/fail training include a swim across the pool, a jump off of a 10ft tower, treading water, and using a piece of equipment to float. All of which is done while in full utilities and boots.
    During predeployment swim qualification training, my unit decides to send about half of us to the training tank to do our swim qual in a big group. I am short, very five foot two short, and a ten foot drop into a pool of any size is a bit much for me. I was standing at the edge of the tower, perhaps a little frozen in place, when, dear readers, I got pushed.
    The resulting scream has been described to me as bloodcurdling. I honestly don’t know how I managed to not immediately drown, but once they pulled me out of the water I had a Very Big panic attack. They made me go back up the tower to try again and I couldn’t calm down in time to retry that part of the training so I was marked as a DNF/fail in front of everybody.
    My whole unit made fun of me for it for MONTHS. I still have a paralyzing panic attack inducing fear of heights, but I did manage to complete my swim qual on another occasion with no hiccups.

    Oh and my first day in country on deployment I tripped over a rifle

  323. Merry and Bright*

    5 years ago while adding client specific information to our computer system, I made the information visible across the network. While it didn’t reveal any personal or proprietary information, it does mean that in some search instances duplicate address records (still) show up, and users have to select the correct address. At the time, and for the next 2 years afterward, I was on several IT calls trying to fix the issue, and told not to do it again.

    I was on a training call last month, and this information add process was included on the training, with the specific instruction to NOT make the mistake I did. Fortunately, my name is not still associated with error, as the original IT folks have moved on from that position.

  324. Love me, love my cat*

    Was giving a coworker the acronym he needed to use going forward. To be sure he heard it correctly, I said, “A as in apple, F as in phone….” Oops.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      In that situation, one of my favorite jokes is any F in an acronym stands for “emphasis.”

  325. Mortified*

    I had just started a new job where I would be leading online sessions for the public. I was joining one to observe as training, and my Zoom wouldn’t work. I started to panic and started swearing some choice words and the more frustrated I got the louder I got. Once I finally logged in, I realized they could hear me the whole time. I have never been more mortified! My coworker in the meeting was good about it and never told my boss, but I never got over it!

  327. L sanders*

    I had been working on a display board to show color samples for an engineered marble shower/tub surround company. I didn’t need the extra tiles so I emailed the buyer (many levels above myself in the company) “Do you want me to shit the samples back to Kansas City?” Oh man. The “t” and the “p” aren’t even close on the keyboard.

  328. Pupps McGee*

    Several years ago, I worked in an office of about 60 people, the majority being women, including myself. I had been working on a long-term, in-depth internal audit project. It involved me having stacks of documents and piles of folders on my desk every day for weeks at a time.

    On this day in particular, I was caught up on my work and my desk was completely empty of papers and files. It was still fairly early in the morning and I was still giddy with excitement at being caught up on the project. One of the few men that worked there was on my team and was still somewhat new to the company. He walked over to my desk, holding a printout in his hand, and said, “Hey, I have a question. Do you have a sec?” I waved a hand over my empty desk, and said, quite exuberantly, “I have a whole day of secs!”

  329. M*

    About a year into my first real job post-college, I wore a skirt to work – not my usual style but something my mom had purchased for my professional wardrobe. Before leaving for the day, I went to the bathroom (our office took up one whole building floor, my cubicle was at one corner of the office with the bathroom and elevators at the middle of the office). I left the bathroom, walked back to my cubicle, grabbed stuff, went to the elevator, rode down ten floors with everyone else in the building leaving at 5:30 pm, and walked outside before a coworker alerted me to the fact I was walking down the street with my skirt tucked into my thong and my butt hanging out for the entire world (and my coworkers) to see. Needless to say, I became friends with that helpful colleague because what else could I do now that she had seen (and helped me quickly cover) my butt!

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