Mortification Week: the lettuce hater, the stolen lunch, and other stories to cringe over

by Alison Green on July 30, 2024

It’s Mortification Week at Ask a Manager and all week long we’ll be revisiting ways we’ve mortified ourselves at work. Here are 14 mortifying stories to kick off today.

1. The sweater

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.

2. The insult

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.

3. The terrible interview

I left grad school in the middle of the semester for health reasons and was also newly out as a trans man. I found a job teaching but needed work before the new semester started. It’s worth noting I was in a terrible headspace at the time.

I got an interview for a seasonal position at an upscale women’s business professional store. I got the time wrong and showed up ridiculously early, which already irritated the manager. I did well on most of the interview but was very flustered when asked to put together an outfit I would wear from the store. I showed up to the interview in a man’s suit but I was in a very awkward point in my transition where most people thought I was a poorly dressed butch lesbian. I panicked and threw together something hyper femme and then word vomited the whole saga of transitioning to the interviewer.

Then, when she told the hours and pay rate, I realized it would conflict with my more lucrative tutoring side gig, which I again proceeded to tell her (I still don’t know what robbed me of my mental filter) and then backed out of the interview altogether.

Reader, it gets worse. My partner gently chastised me about all this so I CALLED THE INTERVIEWER BACK and retracted my refusal of A POSITION THAT WAS NEVER OFFERED. To the surprise of absolutely no one, I never heard back and proceeded to get a seasonal job at another store in the same mall, where I told no one my pronouns and the staff debated my gender identity amongst each other all season without any clarification from me. I still shudder at the mere thought of those three months of my life.

4. The lettuce hater

At some point I put “Lettuce Hater” as my name on Zoom. It was a personal account. I forget why I ever did, an inside joke of some kind, but it was literally years ago. I was suddenly reminded when I used my personal account to attend an interview during Covid. “So, you hate lettuce?” was one of my interview questions.

We all laughed. I didn’t get the job, though I don’t know if it was my qualifications or my anti-lettuce stance.

5. The coloring page

I was working in a library, in a very wealthy town, and a particularly huffy resident came up to the desk. She loudly, obnoxiously went on a tirade at me and another librarian, detailing an incident that had happened a whole week before, in which her daughter didn’t get a coloring page because the desk had already closed when she came up to get one. That was literally this woman’s complaint: that a whole seven days ago, we closed the desk at closing time, and so her daughter couldn’t get a coloring page. This woman was screaming and finally said, “It was the WORST experience I’ve EVER had” before huffing angrily out of the library.

It became somewhat of an inside joke, that we all wished our WORST experience EVER was that we didn’t get a coloring page. The woman didn’t come to the library much after that, but about a month later, my coworker noticed her, turned to me and said (a bit louder than intended), “Well I’m about to have the WORST experience EVER,” only to turn back around and see that the woman was walking directly behind her. She definitely heard the comment, but just kept huffing to the exit. My coworker was mortified, but our manager, thankfully, was quite amused.

6. The fart

I farted in an interview and we just ignored it. I did get that job.

7. The good riddance

For the longest time, I thought “riddance” was derived from “ride” and would cheerfully say “good riddance” when wishing people a safe and pleasant ride home.

8. Tim Gunn

I once interviewed for a teaching position and one of the questions was essentially “tell us about a good teacher you had in the past and what you learned from them.” Again, this interview was *for a teaching position*, I absolutely should have been prepared for this kind of question, but every teacher I had ever had just completely flew out of my head. I had nothing. I talked about Tim Gunn on Project Runway. (Somewhat surprisingly I did get moved to the next round of interviews, although I did not get the job.)

9. The stolen lunch

I used to work in a department that had weekly events. For a young, broke person like myself, the best thing about the events was that there were always some snacks put out on a table in front of the room where they were held.

One day when I arrived for the event, I noticed the snacks were really paltry, but undaunted, I nudged behind the people who were standing in front of the table and started to rummage around anyway. Right as it dawned on me that something was terribly wrong, one of the women I’d squeezed past said, “What are you doing? That’s my lunch!” She seemed skeptical about my panicked explanation and just said, “Well, I guess you can have some if you really want…”

It turned out I’d missed the email cancelling the event that day.

10. The song

A few years ago, while working from home, I was playing phone tag with a longtime colleague who I’m friendly with, catching up about a case. I called her and left a voicemail, updating about the work related issue, and signed off with a cheery, “Thanks, talk to you soon!”

… and then I never hung up. I typed notes and emails for a bit and then, as I often find helps me focus at home, I started singing aloud. What did I sing this time? “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” from Mulan. My colleague was treated to the sounds of me singing, with verve, “Let’s get down to business! To defeat the Huns!”

I carried on for quite some time before I realized! I finally hung up several minutes later when she’d been treated to several minutes and the entirety of the song, including triumphant final note. I immediately messaged her, filled with embarrassment, and she thought it was one of the funniest things she’d ever heard. She saved the voicemail, but has had the good grace not to mention it again since!

11. The relief

It was one of those corporate town hall things and one of the speakers had just finished giving a very cohesive and articulate presentation. Immediately after she said “back to you, host!”, she immediately whipped off the blazer she was wearing over her t-shirt and let out a big “UGH MY GODDDDD, BLECHHH”. The host kindly reminded her that her video and sound were still on.

It’s fairly mellow, but that raw “I hate presentations” attitude was amazing.

12. The microphone

So for awhile I worked somewhere in the education branch of a local tourist attraction where on our radios everyone was referred to with their department first and then their name (Education Liz or Maintenance Tom or what have you). We had a youth volunteer named Mike (education Mike on the radio) that everyone loved; he was friendly, hard-working, competent, and one of our best volunteers.

We also had an area where we had to give presentations to visitors over the sound system. Our bosses were frustrated because the microphone for our dept was broken and they couldn’t get it fixed (all microphones were the headset type so you couldn’t just share with someone else). They finally determined that they could no longer nudge it to work with duct tape and prayer, and wanted us to know it was completely broken.

So we all show up for work one morning and are met with the horrifying note on our whiteboard in the sign-in area: “EDUCATION MIKE IS DEAD!” We were shocked and taken aback both by the idea of this wonderful teen having somehow died, and then our bosses sharing it in such a callous way. A few minutes later they strolled in cheerily to give us morning announcements, including about the mealy microphone situation, to a room full of glum and sad employees. Thankfully it was cleared up quickly, but this still makes me laugh.

13. The duck face

Whilst waiting in the interview room for the hiring manager to arrive for our chat, I decided NOW would be the perfect time to practice my duck face (I was young, I was stupid, I’m sorry) – and then the door opened. Instead of returning to my normal, everyday expression, I continued to talk with my lips exaggeratedly pursed throughout the whole interview. Looking and probably sounding like a loon. I didn’t get the job.

14. The amigurumi

I like to crochet amigurumi and other 3D items, the splashiest of which is a very large and highly detailed penis and testicles. When I say highly detailed, I mean, our friend the urologist was so impressed he showed photos of it to the other urology residents. This decorative item is usually on display on top of a cabinet. However, I moved it to the top of a bookshelf while dusting, forgetting that said bookshelf is in the background of my husband’s Zoom calls.

He spent half of a Monday morning all-staff meeting cheerfully answering questions (he’s a VP) before realizing what was sitting in the background. Most of his coworkers are fairly conservative evangelical Christians. He video muted in horror and removed the offending objet d’art, hoping no one had noticed.

Later that day, a coworker who had recently turned in two weeks notice – and thus had nothing to lose – DMed him a screenshot of his video feed with the decorative penis and testicles circled and annotated with “????” My husband tried to pass it off as a butternut squash. Luckily no one told the CEO, or if they did, he wrote it off as an inevitable consequence of employing secular Brooklynites.

I now make sure to replace all decorative objects in their proper homes while dusting.

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{ 171 comments }

{ 171 comments… read them below }

  1. AnonForThis*

    I didn’t think I had one, but I do! Anonymous for this, because I’m pretty sure this is very identifiable — in fact, burned into the brains of– anyone who was on this call.

    This is an example of Two Well Meaning People stumbling into a hole and then just… digging to the magma layer.

    The setting: a work zoom meeting, before everything was zoom meetings. The culture: cameras optional. Everyone’s logging on, saying hi, doing audio checks. “Bob” says brightly “Hi Anon! We can hear you and see you!” I gape in horror, fumble for my camera cover, realize it’s closed. Bob was joking. I hiss “That *isn’t funny*. You *know* where I *am*.” Bob: “I don’t?”

    Reader, I was taking the call from the nursing/pumping room. Tits out. I thought by then everyone just knew why I disappeared every 3 hours. Bob turned a remarkable shade of purple, apologized profusely, and we never spoke of it again.

    1. Indigo64*

      This reminds me of my favorite pumping story! I had my own office and would shut the door and hang a “do not disturb” sign on the (locked) door. Everyone knew what that meant (or so I thought). One day someone knocked on the door- fortunately my colleague intercepted him. It was our junior analyst- fresh out of college- who had a very urgent issue and needed to talk to me ASAP. He thought I was talking a nap! Three times a day! Kudos to him for not mentioning my chronic napping for six months before this incident!

          1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

            I’ve got a mnemonic for remembering which is which.
            Be discreet: keep your knees and your e’s together. When t comes between e’s, discrete means separate.

      2. Field Kid*

        Oh man, reminds me of mine.

        Construction site, I served as “field engineer”, meaning that if the tradesmen needed a price for additional work, needed to turn in time sheets on a “time and material” add, needed accurate drawings, needed submittals, needed whatever, they came to me.

        I had a tiny babe, and my corner of our field office – think one sided drywall thrown together – was literally a nook. So we fitting it with a curtain that I could draw across and we all politely pretended my pump didn’t make noise. Til a new draftsman came looking for me and ignored the curtain…thank goodness I typically sat with my back to the curtain! My sign “do not disturb” had fallen so many times that I think I stopped putting it up. I’m not sure who was more horrified – me or him!

    2. Mouse named Anon*

      Another funny pumping story –
      At the time of this story, I worked with an older man I will call J in his early 60s. He was a super nice guy, I often referred to him as a Work Dad. Well, a few of us had babies around the same time. The place provided to pump was an old (but still used filing room). It was only locked during the times people pumped. J went down to access the room and it was locked and he was flabbergasted. He knocked and was met with a “PLEASE DON”T COME IN HERE!” He huffed away and complained to me. I said you know someone is probably pumping in there… thats the space that was given to us. Well he didn’t hear “Pumping” he heard something else that starts with an H. He goes “WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHAT… AT WORK” I turn red, he turns red. I go “Nooooo pumping milk for their babies” . He just turned and walked away, never speaking of it again.

    1. Yes we have no bananapants*

      Came down here to say this! The crocheted “squash” is a classic AAM story!

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I desperately want to know if that OP made another one for their friend the urologist. Or offered to sell it to said urologist for a lot of money. :-D

      1. Pam Adams*

        Perhaps, they could start a new side gig, selling crocheted anatomical equipment to doctors.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Turning a hobby into a paying gig always seems like a great idea (after all, you’re already doing it for free, right?), until you calculate that between time and materials each amigurumi piece would cost $400+ (assuming you already have another full-time job that covers benefits).

          Turns out I’d prefer to do something I love for free and give away the results than to do something I’m skilled at for $0.40/hour and be expected to meet someone else’s deadlines.

          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Agreed. I’m a knitter/crocheter and would never sell my stuff for that reason and also for the fact that the things I make, while beautiful, are also frequently a bit wonky and something only a friend, family member, or the maker (me) would think are worth anything. And also I’m a musician who is semi-professional (after being a FT musician for almost a decade) but starting to learn that I mostly prefer making music with friends over my paid gigs because there’s a lot less pressure and we get to play the stuff we want to play, not the stuff people will pay money to hear. (Sleigh Ride, for instance. I don’t hate it like some musicians do but it definitely isn’t the challenging stuff I went to grad school to learn how to play.)

            Offering to sell the object to the urologist was a suggestion I made only with the idea that OP might not want to make a 2nd one but would be willing to give it away for the right price.

          2. Bexy Bexerson*

            Yep. Sometimes, just for fun, I calculate what the sale price would be of items I knit for myself. My most recent finished project is a dress with a knee length skirt and elbow length sleeves (and IT HAS POCKETS), in fingering weight yarn. I estimate it to be about a $2,000 dress.

            It’s absolutely gorgeous, but nobody is paying $2k for that.

            1. Humble Schoolmarm*

              Yup, I had the brilliant idea to crochet a queen sized bed cover out of granny squares last summer after shaking my head at the price of an ordinary comforter. A year later, it may be one of the most expensive things I own, and that’s not counting labour (I’m a little past half through).

          3. Media Monkey*

            100%. i make clothes and people always suggest doing it for a living. unfortunately their price comparison is Primark, not even high end high street. follow @canyousewthatforme on IG for more tales on this sort of work being completely undervalued (if it is valued at all).

      2. Zenfrodo*

        I admit, I want to see a pic of this highly-detailed crochet wonder. My only mental images of crochet are the huge cheap-yarn throws and pillows my aunt used to make, which lead to some…interesting…color combos. So all I can picture is a lopsided genitalia pillow with stuffing poking out all through the loose weave and in a mix of orange, green, royal blue, and diarrhea-brown…

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

    #8 I think Tim Gunn is a great mentor and teacher. I wouldn’t be mortified over that. He wasn’t just a reality TV show host, he was faculty and chair at Parsons School of Design. He was great at giving constructive criticism and encouragement to help his students succeed. That’s a hell of a skill for a teacher. Anyone can criticize, very few people are good at constructive criticism.

    1. Jellybish*

      Yeah Tim Gunn IS a teacher and his designer critiques really reflected that! It made him a fantastic choice for the show. I don’t think that’s an embarrassing answer at all, even though it may not have been what they were looking for.

      1. MMR*

        He’s A teacher, but presumably he wasn’t OP’s teacher. To get to a teaching interview you have to have been through 16 years of school give or take, and 16 years of teachers. I would be pretty embarrassed if I couldn’t name one in a teaching interview! It’s both a great answer and a confusingly bad answer.

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

          True, but it is also possible to get through 16 years of school and never really have a great teacher that taught you anything except how NOT to teach; but I certainly wouldn’t necessarily want to say that in an interview, “I didn’t have great teachers — disengaged, belittling, poor at communication, and only encouraged me to fill out the ditto.” So it’s better to pick A teacher that had a positive impact in your life because you observed and learned from them…even if it was from TV. (I know I just dated myself)

        2. Irish Teacher.*

          At the start of my teaching qualification, we were asked to think of teachers who had inspired us and they specifically said they did not have to be traditional teachers, could be a sports coach or a manager who had trained us at work (actually, the first person who came to mind for me was a young woman my own age – 23 – who had been deputy manager in the shop I’d worked the previous year), even though, yeah, most of us would have had between 16 and 18 years of school and college, depending on whether or not we’d done Transition Year and whether we did a 3 or 4 year degree.

          This was probably both in recognition of the fact that some people did not have a good experience in traditional education and also possibly to include older students who many have been 10 or 20 or more years out of education before going to change careers. But they were certainly aware that not everybody would have a teacher they could pick.

          I did have a number of awesome teacher and especially during my degree.

        3. Christine*

          I’ve had a lot of teachers. I remember the names of a scant handful. Names elude me, to the point where I’d forget my own if I didn’t hear it from other people.

    2. Antilles*

      Frankly, for a question like #8, there can even be value in having a slightly oddball response like that which stands out, as long as you have a solid explanation to back it up and can make it applicable to the job you’re trying to interview.

      1. Ann Nonymous*

        Hard agree. A “weird” response will be remembered…and hopefully in a good way if the example fits the question.

    3. Anon for this one*

      Former colleague of Tim Gunn co-signing this. I wasn’t faculty, but his Project Runway critiques were very true to the Tim I knew.

    4. Prudence Snooter*

      Yeah I effing LOVE Tim Gunn and if I’d been the interviewer you would’ve gotten points for that

  4. MsM*

    We also have an Education Mike (the person), and I would be similarly horrified to walk in to a similar announcement.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      Having gone to work one Monday (OldExjob) and sitting down, booting up my computer, and then having the production manager come and tell me that a favorite employee had died over the weekend, yeah, it’s kinda awful.

  6. Three Flowers*

    “My husband tried to pass it off as a butternut squash.”

    I’m dying. The gold medal in Audacious Scrambling to Cover Mortification goes to this man.

  7. Slow Gin Lizz*

    I have definitely read the Education Mike one before but it still made me LOL. (Even though it’s also kind of not funny?) I hope Education Mike is alive and well and killing it in whatever life he’s found for himself.

    1. Alex*

      I laughed so hard at that one I have tears.

      Just picturing “EDUCATION MIKE IS DEAD!” scrawled in serial killer handwriting on the whiteboard….

        1. RabbitRabbit*

          Red marker on the whiteboard…

          Reminds me of the memes about how font matters, with something lovey written in an adorable font and the same in a horror movie poster-style font that makes it look like a stalker wrote it.

          1. Interns are Great*

            I’ll use my alias from yesterday for this one.

            We have a guy who has worked for my company for years. Great guy, very good at his job, etc. He has one quirk though. His penmanship is terrible. He will leave notes for people and they are usually a 81/2 x 11 piece of white paper with his note written in sharpie. That would be unusual enough, but his printing is an odd mix of upper and lower case letters where you wouldn’t expect them.

            So a note that would normally read:

            “We’re out of cleaning solution” turns into “We’Re oUT Of cLeaNiNG SolUtiON”

            When written in a red sharpie complete with underline and strikeouts, it really does look like a ransom note :)

    2. bradc*

      Loved this one!

      Instead of announcing someone in the congregation had “passed away”, my pastor used to say euphemistically that they had “graduated” (to heaven), which he then usually followed up with details for the memorial service. Imagine my shock one Sunday morning when he casually mentions the 6 high school seniors from the youth group who “graduated” that week. Took me a moment to regain my bearings.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Oh dear. Sounds like that pastor’s on the euphemism treadmill, because I’d think “passed away” was already a euphemism for “died”.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Agreed. I think it can be tricky to come up with euphemisms for things because you have to be sure that the actual meaning of the word/expression doesn’t mean something completely innocuous when the thing you are euphemisming means something quite bad/sad.

          Although I suppose using “died” for a mechanical device that no longer works isn’t really all that great of a euphemism either….

          1. Orv*

            Yeah, this has actually caused me to rethink my use of it as a synonym for “completely broken” or “out of order.”

            1. bamcheeks*

              Although in this case, EDUCATION MIKE IS COMPLETELY BROKEN would have also raised some concerns, albeit different ones.

      2. Astraea*

        This reminds me of a time when I had a colleague retire and move to Florida. We’ll call him Bob.

        A customer walks in and asks, “Where’s Bob? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

        One of my co-workers straight-up responds, “Oh, he’s not with us any more.”

        Customer: “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that!”

        At this point, I can see that the customer thinks Bob is dead. However, my colleague doesn’t realize this and happily says, “Oh, it’s okay, he’s in a better place, I’m sure he’s much happier now.” Meaning he’s happily retired. In Florida.

        The look on Colleague’s face when I told her, “You know you just made Customer think Bob died, right?” was priceless. I told her she might as well have told Customer we sent him to a farm upstate where all the retail associates can frolic outdoors.

        1. MsM*

          “You want to go and visit him? I’m sure he’s having too much fun with his new friends for that.”

        3. Wendy Darling*

          My partner and I routinely call our dog “the baby”. He also likes to sleep in positions that genuinely look like his neck must be broken (he’s fine just very bendy). We call this being dead, because he looks totally dead.

          So on a few occasions one of us has announced “The baby is dead,” and then the other one has had to explain to a very confused zoom call that our dog is just sleeping funny.

          1. Giant_Kitty*

            My dog is part Scottish Terrier so he has an extra long neck and torso that’s very muscular and bendy like a snake is. He can turn his head nearly all the way around to look behind him. One of his nicknames is the Noodle.

        4. Elsajeni*

          My mom was the customer in this situation — she called up a general contractor she’d used before and asked if Moses, who had done some recent work and who she’d liked pretty well, was available, and the scheduler said, sort of awkwardly, “oh… Moses is no longer with us.” Well, Mom was horrified! And also she had no idea what to say next to get off the phone! Poor Moses was DEAD, and here she is bothering his coworkers in their time of grief!

          Anyway, a week or two later Moses knocked on her door to give her his card and let her know that he’d hung out his own shingle and he hoped she would think of him, and not his former boss, for her future contracting needs.

  8. RCB*

    My husband is foreign, and there is a town in his home country that is known for penises for some reason, so you can buy every sort of carved wooden penis you an possibly imagine. Again, I have no idea why. I have a big bookshelf in my dining room that has all of my travel books and my travel souvenirs/art on it, and it includes a very large wooden carved penis from this town, which makes perfect sense to me, but when we have visitors, or when I post a picture to social media and forget that’s in the background, it has led to some very confused questions and amused laughter, so I completely understand the mortification.

        1. Kevin Sours*

          Pen Island was a spoof website from *way* back. The site was played straight as a online store for pens.

          Though the Italian website for Power Gen did seem to be entirely legit (though I never saw it with any content other than a “under construction” page that was popular at the time).

    2. PhyllisB*

      I assume this is in Japan? My brother-in-law was stationed in Japan and he and my sister went to a fertility festival there. They got me a penis shaped candle for a souvenir. I kept it in a closet for years and when I got it out to show someone it had melted into some unrecognizable blob. I should have set it out. At least in the bedroom!!

    3. RabbitRabbit*

      A former coworker went to an island getaway and got carved wooden magnets for each of our coworkers, in different shapes. Mine was… definitely a penis, which she did not register when she was grabbing an assortment to bring back. It was painted with a lovely beach motif like the rest, but the shape was still there.

      1. Anon for this*

        A coworker of mine returned from a trip to Europe, where they’d grabbed a bag of gummies to bring back to the team… in German, or Austrian, or whatever country they’d been in, whose language they did not speak/did not speak well. Friends, the gummies were anatomically correct … well, a variety of body parts, all of them typically covered by a swimsuit. No one noticed until we were partway through the bag, and then it was VERY obvious. Luckily this was a chill office, and we all had a good laugh about it.

      2. londonedit*

        I don’t think it’s so much of a thing now, but certainly when we used to go on family holidays to Portugal in the 80s and 90s you’d be looking around a traditional pottery, filled with lots of lovely plates and bowls and tiles and all the rest of it, and then there would always, always be a section at the back with cartoony pottery penises and boobs and little pottery figures in compromising positions. No idea who ever bought them or why they were there, but they were always there!

        1. Media Monkey*

          or those metal keyrings that had …erm… moving anatomical parts. or Kappa tshirts where the logo was considerably ruder than the actual Kappa logo but close enough not to notice. i also feel many a grandmother has inadvertantly bought an Adihash tshirt

  9. SpringIsForPlanting!*

    Education Mike! A classic! Also, the Good Riddance made me choke on my tea. If you’re reading the comments… please share the no doubt horrifying story of how you finally learned that wasn’t The Thing. Pleeeease. For us :)

    1. Yvette*

      That good riddance one reminded me of the person I heard about who thought L O L meant lots of love and was using it inappropriately. Oh, your cat died lol.

      2. delta delta*

        My elderly parents love to text with my teen children. Grandma loves emojis but doesn’t always use them right. She used to use the cry laughing emoji when she meant actual crying/sadness.
        Teen: grandma I failed my drivers test!
        Grandma: oh no! “cry laughing emoji”

        1. londonedit*

          My mum uses the *shocked face emoji* whenever she means ‘wow’. So she’ll text something like ‘Beautiful cake at the new cafe down the road *shocked face*’. Makes me laugh every time!

    2. MigraineMonth*

      Yeah, the others were all “Oh no, that’s such an embarrassing moment”, but that one… it’s going to haunt me. How many people did they say that to, over what period of time, never realizing people weren’t taking it in the spirit intended? And no one ever said anything?

      I hope recipients at least took it in a joking manner, rather than being quietly offended.

      1. ruthling*

        i am guessing that by tone of voice used that it seemed more like a quirky joke than an actual insult.

        1. Paint N Drip*

          someone merrily wishing you “Good Riddance’ on your way out of an office or something? That’s FUNNY dude

  10. FricketyFrack*

    Listen, the Mulan soundtrack slaps. No one should ever be embarrassed about singing any of it.

    1. DEEngineer*

      I love this story so much because it is so wholesome and mortifying at the same time.

    5. Alanna of Trebond*

      I had a singalong to “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” at my wedding reception, so I heartily agree!

    6. Laura*

      There is a singer my son likes who recorded an album of Disney cover songs but in a rock/grunge/metal style and his version of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” has been stuck in my head ever since I read this post.

      1. Freya*

        Dan Vasc is so far my favourite of the metal artists with covers I’ve heard of that particular song

  11. ChurchOfDietCoke*

    Ok, so ‘my husband tried to pass it off as a butternut squash’ has just gone into AAM folklore?

  13. Clearance Issues*

    … number 14, I had a similar incident with a similarly horrifying 3ft long crocheted penis. not NEARLY as accurate as yours but still identifiable. my friend had moved it from it’s spot on the chair to the couch in my tiny apartment and I forgot and worked from home and…
    “What’s that?”
    the scramble to hide it and apologize was huge.

      1. KateM*

        I’m amazed someone has room in a tiny apartment for that big amigurumis. But maybe it was used as a body pillow or something?

  14. HailRobonia*

    Years ago in my old office my boss, the head administrator of the department, accepted a job in another office at the school. The department head sent out an email announcement about this with the subject line “Sad news about Buffy” and about half the department didn’t get past the subject line and thought she had passed away.

    1. Sue*

      One time my mom sent me an email with the subject line “Tanner”. I thought the worst and was very upset (he was young then, around 8 or 9)! Turns out my nephew had hoisted himself up on the railing of the landing over the living room and accidentally fell 1 story onto the (thankfully) thick carpet. He got the wind knocked out of him, but he was fine. I asked my mom to never send a subject line like that again (and she hasn’t so far).

      1. Still Haven't Forgotten*

        My mom sent me an email the morning of a college final entitled “Grandma died”. The only glimmer of a silver lining was that was the RARE morning where I went and got breakfast instead of checking my email, and didn’t see it until afterwards. “But you don’t call us so I had to share by email” (This was before the days of everyone having cellphones.) I coached her that in that case to entitle the email “Call Us” or similar instead. Or if you really really had to, perhaps “Sad News” for the title, and put the sad message in the body.

        1. LadyVet*

          My mom sent me emails like that for both my paternal grandfather and my dad (he hadn’t been part of our lives for reasons for a long time), who died within 10 days of each other during my first deployment to Iraq.

          I was really hesitant to open any more from her after that.

        2. inksmith*

          My dad left me a voicemail to tell me my beloved granddad (also my godfather, sent me two birthday cards ever year, one from him and my nan, one from him as my godfather) had died. Because apparently leaving a message saying “call when you can” was out of the question.

          The bigger question is why on earth my mum thought my dad (who couldn’t care less about anyone’s feelings) should be the one to tell me this news (it was my dad’s mum’s second husband who died).

  15. TransmascJourno*

    No. 6 is a perfect blend of masterful storytelling and “10/10, would do again” energy.

  16. And a Good Riddance to you!*

    Ha haaaa, I will never recover from #7! The thought of someone cheerfully calling out, “Good riddance!” to people who may have just spent an otherwise enjoyable time with them is devastating, and very Addams Family-like! Perfection, ha ha!

    1. Prudence Snooter*

      This reminds me of a story I read somewhere about a grandmother who usually sent all her grandkids (adults by this point) thoughtful gifts for birthdays/holidays. One Christmas she decided that plain old money might be the best present, so she sent them all $50 checks along with cards that said “Buy you own gift this year! Love, Grandma.” She ended up not receiving any thank-you cards that year and was a little miffed but let it go. Months later, she was cleaning out her desk only to discover a pile of signed $50 checks. She’d forgotten to enclose them with the cards.

  18. Liv*

    Are a lot of these repeats? I know I’ve read the Education Mike and crochet ones several times.

      1. ferrina*

        I absolutely love the mix of repeats with new stories. The classic stories are so, so good, and it’s fun to see familiar stories alongside the new.

  20. Art3mis*

    #14 reminds me of literal locker room pranks where “marital aids” were placed in players lockers and then appeared on camera during post game interviews. Too bad they weren’t crocheted.

    1. Admin of Sys*

      I would hope for many re-enactments of the ‘I’m not dead’ ‘I can still hear his voice’ meme!

  22. CommanderBanana*

    I made it through all of the pandemic without this happening but on a Zoom training last week, an attendee took their clothes off on camera. And yes, everyone saw before I caught it and turned his feed off.

    Same training, next day, different guy – took his phone into the bathroom with him. With the camera on. Fortunately I saw it quickly enough to turn it off.

      2. ferrina*

        I’d be tempted to make a pre-training announcement.
        “If you are tempted to undress or use the bathroom during this training, please turn off your cameras now.”

  23. Stuart Foote*

    Similar to #10, I once worked in a call center where a colleague (“Sam”) left a message for a client, forgot to hang up, and proceeded to sing the Oompa-Loompa song from Willy Wonka for a good five minutes. The elderly lady he’d dialed was very confused and called back to understand why her insurance company was leaving messages with songs in them. It sounded like it was a challenging conversation but she eventually understood and called him “Singing Sam”.

  25. TKC*

    Duck lips is so funny. I feel like I would’ve done this when I was young — both the initial “I’m gonna do something weird in a non-private space” thought and THEN the carry through of “oh my god I’m caught I have to make it seem intentional, oh god just keep doing it” thought. So funny and relatable.

  26. Laid Back*

    RE the Mad Magazine obscure reference no one got… I once made a reference to my Russian chauffeur, Pikop Andropov. And looked around, triumphant, waiting for people to comment about NPR’s Car Talk show. Somehow, no one did.

  27. AA*

    I generally feel mortified every time I open my mouth, but this one’s worth sharing!

    Several years back, I was in early sobriety, and had been going to a virtual AA meeting a day. When I got a new job, we were all going around introducing ourselves, and when it came to me, I said, “My name’s , and I’m an alcoholic.” Cue stunned silence.

    1. Nonn*

      Awww, if I heard someone say that (and not be joking), I honestly would be thinking, “Oops, must be going to AA a lot, good for you, keep it up.” (If I thought they were saying it as a joke I’d be mad, though.) Anyway, good for you!

      1. AA*

        …I don’t work there anymore… (not because of my disclosure, but because they laid off my entire department). I’m a lot more careful with my words at my new job!

    3. Hroethvitnir*

      OOF. I definitely wouldn’t judge you, personally, but I’d want to sink into the floor if I’d done it! Congratulations on your sobriety. :)

  29. MigraineMonth*

    The Lettuce Hater story reminded me of when I started at my IT job just after the workplace had gone 100% remote during the pandemic.

    Since we had a number of gamers in the department who were familiar with Discord for communicating, a lot of people used it instead of Teams or Skype. They didn’t bother creating new work accounts, so I had to remember which of my teammates was IceMan and which was CritStab.

    1. bamcheeks*

      There was a story going around in early lockdown about a team who started using Red Dead Redemption for their team meetings, and at the end of the meeting, everyone would just get on their horse and ride off. I thought that would make an amazing short film: Western setting, everyone in jeans, boots and cowboy hats; cookfire; horses, and then gradually you realise it’s a bunch of executives during lockdown discussing the quarterly sales figures.

    2. Banana Pudding*

      oh man, shout-out to the time I joined a work Discord as “Strahd von Zarovich”

  30. Dark Macadamia*

    The video wardrobe malfunction ones are always SO funny. The “duck and cover” reaction with the camera following from the other day and the time-delayed flashing so LW could witness it along with everyone else are both so horrible and delightful!

  31. EssentiallyEssential*

    Being an essential worker during the pandemic, and Zoom wasn’t a thing for me, I thought this had happened at a brick & mortar town hall meeting. I also thought it was “BEEEEELLLLLCCCCHHH” and not “BLECCCCCHHHH”.

    So confused.

      1. londonedit*

        Yeah, she basically finished her presentation, immediately took her smart blazer off, and made a load of ‘Aaaaaaaargh that was awful I haaaaaaaaaaaaate presentations blaaaaaaaaargh’ noises.

  33. Yes And*

    #5, your coworker is the hero of this story. It’s the patron who should be mortified to learn that her overreaction had become a running joke to the staff.

  36. Nicole Maria*

    #1, I would feel so bad for those guys, I don’t think I would ever be able to return to that job in any way.

  37. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

    #7 – hahahahaha *gasp* ahahahhaha! I am just imagining this in the same cheery, sincere tone in which you would say, “Have a good trip!” Maybe with a little hand wave. Hahahaha.

  38. Nightingale*

    Many years ago, I was working alone one evening in our otherwise-deserted office, enjoying a tape of Leslie Fish filksongs (no, that’s not a misspelling – look up “filksongs” for clarification if you’re not a fantasy/SF fan) and was singing along to her rollicking classic “Jack the Slob and the Goddess of Love”. I’d gotten to the line “Laid, laid, merry merry laid / Tonight I shall get laid!” and was belting that out too (of course!)

    In fact, I was enjoying this SO much that I didn’t hear a customer walk in the door…oops! Fortunately, he pretended he hadn’t heard me and I CERTAINLY pretended that I hadn’t been singing that song.

    PS – Yes, “Jack the Slob and the Goddess of Love” is available on YouTube and it’s an absolute hoot!

    1. I strive to Excel*

      HUZZAH, another filk lover!

      I can sing Horsetamer’s Daughter from memory. Also if you haven’t checked out the PDX broadsides, they are *also* on youtube and also a hoot. They did a pair of Hamlet songs.

      1. Nightingale*

        You’ve memorized “Horsetamer’s Daughter”? Now that’s impressive! It’s also one of my favorite filksongs! (Shout out to Darkover fans; if you’re not familiar with this song, Google and listen to it – it’ll blow you away! Romilly MacAran would’ve loved it, too.)

        I’ll check out the PDX broadsides – thanks for the heads-up! One can never have too many sources of musical fun (or too much filk, of course.)

    2. Nightengale*

      Another Filk Fan nicknamed Nightengale! (I spelled it wrong years ago and it stuck. . . )

  39. ferrina*

    I would be elated if the worst thing that ever happened to me was not getting a coloring book page. ngl, if a customer said this to me, I would be delighted by their innocence.

  40. Bleeding for a job*

    This is secondhand mortification on behalf of someone I was interviewing. He came in clearly nervous as all get out. It was me and 2 coworkers interviewing him in a small conference room. He kept biting his nails and must have gone too far because then his thumb started bleeding. We all noticed, but didn’t want to make a big deal about it…but then he started rubbing his bleeding thumb under the table to clean off the blood. Like just kept it there the rest of the interview. At the end he shook our hands with his “clean” hand and left. We looked under the table and it was as if there was a murder at his chair. It was all over.

    Needless to say, we used quite a bit of sanitizer on that table.

  41. merida*

    OP #10 – ok can we be friends?? Because I have definitely sung that song out loud at work, coincidently just not on voicemail, but still. What a wholesome moment. :)

  42. AnonSib*

    This is mortification by proxy and I’m horrified every time I’m reminded of this. My sibling, Pat, has only had a couple professional jobs their entire life and has never been trained on professional norms, which isn’t helped by the casual nature of those jobs. They were also lucky, getting offers on the first job they applied to each time, so they are clueless about the realities and norms of job hunting. Attempts to help based on AAM advice has fallen on deaf ears.

    Pat applied for a job that was perfect for them by emailing their resume to the hiring contact, who directed Pat to the application and kindly included a list of advice, as the application was complex. When Pat got an email a couple months later stating that their application was not forwarded to the next round, things got…cringe. So, so much cringe.

    Pat emailed the hiring contact back with a six paragraph letter that demanded to know why they didn’t get the job. The letter included a bulleted list outlining their qualifications and why that makes them the perfect candidate. A closing paragraph details what this would mean for their family and a lamentation on whether they should not even bother seeking employment in the industry anymore because of this experience.

    Highlights include:
    * an assertation that the application system unfairly hindered their chances
    * a declaration that they have read many rejection emails and are therefore not new to job hunting
    * an explanation that they would not have attendance issues because they’re local
    * copious use of phrases like “I clearly would have” and “honestly bewildered” and “I just can’t help but inquire”

    For the record, several of us told Pat not to do this. Pat did not listen to us, Pat listened to an elderly relative who hasn’t been in the workforce since last century and still talks about gumption.

      1. AnonSib*

        No, no they did not. In fact, they are still convinced they were right and nothing will convince them otherwise.

        That email wasn’t the end of it, unfortunately. It turns out Pat wasn’t necessarily rejected, it’s just that the employer said they were considering preferred eligibility candidates first and may or may not move ahead with the rest of the candidates. So Pat managed to tank their chances before being rejected.

    2. Wendy Darling*

      A friend of mine had an interview at a Very Large Tech Company where the interview process, at that time, was like 4 hours of interviews before lunch and then, if you had done well, post-lunch interviews with higher ups. This was a known thing.

      Well, my friend landed an interview but after lunch they told him he was done for the day. Rather than taking his disappointment with dignity he berated the interviewer who told him this for wasting his time, then went home and sent a scathing email to everyone whose email he had about how their interview process was totally unreasonable.

      Now, I do think the tech interview process is a big out of control, but I’m not sure having a small temper tantrum about it after being probably-rejected is the solution to that problem.

  44. Wendy Darling*

    The fart reminded me that I had an asthma attack during the interview for my current job. I have coughing-type asthma, so I don’t wheeze — I get a really gnarly-sounding cough. I also have a LOT of environmental and fragrance allergies that can trigger my asthma, so I just carry an inhaler in my handbag.

    I got a whiff of something in the office that set me off and had a coughing fit, and then every time I tried to speak I had another. And my eyes teared up just, you know, as an indignity bonus. The poor interviewers thought I was dying and I wheezed out, “I don’t have covid it’s just asthma!” I ended up having to use my rescue inhaler right there.

    I did get the job, though, so all’s well that ends well!

    1. LCH*

      i have allergies and sometimes they get worse. i thought i was over a sinus/coughing bout of sickness and had a video interview. my cough decided to return during the interview and i hacked my way through half of it. the interviewers were not impressed.

  46. Perihelion*

    When someone wildly overreacts to a mild inconvenience I wonder if nothing bad has ever happened to them.

    1. Wendy Darling*

      I have been known to very uncharitably mutter that some people need to have some actual problems to give them perspective.

    2. I strive to Excel*

      In fairness, I have also seen a couple of people wildly overreact when the mild inconvenience in question is the last in a long list of major inconveniences – the roof fell in, the cat died, grandma’s in the hospital, and now kiddo can’t even get a coloring page. Boom. I have 0 psych knowledge whatsoever but would guess it’s got something to do with how much control you feel you can have over a situation. A friend of time in the military told me about a guy who had been having a very hard time of it (long shifts, little sleep, etc) who absolutely melted down over not having peanut butter for his sandwich. That was the straw, apparently.

      Doesn’t excuse screaming at people, of course. But it’s not always just the mild inconvenience.

      1. Wendy Darling*

        I was supposed to go to the office yesterday but I ended up working from home because it was raining and I could not wear the shoes I had planned to wear and the idea of finding and putting on a rain-appropriate pair of shoes was TOO MUCH.

        It’s been a long few weeks.

      2. allathian*

        Reminds me of the time when I was in college. It was the middle of exam season, I was afraid of losing my part-time job because I couldn’t do as many shifts as they wanted me to, my then-relationship was on its last legs, and my dad was in hospital for a painful but not life-threatening issue. Then a good friend called to cancel our night out to celebrate sitting our last exam of the year because she’d recently met a new guy she wanted to go out with instead, and I burst into tears on the phone.

        The whole situation must’ve been confusing to her, especially as she’d been single for almost as long as I’d known her and she undoubtedly expected me to be happy for her. Under almost any other circumstances I would’ve been, but this time I couldn’t.

        We did work things out later and we’re still friends, and I found someone else to go for drinks with. I broke up with my boyfriend shortly afterwards, too. He’d been neither supportive nor understanding while I was stressed out by exams and work, not to mention my dad’s illness, and yet he was very put out when I didn’t want to go out and celebrate the end of exam season with him…

      3. inksmith*

        My counsellor uses the analogy of a cup – when you’re OK, your cup is about half-full, so the little bit of extra liquid from something small going wrong is no big deal. But when you’re not OK, your cup is really full, so a little bit of extra liquid makes it overflow – and then you “over-react” to something that seems really tiny, because you’re actually also reacting to everything else in the cup as well.

      4. ArcticFoxy*

        ‘Trigger stacking’ is the term, I believe. It’s like, your stress bucket can only hold so much, and the thing that overflows it might seem minor if it wasn’t already full.

  47. annamaurya*

    #6 – well done!
    #10 reminds me of a beloved field sales manager who called me and didn’t intend to leave a message (phone tag situation that obnoxiously lasted a couple of days) but did anyway by mistake. the voicemail was a perfectly-annoyed “oh my god” and nothing else. think Bob Belcher. I have never downloaded a sound clip and made it my text notification sound so fast in my life. I told him about it when we finally got in contact with each other and he laughed and said “well, at least my frustration wasn’t completely in vain.”

  48. bookbug71*

    Back when I worked for a public library, they had a town hall session to which the public was invited to comment. One citizen stood up and went on a tirade about how poorly the staff was treated, leading us to have low “morals.”

    She meant “morale.” Someone even questioningly corrected her, but she just kept going on about the librarians’ low morals.

  49. Amy*

    One time, when I was looking for my first job out of college, I showed up for an interview and the receptionist gave me a form to fill out in the interview room while I waited for the interviewers to arrive. I’m not sure why, since I definitely filled out most of that info in my application already, but whatever. It was a generic form with boxes for each letter of your answers and was very obviously not specific to this company. When I got to the part of the form that asked for 3 references, I was horrified to discover that the small print instructions said the references could NOT be your supervisors. I panicked, as the references I had carefully documented and printed out ahead of time were my student employment boss, my boss’s assistant (still a supervisor to me), and my boss’s coworker in a neighboring department who sometimes gave the student workers projects (which he supervised). I figured I could stretch that the last two weren’t REALLY my supervisors (even though they were), but there was no getting around the fact that my boss could not be used as a reference per these instructions. And as a detail-oriented candidate who follows instructions, obviously I had to take that as gospel and get a new reference immediately. But I also remembered the college career center advice of “always ask your references ahead of time” and took that rule as gospel as well.

    So my interviewers walked in to see me on my cell phone, furiously trying to get ahold of my roommate to ask if she would mind being listed as my last reference. (For the record, my roommate would not have minded and did not need to be asked, but the RULES!) I at least recognized that this behavior was not putting my best foot forward and proceeded to vomit out the entire thought process that led to me placing phone calls when I was supposed to be waiting patiently.

    On the plus side, it turns out no one in their company had ever noticed that fine print before and now the great mystery of why everyone’s references have always sucked was explained. On the down side, not only did I not get the job, but I was rejected via a very patronizing phone call that pointed out a very minor typo in my resume. I think I dodged a bullet, to be honest.

  50. Usual Band of Idiots*

    I did something similar, based on a phrase I thought everyone would recognize. I edited a tiny community newspaper in the early 90s. My star (and only) reporter covered a town council meeting in our little suburb in which there were some kind of shenanigans.
    As budding investigative journalists who idolized Woodward and Bernstein, she and I agreed that it bore a strong resemblance to the “Saturday Night Massacre”–a series of resignations over the dismissal of special prosecutor Archibald Cox that took place in the United States Department of Justice during the Watergate scandal in 1973.
    She wrote up the story, and we named the file “Massacre,” which made sense in context. Then we sent the file to our copy editor, who was extremely startled to see that there had apparently been a horrific act of violence in our community.

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