Ask a Manager

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 13 more mortifying stories to enjoy.

1. The mustache party

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 mustache 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 mustache from the dollar store, an eye patch, and a pirate hook. My partner looked a bit doubtful, but I pointed out that the mustache 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 two deep with very tall, very blond women wearing small black dresses. They did not have mostaches, 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 mustache 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.

2. The hat

I worked for a school district that decided the hill they wanted to die on was hats. Religious headgear was allowed, and grudgingly the few students who were undergoing cancer treatments that made them lose their hair were permitted to wear a cap of some sort, but those exceptions were a small portion of the student population, and it seems no matter how styles change, teenagers are fervently attached to wearing some sort of hat. Personally, I don’t care about hats and I had to train myself to notice them after I was scolded for not enforcing the rule.

Then for the next 30 years, I was saying some variation of “Hats off!” on at least an hourly basis during the school day. This followed me into non-school settings, and once I was confronted with the shocked and irritated face of a stranger I had sternly told to remove his baseball cap in the public library.

3. The pothole

I was part of a team working late one night on a proposal and we decided to walk across the street to grab dinner before returning to finish the work. It was completely dark out and had rained all day, which is why when I tried to leap across a patch of wet grass to land on a pothole cover, I didn’t see that the pothole was actually NOT covered, but filled to the top with water. I went in feet-first all the way up to my waist. My coworkers looked in every direction but me as I somehow leaped out of the pothole (I have never shown that level of athleticism since) and spent the dinner trying to laugh it off in soaking wet shoes, tights and skirt.

4. The drinks

At the time, I’d worked for 10 years in a community center as a new manager on the member-facing programming team. Every year, there is a two-day regional conference where community centers from the tri-state area get together to share best practices, professional development, and a night out (usually a karaoke bar). This one year, I decided to start a diet the day of the conference, so I did my best to eat very cleanly and very little … then finished the evening by accidentally getting very, very drunk. Our CEO eventually escorted me back to my room where I proceeded to vomit all night long (much to the chagrin of my roommate/colleague).

I was still so drunk the next morning that one of my coworkers had to drive me in my own car from the hotel back to the conference location, where I was unable to keep my eyes open and ended up sleeping (missing half the conference) on an office couch under someone’s coat as a blanket. I was 37 years old at the time. My CEO was incredibly understanding about it, basically telling me to never let it happen again. (It hasn’t. I’m still at the same organization in a middle management role. I also never drank Fireball again.)

5. The presentation

I was on a call with the vendor, who was presenting, when he switched his screen so I could see another aspect of the product. Up pops a document titled “How to Use Your Rabbit Vibrator.” Cue frantic clicking on his side. (He claims it was left over from a previous client presentation.)

6. Not sun

I had an panel interview where one of the interviewers arrived with shockingly red skin all over. I remarked something like, “Wow! You got some sun! I hope you were having fun!” He muttered something like “not really,” and I responded with a “oh, yard work or something?” And I think … I don’t remember … but I think … I … might have … actually called him “Lobster Boy.”

I got the job, amazingly, and discovered a month or so in that his skin condition was the result of a painful ongoing medical treatment. I melted into a puddle under my desk.

7. The ice cream cone

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 realized what a horribly unsanitary thing it is to lick your bare hand while holding a customer’s food.

8. The wrong recipient

I once worked in an office with a secretary who couldn’t stop talking. One of those people who’d even narrate what she was doing if no one was around to listen to her. One day I had a difficult project to finish, my earplugs had gone missing, and Secretary had a captive audience in the form of a new hire she was “training.” I meant to use the interoffice IM to text, “I can’t focus with Secretary chattering on, so if you need me I’ll be in the conference room. God she drives me batty” to my team partner. Sent it right to Secretary.

9. The wrong word

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.

10. The voicemail

When I was in college, my best friend and I worked for the college’s foundation making cold calls for donations. The system used an autodialer and most people weren’t answering so we were chatting and having a playful argument while we worked. As one of my calls was ringing, she said something and I said, “You know what? Don’t even talk to me” and realized too late that the voicemail had picked up and I had just left that as a message for someone. I panicked, hung up, and called again leaving a normal voicemail.

11. The cocaine

When I was newer to a job as a salesperson, I was on the phone with a colleague. We had a company rule that we could not be on the phone while driving, so I pulled off into a parking lot to go over some updates with him on speakerphone. A man came up to my car, motioned to me to roll down my window, and while my colleague was on the speaker asked me if I “I wanted a bump.” I will admit, I am a bit naïve and had no idea what a bump was but, always the learner, I said in a very polite way, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what a bump is.” To which he replied, “Cocaine, would you like some cocaine?” In the most midwestern polite way possible, I said back to him, “Oh, no thank you, I am good” while my colleague was laughing loudly at me over the speakerphone.

12. The missing word

Back in the 90s, I did improv mystery dinner theater where we sat at guest tables. Wives loved it when we singled out their husband’s and did fake flirting in character. I was at a table with a nice extended family … and in character, flirted with the dad to make him my character’s love interest jealous. He made some comment, to which I replied, “Oh, I’m just using you, but I’m going to blow you off later.” Except … I somehow didn’t say the word “off.” It was a truly mortifying, record scratch moment and I eeked out, “Oh, wow. Um, that is not what I meant!!” The entire table burst out in laughter. It was not that kind of show!

13. The accidental grope

When I was a young salesman, I was selling a woman a phone from a display, I was gesturing at one of them and turned towards her, just as she turned towards me … and I perfectly cupped her breast.

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.

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.

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 15 more mortifying stories to enjoy.

1. The zipper

Last year I had to give a very important presentation in front of very important customers, part of a week-long roadshow. I had packed several dresses and one suit. Unfortunately, I hadn’t worn this particular suit for a while, and I didn’t think to try it on before the trip. I did remember there was some reason I hadn’t worn the suit lately, but I saw there was a missing button on the pants and figured that was it. I safety pinned it together and called it good.

Cut to the meeting. We arrive early. The customers aren’t here yet. It’s a small room, with a large table taking up most of the space, regular rolling office-type chairs at the table itself, and a number of smaller non-rolling chairs around the edge. My boss and another coworker are standing and talking. I’ve been on my feet the entire week and am in general exhausted, so I sit down in one of the rolling office chairs. The back immediately tilts ALL the way back. The safety pin holds just fine – but I hear the telltale sound of my zipper sliding down. Instant mortification, of course, but my coworkers don’t seem to have noticed, so I sit up, use the edge of the table to hide what was going on, and quietly zip it back up.

All good? Not so much. There’s clearly something wrong with the zipper, because almost immediately I feel it start to slide down again. Maybe it’s the way I’m sitting in this chair? I can’t get it to stop tilting back. I stand up, turn around, zip my zipper up again, and hide this by swapping the offending rolling chair for one of the non-rolling chairs at the edge of the room. I’m holding back hysterical laughter at this point. My coworker is throwing me weird looks– she knows something is going on, but not what. She doesn’t say anything, though, first because she’s a great coworker, and also because the customers are starting to filter in.

Standing up seems to have helped, maybe something about the angle – the zipper is holding fine. I greet the customers, shake hands and introduce myself, and then sit down to start the presentation. The non-rolling chair is better, I can sit up straighter. Still fine, still fine, still fine … and then two minutes in, the zipper starts sliding down again, tooth by tooth.

There’s nothing I can do at this point. I shift closer to the table, discreetly tug my shirt down over my pants, and give the rest of the presentation with my zipper completely down.

(No one noticed. I cried hysterical tears of laughter in the bathroom afterwards.)

2. The Star Trek episode

At the orientation during my very first grown-up job, a gentleman came in and gave a presentation about short-term disability benefits and supplemental retirement accounts. I personally found this topic boring, so I 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.

3. The hickeys

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 hickeys 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 hickeys are not considered office appropriate, and to please wear a scarf, especially when meeting with important people.

4. The glass door

I once casually jogged into a clear glass door trying to join a board meeting in progress.

5. The prayer group

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 realize 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.

6. The photos

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 log in 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, and 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.

7. The nap room

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 smartass in each other. He was sure to show me that I had a TV that got full cable and that The Price is Right was 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.”

8. The lack of motivation

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.

9. The condolences

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!

10. The bubble baths

I was in my early twenties, interviewing with a middle-aged man. He asked me how I dealt with stress. I said I like to take bubble baths. I even talked about adding “lots and lots of bubbles.” I did not get the job. I still cringe thinking about it.

11. The self-talk

On the way to the interview, I encountered two accidents that tied up traffic badly so I just barely skated in before the interview time despite having left my house plenty early. I asked to use the restroom before we got started, and when I was looking in the mirror I noticed that a huge zit had appeared on my nose. I said to my reflection, “Nobody’s going to hire you looking that, too old, gray hair, an enormous zit, and overweight. You should just turn around and go home now.”

I’d been looking for three months after having been laid off and was feeling very defeated in the moment.

At that point, the recruiter popped out of a stall and, to her credit, acted as though she hadn’t heard all that. I was mortified.

Fortunately, I wowed the hiring manager and got the job. But, lordy, I cringed every time I saw her in the hall for the first six months I was there.

12. The ingenuity

In an interview I said I admired the ingenuity of a guy that had gotten fired from my previous employer for embezzling money. Srsly???

13. The phlebotomist

I once applied for a job where it could reasonably be assumed that you would need phlebotomy experience. The ad did not explicitly say that, though, and I blithely waltzed into the job interview with zero idea they thought I should be able to draw blood. And me, being young, dumb, and desperate for a job, offered to draw blood from my interviewer to prove that I could (I could not). Mercifully, she didn’t take me up on that offer.

That moment still haunts me, 10+ years later. What the $#%! was I thinking?!?

Welcome to Mortification Week, where we’ll be talking all week about how we’ve mortified ourselves at work.

To start us off, here are 15 stories people have shared here (or submitted via email) about work moments they now cringe over.

1. The unexpected video call

During the pandemic, when we were 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 descent 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.

2. The wrong detail

Years ago, I had a new employee in his first couple of weeks. 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.

3. The smooth move

When I was new (like first week) to my current job, we had a leadership meeting in the boss’ conference room. My office was just down the hall, and I wanted to get there a little early, being new and all. I didn’t know too many people yet, and as I approached the door I could hear voices, so I walk in, super-confident, my boss is sitting in his seat and one of my colleagues is sitting to his right, so I go and sit to his left and say hello to them both, introducing myself to my colleague. They both stare at me in shock for a moment, until my boss finally says, “I’m sorry (my name), I’m in an interview right now. I’ll call you back in when I’m done.” I go, “Oh, of course. Good luck!” and breeze away like the queen of England but was DYING inside.

4. The road rage

I was relatively new, on a call with a bunch of colleagues, including my even-newer boss. Someone did some driving shenanigan in front of me that I did not appreciate and I yelled something like, “Nice fucking move, asshole!” and immediately realized I was not muted like I thought I was. I froze, panicked, and immediately hung up, thereby probably calling attention to the fact that it was me yelling. No one ever mentioned it, but I am still haunted.

5. The request

Not me but a colleague many years ago was writing to IT to request a better processor in the laptop they were getting specced out. Unfortunately autocorrect changed “Is there a reason I can’t have a Pentium?” to “Is there a reason I can’t have a penis?” Yes, they said, there is a reason.

6. The migraine

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.”

7. The bird

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 the 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, 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.

8. The skirt

About 20 years ago, I was PR director for a big writing conference. That year our theme was poetry, and we invited the Poet Laureate, among other eminences. After the big poetry panel (to a packed house of about 200 people plus more in the hallway eavesdropping) I went up to the front of the room where the famous poets were all sitting to thank them. Took my time, shook all the hands, turned around to leave and realized that my skirt, which was short and made of stiff cotton, had flipped up at the waist and I had just mooned the most important poets in North America. And the entire room of 200. I was wearing a hot pink thong, too.

9. The bare feet

When I was in college, I did some part-time temping. One assignment was as receptionist/phone answerer at the tiny office of the warehouse of a beer importer/distributor. The owner really liked me and tried to give me beer every week and handbags occasionally (I assumed he also imported those). Being the unworldly (aka, dumbass)) student I was, when I injured my foot and couldn’t get it into a shoe, rather than … I don’t know, maybe wearing a shoe on one foot and a slipper on the other … I decided I should go to work barefoot. My boss had a client visitor that day, and they both clearly thought it was very strange that I had no shoes on, even after I explained why (I don’t know how I could have thought that was OK!). This was a Friday, and over the weekend, I got a message from the temp agency that my assignment at the beer distributor was over. What a surprise…

10. The interview question

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.

11. The shoplifting

This is making me remember the time that I interviewed for a retail position when I was like 17. The interviewer asked me what I would do in the event of discovering a shoplifter. I proceeded to ramble about how everyone makes mistakes, how I would talk to the person that I saw stealing and ask them about why they were doing this, and the cherry on the disaster sundae was saying, “Not everyone who steals is bad, I have several friends who have shoplifted before!”

I’m full-body cringing just typing that out.

Quite clearly, I didn’t get the job.

13. The intoxication

I was right out of college and interviewing for management consulting positions. They tend to have many interviews and I was talking to a few companies, so I was doing quite a few of them, and probably not giving the process the attention it deserved. Anyway. One night I went out with friends, and the night got a bit out of control … Woke up the next morning still very drunk, went to my interview and did a TERRIBLE job. Surprise, surprise, I didn’t get the job. The interviewer said I wasn’t “structured” enough and that it was “hard to follow my train of thoughts.” Ahem.

14. The brain freeze

I was interviewing for network engineer positions. Ya know, “making the internet work” sort of stuff. One interview, after a few general questions, they handed me markers, gestured to the gigantic whiteboard that took up one entire wall floor-to-ceiling and 20 feet long, and said, “Draw the Internet – use the entire board.” My brain FROZE. I had been a network engineer for 10 years at this point, I knew exactly how the internet worked – but my brain just stopped functioning and I had no ideas ready on how to translate my knowledge into a drawing the size of a billboard.

After a few very awkward moments of silence, I drew a cloud and wrote “I” in it, and sat down.

No one said anything. I said, “I guess we’re done!” and walked out.

15. The mute

I interviewed under the STAR format and was woefully unprepared for it. After the first question, I sat there in silence. The three interviewers returned the silence. After a full minute someone said, “I believe she’s on mute.” I piped up, “Nope!” and the silence resumed.