Last week’s Coffee Break @PumpkinSpies mentioned the Ask A Manager advice column. I had not been reading it regularly lately. As Covid prevented people from going into the office, the letters focused on the more mundane business questions. But last week, Alison Green compiled some of the most embarrassing letters she’s received for Mortification Week. Here are a few that made me laugh out loud.
The Dragon
“I work from home, and since my job doesn’t require much video calls, I used to dress pretty chill when I was at home. Then, my friend bought me a Kigurumi, aka that one piece pajama shaped like an animal, with the hood that is shaped like an animal. A dragon, in my case. A sparkly dragon.
Well, it was comfortable and warm, and one day I was freezing, and I decided to wear it while completing a project. Then our server crashed, all my team panicked, and the boss called. I was panicking, trying to remember if I had made a copy of the project, I forgot what I was wearing and I accepted the video call.
His face was priceless. Still forgetful of my outfit, I asked him to wait a sec while I was going to fetch my second laptop. I stood up giving him a full view of my dragon pajama, complete with a shiny dragon tail, of course. I realized it when I heard him choking laughing. He laughed so much he almost cried. Now I keep the dragon pajama just for sleeping, but the boss still calls me ‘the dragon manager’ from time to time.”
The Pizza Thief
“I used to work at a place that had more volunteers than employees, so parts of the building were open to the public. One day a coworker’s lunch was stolen from the kitchen, and it was some kind of specialty pizza that she was really craving. When she realized it was stolen, she was furious and asked the building supervisor to look at the security cameras. He agreed and then word went around the office at lightning speed that someone was about to get busted, so we all gathered around his computer to watch the footage.
At first we saw multiple volunteers in the kitchen. We all recognized all of them because they’re regulars. Then one by one they left until one guy remained, and at this point I started getting nervous because I knew the guy veeerrrrry well. But I thought surely he would never steal food. No way. He disappeared from the camera lens for a few minutes and I thought, oh thank god it wasn’t him. But then he juuuuuuust leaned back into the frame for a few seconds – just enough that you could clearly see him stuffing his face with a piece of pizza. And I wanted the floor to swallow me whole, because the culprit was MY DAD.
I just stood there in shock while all the other employees around me busted out laughing (except the pizza victim. she was still pissed). I took a lot of ribbing over this. The building supervisor took a screenshot of my dad’s face stuffed with pizza and people made all kinds of work-related memes with it. It was hilarious/mortifying. I’ve never had the courage to bring it up to my dad though. One day I will… Pizza victim confronted him though. I didn’t have to witness that, thankfully.”
Not Fur
“I have 2 cats that shed like crazy and am almost always covered in cat hair no matter how often I use a lint rollers or vacuum my place. This also results in cat hair getting all over my car, chair at work, etc.
One time at the end of a team meeting, I was sitting really close to a coworker and saw what I thought was a cat hair on my coworker’s head. I was mortified that I was apparently shedding on my coworkers but didn’t want her to have to walk around with cat hair in her hair, so I told her and asked if she wanted me to get it out. She said yes, so I reached over and tried to pick it out of her hair.
Y’all … it was not a cat hair. It was just a gray hair.
My boss and other teammate just looked at each other, stood up simultaneously, and declared the meeting over. I have never wanted to sink into the floor more than I did at that moment.”
How about you Deadsplinters, have an awkward workplace moment you’re willing to share?
@Hannibal, you turned me on to this column last year, and I have been reading it regularly and recommending it to friends. The haunted buildings / witches cursing coworkers are also fun reads.
@Elliecoo It’s amazing to me how people behave at work. At my wildest I would never have pulled half the crazy stunts some of these people do. I saved all my shenanigans for my personal life.
I don’t know about all that, but the coffee I made this morning is really good. I thought you’d all want to know.
I’m glad to hear it. I did not want to get out of bed this morning but my boss had to pee. So my coffee had to wait until after our walk. By then I was sort of grouchy and didn’t enjoy it as much as usual.
OMG those are hilarious.
On Friday, the 3 FNGs (fucking new guys) caught a mouse under a trash can in our newest partner’s office. (She was gone for the day.) We released the mouse into the wild.
One of the new analysts started to tell her about it but she started freaking out so he quickly switched to ‘just kidding lol’… then I get a text from him this morning: DO NOT TELL ALLISON WE CAUGHT IT IN HER OFFICE”.
Oh for fucks sake, grow up, it was a mouse, not a rabid coyote, lol. I’d tell her and go into great exaggerated detail.
I hear you have to relocate mice 2 miles away for them not to find their way home. So she might get to meet the mouse after all.
@Hannibal, and this is why we love you.
I had to rescue a mouse from my bird feeder (I took a pic first, of course). When it was still on a hook, they could climb in and one dumbass couldn’t get out. Cue my bleeding heart.
Also, one of my analysts’ office looks just like your header pic. Any wonder there was a mouse?
My mortification story was not my fault. I was attending a convention where I was receiving an award. I was wearing a cream colored wrap dress and my hair was beautifully coiffed. I ran to the restroom just before the awards ceremony. Where an elderly woman, wife to one of the owners, had managed to get herself trapped in the stall. The door was jammed. I tried pulling on the door from the front but it was really stuck. So I had to crawl on the public bathroom floor, I shudder just remembering, into the stall, and I managed to get the latch open, freeing us both. I made it back to the banquet room just as they called my name. And had to go up with my hair and makeup mussed, and dirt on my beautiful dress. My boss assumed I was drunk, as did everyone else, it was an event noted for a lot of partying, and was royally pissed off. Afterwards when the real story made the rounds they all thought it was hilarious. And I got teased about it for years. I found it much less amusing.
Ugh, that sounds awful!
@MegMegMcGee I had been careful not to overindulge before the ceremony. After that I was like fuck it, I’m getting trashed.
Ya, if you’re going to get dinged for a CLM (career limiting move), you might as well have the fun that goes along with it.
One year we had the “Holiday Party of No Food”. It was fancy, open bar, and teeny tiny passed apps for food. Everyone was TRASHED. Destroyed. And frankly I think it wasn’t totally our own fault.
One of my friends almost knocked down the CFO’s wife running to get outside and puke. We were all picking up pizzas and McDonald’s on the way home. People still talk about that party.
OMG, every good host knows you can’t cheap out on the food when serving alcohol.
I could text 15 people right now and say “remember the [company name] party with no food” and would get 15 complaints back about how it was the WORST.
I have a memorable holiday party. There was food, but the director of HR got so wasted she fell on her ass. This was yrs ago and there’s been a lot of turnover, plus she got married (or divorced?) and changed her name. But Pepperidge Farm remembers.
wierdly enough…no awkward work place stories from me..coulda been one from a work party many years ago where i definitely over indulged….but my boss set the benchmark there by getting soo spectacularly drunk nobody really remembered many other incidents…which was probably lucky as my typically quiet work persona and my drank enough to forget i work with these people persona are very different people…
If you’re anything like me, and I know you are, lol, you just want to do the job, put in the hours , then cut loose afterwards with people you actually like. 🤪
yeah…spot on…i try to weasel out of work parties…coz ummm…well..i tolerate these people coz im paid to….that said…i can tolerate them for free beer….but its dangerous
My worst work weekend ever.
I was in my late 20s, working as a testing/field apps engineer for a small industrial controller company. I was looking forward to this particular holiday weekend because I got lucky and landed two dates in one weekend (with two different women!) which was unheard of.
That Friday, I was asked…, ordered to work the entire weekend testing our new controller along with the rest of the engineering staff so I had to call and cancel. I was upset, but I figured the boss needed this (stupid me being a company man and all.)
Turns out I spent the entire weekend sitting around with my thumb up my ass.
This made me feel even angrier. Then on Sat night, the boss in his wisdom says “lets go out for beers and karaoke cause I’m paying.”
I drank 9 (?) beers on a empty stomach, passed out then puked on the table. Puked in the parking lot. Puked in my boss’ BMW. Barfed on my parent’s driveway. Barfed in the tub.
My boss wasn’t happy with me and told me that I had to be there at 8 am or I’d be fired. I didn’t have a car at the time so my mom drove me there all the while yelling/screaming at me for embarrassing her and shaming the family. I was too hungover to give a shit.
No one showed up till 1pm as I had passed out on the workplace picnic table.
That’s awful. Nine beers is a lot even with food. Your boss sort of deserved to have you puke in his BMW.
“late 20s!”
Not my story but my coworker once worked in a place so dysfunctional they found a bunch of paperwork in a ceiling tile. Some disgruntled employee just decided “I am not going to” FOR MONTHS and stuffed everything above their desk, then quit. How you do this with no one noticing (both the stuffing and the slacking) is a mystery to me. But it became a joke around our department until we went paperless. “I don’t like this contract… Into the ceiling it goes!”
Lol, I’d still use that saying, paperless or not.