Mortification Week: the security tape, the marital argument, and other stories to cringe over

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s Mortification Week at Ask a Manager and all week long we’ve been revisiting ways we’ve mortified ourselves at work. Here’s the final installment — 12 more mortifying stories people have shared here over the years.

1. The pumping room

I had just started a new job shortly after having my first child and had to pump in my office. I didn’t have the money to purchase an expensive, hands-free pump so I was using the free pump from my insurance that plugged into a wall and required my shirt/bra to be off if I didn’t have fancy nursing clothes on that day.

I figured since I had a private, lockable office, I should be able to pump privately without significant issue. I was wrong. Just to be safe, I had made a small sign that said “pumping, please do not disturb” to make sure no one thought I was ignoring them if I failed to respond to a knock.

One afternoon while I was just finishing up pumping, I heard a knock at my door. I called out, “I’m pumping right now, please come back later.” The person started jiggling the door handle. I experienced a rapid-fire roller coaster of emotions (panic — did I forget to lock the door? Relief — thank goodness, the lock worked! back to horror — are those keys I hear jingling?). I could hear the person on the other side of the door, so I knew they could hear me. I called out, “Do not come in here! I am pumping and I need privacy!” and for some reason, the response I got back was, “It’s okay!” and they CONTINUED TO UNLOCK AND OPEN THE DOOR.

In desperation, I yelled at the top of my lungs, “I AM NAKED AND IF YOU PUSH THAT DOOR OPEN FURTHER, YOU WILL SEE MY BREASTS” as I rushed to try to throw my shirt back on. I caught a glimpse of an absolutely horrified young man in the doorway. After a minute of him freezing in shock, he slammed the door shut and I could hear him saying, “Oh my God, oh my God” as he ran down the hallway.

The worst part? In my panicked rush, one of the containers of my milk spilled all over the room. And all of our cleaning supplies were stored in the janitor’s office so I got to see my new little buddy almost immediately. I walked in to get some paper towels to find him shaking in the office, trying to explain to his boss what chaos he had just unleashed. Turns out he was a teenager who had only ever heard of pumping in the context of “pumping irons/working out” so he thought it would be fine to just pop in and talk to whoever was lifting weights in the office.

The other worst part? My office hallway was (usually) a very quiet, peaceful place so my yelling attracted quite the crowd as people came running over to see what was wrong just in time for the door to be opened. I’m fairly confident all of my new coworkers saw me topless although they were kind enough to pretend they had not.

About to have my second child in a month or two so we’ll have to see what happens this time around. Maybe I’ll push a desk in front of the door just to be safe! I asked my boss, who kindly suggested we order a large sign that says “I AM NAKED AND YOU WILL SEE MY BREASTS IF YOU OPEN THIS DOOR,” although we may need to run that one by HR first!

2. The donation request

At a college library we were collecting food donations and the organization gave us a list of their highest need items. I retyped the list for marketing and sent it off so we could get some fliers. A little while later, a marketing staffer calls me laughing hysterically and says, “You wrote on here that one of the requested donations is porn and beans. By any chance did you mean pork and beans?”

3. The phone interview

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

I did not get the job.

4. The argument

I was asked to produce an all-audio live event on a special new audio platform. It was a two-day conference where I didn’t know many of the participants or listeners, but it was a fun challenge! I hit a bit of a snag when the first event started and I needed to record audio on my end without destroying the audio feed quality. The test run was fine but we all know the live moment is sometimes different!

I asked my husband (way better at tech) for help resetting the microphone — except that I hated his advice, and argued with him loudly about how to fix it and what would work for me and what wouldn’t, and it got briefly heated.

And then I heard another voice on the line: “Is this the conference? This is hilarious. I want to keep listening to this!” And then my boss’s voice: “Uh, next time you do this, can you mute? You have about 1,000 listeners.” It had gone on for literally five minutes before I realized I was broadcasting myself instead of the speakers.

5. The straw

It was my first day at a summer job (I was still in college) and my new boss took me to lunch. I was drinking iced tea with a straw, but watching my boss rather than staring down at my glass, so at one point when I dipped my head down to take a sip, I missed, and the straw went up my nose. I immediately raised my head … and the straw stayed in my nostril and sprayed iced tea all over the table.

6. The mints

A coworker of mine came down to my cubicle for a quick chat. She was standing in the hallway at the entrance to my cubicle as she updated me on a new training initiative. She reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a couple of mints (wrapped in plastic) and tossed one at me and unwrapped the other one before putting it in her mouth. We continued chatting for a couple of minute and wrapped up our conversation. As she turned to leave I said, “What else do you have in those pants for me?”

As it came out of my mouth, I realized what I said, and how it did not sound like I was asking for another mint. I started laughing and apologizing and she gave me the side eye and then laughed as well. My boss’s office was next door and he immediately popped out to the hallway because of course I was loud enough for him to hear. We all laughed it off.

7. The beat

I was a teaching assistant for music classes at a university. I was trying to explain to my students, who were pretty new to music studies, that a piece in 3/4 time had a section that was temporarily in duple time. Rather than using “technical” language like “So, as you see in these measures, Stravinsky creates a pattern of a quarter note followed by a quarter rest,” I said, “So, as you can see here, Stravinsky writes beat, off, beat, off, beat, off….” Then I realized I’d been repeatedly saying “beat off” in front of my class. I could not compose myself. I turned beet red and laughed uncontrollably for about two minutes. The rest of the class was punctuated by me periodically sputtering, laughing, and struggling to regain my dignity.

8. The sandwich shop

Went to work feeling OK; worked a few hours, took lunch. Ate lunch at a sandwich shop.

About an hour after getting back I was feeling awful.

Went to ask my boss if I could go home and threw up all over her office while asking.

9. The security tapes

I was a management intern at a well-known retailer a million years ago. I was in the back working on the schedule, and lost track of time. I walked out of the office towards the exit only to see the evening manager walking to his car. He locked me in the store for the night.

It was a serious “WTF?” moment, and much to everyone’s amusement, there were security tapes that showed me in a panic and pounding on the glass screaming.

I walked out the back door and set off the fire alarm. The fire department came, but I left before they showed up.

10. Not muted

During the early days of the pandemic, I was on a group call about A Very Important Topic and had a, um, bathroom emergency in the call. I thought I was muted. I was … not. To this day, I have never admitted it was me.

11. The delivery

Years ago I had ordered an expensive pair of sunglasses from a high fashion designer. The delivery needed a signature. Instead of just telling my boss I had to be home to sign for a delivery, I used messenger on my computer to ask one of my friends, “What’s a good, boring thing to say I need to be home to sign for – I can’t tell my boss I need to stay home to sign for sunglasses.” She later wrote back, “I don’t know – maybe an appliance? Groceries that need to be refrigerated?”

Well – my laptop was the one we were using at that moment in a major department meeting – with my whole screen mirrored on the big conference room screen – and her reply and our whole exchange popped up on the screen for all to see. Oops. I was mortified. Luckily my boss is cool and just asked me the next day, “So what kind of sunglasses did you get?” Now I know enough to not give details and just say I need to be home for a delivery/signature!

12. The misspeaking

I was once interviewing for a job at a school, and the interviewer (the head of school) asked for an example of how I got buy-in around a program I created. This was after a long day with lots of interviews and so while I was trying to say “I had a lot of success with…” what I actually said was “I had a lot of sex with faculty.” I withdrew from that search for many reasons, but this was definitely one of them.