the fake number, the unfortunate auto-correct, and other stories to cringe over

It’s Mortification Week at Ask a Manager and all week long we’re revisiting ways we’ve mortified ourselves at work. Here are 15 mortifying stories to kick off today.

1. The unfortunate auto-correct

I once messaged a fellow nurse that she was being assigned a deaf patient, but don’t worry, the video interpreter screen was already in the room.

My phone corrected it to dead.

2. The unexpected intruder

I was working closing shift at a coffee stand, alone, at around 11 p.m. We’d been having problems with the ice machine and it was acting up for me again, so I texted the owner about it, thinking he’d see it in the morning and come to fix it. He decided to come that night and fix it. He’d texted me back, but I didn’t see it.

When he got there, I had the back door propped open so I could clean the floor mats – there was no place to park in our lot so he had parked nearby. All of the sudden, out of the dark (the only real light was from the stand behind me) I hear this man approaching me. I screamed, sprayed him in the face with the hose I was using, and locked myself back inside the stand freaking out until he called me and said it was him outside. Thankfully, he thought it was funny but it still keeps me up at night eight years later.

3. The fake number

I once called a client, reached their voicemail, promptly forgot my office phone number, and MADE UP A NUMBER for them to call me back on. Then after a few minutes of OMG WHAT DID I JUST DO AND WHAT DO I DO NOW with my colleagues, had to phone the client again and leave another voicemail with the correct number and a very flimsy excuse of “sorry, that was my coworker’s number in my previous message.”

4. The trade

As an early-career professional doing a client site visit, my client took me out for brunch at her favorite local spot. I was certain the cafe had swapped our dishes – hers looked exactly how I had imagined the thing I ordered – and I INSISTED upon it until she traded with me. At her own favorite local spot, where she had presumably ordered her dish many, many times before. What on earth was I thinking?

5. The sausage balls

First professional job attending the Christmas potluck in the breakroom with my two other cube-mates. We would often joke like middle school boys despite being professionals in finance in our late 20s and 30s.

I see a tray of “sausage balls” amongst the holiday spread, and I point out to my female coworker, “Girl, get you one of those, cause I know you like sausage and I know you like balls.” I definitely said this way too loudly as one of the members from Internal Audit ACROSS THE BREAKROOM raised up his head and was caught between a snort of laughter and a look of absolute horror that someone would audibly say that in a workplace.

6. The horrible misunderstanding

I was at a business dinner with several VPs and directors. We all started talking about our pets, and one of the VPs said to me, “Did you mention you had cats?” I had only spoken to this person a handful of times before, so I was surprised she knew I had cats because I couldn’t remember ever mentioning that to her before. But I must have because she brought it up! So I replied, “Oh, I did. But they died.”

She gave me this look of utter horror as the person sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “She asked if you had kids.”

7. The typo

My former boss once emailed the entire multinational PR firm “sorry for the incontinence” when he meant “inconvenience.”

8. The bulge

Me, presenting to my team: “So the numbers are looking okay at the moment — the real test is going to be the next three months, as that’s when we’ve got the best chance of picking up clients. As long as we get a hard bulge in April, May and June, we’ll be happy.”

My boss, a camp gay man with no filter: *eyebrows everywhere*

Me: I mean — I — I — I — oh god.

Boss: I mean, I am ALWAYS happy to get a hard bulge. Really any month.

The meeting never really recovered.

9. The insult

I was doing a marketing internship for credit at university, and my task for the day was to address letters and envelopes in Word on company letterhead for a promotion based on a list of 500 potential customers – let’s say they were looking to change up their teapots. The first potential client name on the list was a Mrs. Boring. I remember laughing because the letter opened with something like, “Dear Mrs. Boring, are you looking to spice up your teapots?”

I remembered to update the envelope addresses as I made my way down the list, but I forgot to update the letters, so 500 people received promotional letters, and for 499 of those people, it looked like we were insulting their teapot collections and calling them boring. Several people called to complain. I was not fired, but I still cringe thinking of it.

10. The escape

I popped in to my boss’s office for a quick chat while she was eating lunch at her desk and her husband was visiting and sitting across from her. I leaned over her desk, and when I straightened, something damp flopped onto her desk. I was lactating and my bra was very ill-fitting due to pregnancy and postpartum weight fluctuations, and a soggy nursing pad worked its way out of my bra, and escaped through the untucked end of my loose fitting blouse. Oops.

11. The misunderstanding

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. That’s 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.

12. The bird poo

I went to a work event at the House of Lords (England, by far the fanciest thing I’ve done with work). I realized at the end of the event, after a few hours of networking, that I’d had bird poo in my hair the entire time. My former boss cleaned it out for me in the toilets!

13. 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.

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 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.

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