Embarrassing moments at work

[Owain Taggart]

Once upon a time, I did volunteer work at a long-term care facility. I had the job of delivering mail to residents. It was a pretty interesting job, though very confusing due to the layout of the place and how big it was.

One day, I was just doing my normal routine, I knocked at a resident's door, to sound out whether they were there or not as per protocol. After a few moments, I realized nobody was there, so I turned the handle and went in as we're allowed to do to deposit their mail if nobody's there, and what I found was quite shocking.

Most residents are allowed a TV and cable. This particular TV was in the far right corner facing directly opposite the door. When I went in, the first thing I saw was the TV and it was showing hardcore porn! I was quite embarrassed to say the least.

I have no problem with porn in general, but just knowing what a senior in his upper ages has been doing was enough to put me off the place and I hadn't mustered the courage to keep working there, as I haven't worked there since, but it's something that I'll eternally remember.

It reminds me of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm when Larry goes to visit his Dad at the nursing home, only to find him and his friends watching porn and asking to turn it up until the whole place can hear it. This felt like my Larry moment.

 

[ed629]

Got caught getting... ummm... getting some attention down low. Fortunately it was my buddy that caught us, so he didn't say anything, and was rather impressed by who it was that he caught me with.

 

[thestrangequark]

I've never been embarrassed at work -- it'd take some very low self-confidence to be embarrassed in front of 1st graders.

A great thing about being a teacher, though, is that even if there are other adults in the room, if you have gas everyone just assumes it was one of the children.

 

[TerokNor]

One time I fell over with a client. That was quite embaressing and shocking really. She had only one leg (and liked to suddenly stop supporting herself with that leg) and was really tall and HEAVY! And I had not really experience transferring people (only in theory).
Still I thought: "Oh well...with the right technic that should be no problem. I still can get her from the bed into the chair. Can´t be THAT difficult." She even asked me, if I´d be sure I can do this alone and I told her, she should not worry, its no problem at all.
How stupid and arrogant that was I found out a few seconds later. Thanks God, nothing happend to her. I felt so embaressed and terrible guilty for assuming I could transfer her by myself and not asking someone for help. Though that was a "lesson" I will never forget.

TerokNor

 

[propita]

I was brand new at work (a few months in) and a very young and naive 21yo. I was testing a optical measurement device in the department's hallway--I needed 40 feet of line-of-sight and only the hallway was long enough. Anyway, the device was tubular and rolled off the worktable. And I screamed "NO!" Uh ... I can scream really loud. And at a high pitch that carries. And that hallway really echoed. Everyone poked their heads out to see what happened.

The device wasn't damaged. It really couldn't be damaged from a fall of only 3 feet. Damn thing was made of steel and meant to be installed on a tank. I didn't know that at the time.

Before that, I thought it was bad enough that I had to test this in the hallway, taping down a calibrated measuring tape for 40 feet and getting all the jokes about that. Little did I know that was the easy part. Fortunately, people didn't kid me about it later.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I was trying once to take a box of supplies from shipping and receiving. There weren't too many people there, but there was a the teenage daughter of a lab supervisor waiting there for her mother to get out, and she was watching me struggle in vein to to pick up the box. Eventually, she came and picked up the box for me and carried it by herself.

 

[SeerSGB]

When I worked for the paper: Everyone was coming back from lunch or the morning's field work, walked into the office of the layout artist and caught him going down on one of the female reporters.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

I almost had one last night, but managed to avoid it.

Our office has a security system, and I (along with several others, though not everyone) have an activation/deactivation code for it.

I was leaving around 7:30, and I was the last one in the building, so I went to the front door and punched in my code. It said "INVALID CODE". Okay, I thought, maybe I punched it in incorrectly, or one of the numbers didn't take - I need to cut my nails, and my typing/button-pushing is a little less than accurate right now as a result. So I tried again - "INVALID CODE". And then it came up with another message - I forget exactly what, but the gist of it is that the system had been compromised.

I've been told that if the system doesn't get set by a certain time, it sets itself automatically, and if anyone is still in the building the motion detectors will cause the alarm to go off. We also have a police station right next door, and I already had one run-in with them a couple of months ago when they thought it was suspicious that I was walking through the parking lot at 7:30 on a Friday night and demanded my ID. But that's a different rant.

Back to last night's problem... so, I called ChrinFinity, who called one of the other directors, and they gave me another code to try. Fortunately, this one worked and I was able to go home.

So I managed to avoid the embarrassment of setting off the alarm. Whew!

I found out what had happened this morning: a month or two ago, I had to get a new access card for the building because mine just stopped working. It seems that the codes for the alarm system are tied to each individual card, and given that we've had a fair bit of turnover recently, the person who administers the system had decided to clean up the database... and deleted my old card and with it, my security code for the building. Oops.

So she gave me a new code, and everything should be okay (I haven't tried it yet, as I wasn't the last one out tonight).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I was in our parking lot once and I tripped and fell into a puddle of oil that a car had left behind. Ruined my clothes. But at least I got to go home early...

 

[Alpinemaps]

My last boss could be a bit of a jerk. At the time, there were three of us in the department - my boss, myself, and a coworker. He and the coworker did NOT get along. Ever. (Which made my life easier, because it generally deflected any jerkiness away from me).

So, one day, the two of them were go off pretty bad. Yelling at one another quite a bit more than usual. I knew that my coworker was right about the topic that they were arguing about, and my boss was wrong. And that's why they were arguing (don't make this boss look bad, because it's never good).

So, I sent my wife an email - "Uh oh. I better be on my best behavior today. Boss is in a bad mood!"

Yeah. For some reason, I put my boss' name in the TO line, instead of my wife's!

Needless to say, when he read the email, he went off on me. Whoops!

 

[TerokNor]

Oh I know something else, though it was not as embarressing as the most things you wrote, more embarressing in a cute way maybe.

A collegue and I got around very well. One client noticed that and thought we were in love (we weren´t). She asked us and we said, no we are not in love. But she did not believe us. That afternoon said collegue and I went shopping together for a present for a former collegue who got a baby...so we were of course in a baby-shop, trying to find some cute outfit for the baby and a stuffed animal or something. So we stood there, each of us with many baby clothes in our hands arguing about what the cutest and most practical would be. Suddenly we heard a voice behind us saying: Heeellloooo! in that stupid tone of voice were you can hear the silly smile on the face.
We both stopped dead, turned around and the client stood there, smiling wide asking if she could gratulate us. We both of course hastily started to talk at the same time: No, we are only buying a present. She: Uhuh..suuuuure.....


TerokNor

 

[SicOne]

^ I had a similiar incident over 20 years ago, when I was in college.

I was a groomsman in a buddy's wedding and at somewhat of a loss as to what to get him and his betrothed for their gift. The day before the wedding, we had the rehearsal then a rehearsal luncheon afterwards, during which I got to meet a bridesmaid whom I had heard of but had not met and was to walk with at the wedding. Talking to Diane, the bridesmaid in question, over lunch we discovered that she had not gotten the happy couple a gift, either. So we, being broke and drunken college students, decided to go in together and get them something.

Now, as it turns out, both the groom and bride were virgins. I shit you not. Semi-moral, semi-religious reasons on both sides. I knew there had been heavy petting, for one drunken night I had fallen asleep at their place while watching a movie (in the dark), and they began to go at it; I got quite the show when I woke up but pretended to be asleep. Decorum prohibits continuing any further; I'll leave the rest to your sordid imaginations, but it was fascinating. Anyway, I digress.

I didn't know the bride's moderately buxom size, but Diane had been her friend since childhood, knew her size, her favorite color, everything. So, where do we go? A scanty lingerie shop. Victoria's Secret? Don't remember. But they had fantastic items. I give Diane the money, she adds hers to it, picks up something that looks like it could fit in a contact lens case for the bride, and we go to check out.

The clerk, a bawdy older lady, rings us up, looks at Diane, looks at me, looks at Diane, then winks and says, "You two have a REAL nice weekend!"

Diane and I, just new friends at this point, look at each other and I say to the clerk, "Uh, it's not for me."

Clerk says, "Duh...it's for HER (gesturing to Diane). Which also means it's for you, after all."

We're both beet-red at this point. Clerk giggles and heads off to do her job, and we slink out of the store.

In an interesting postscript to this story, Diane and I did find ourselves horizontal later that night after the reception. I guess it's true what they say; a wedding tends to bring that out in a gal.

 

[SicOne]

This is a helluva embarassing moment. It didn't happen to me. Believe me, none of you will probably ever meet me in person so if it had happened to me, I'd fess up to the BBS crew about it. Great story, this is.

But it happened to a guy who, for reasons which will become self-evident as you continue, we call Poopypants.

I am a locomotive engineer for a major railroad. Poopy was a switchman when this incident occured, and was working with another engineer friend of mine who delighted in recounting the tale for a packed yard office full of employees who listened to his every word with rapt attention.

Switch engine crews get lists of yard tracks with instructions of which cars go into which tracks and such. When your lists are done, you are generally permitted to go home early. So most crews go for the "quit", work hard and get the job done and get outta there early. Poopy and crew were working for their quit and slinging railcars around.

Earlier in the shift, Poopy had complained of a tummyache. Being a helluva worker but none too bright, though, he kept on going. But guys, no quit is worth delaying a bowel movement for. But by now things were catching up to him and his guts were percolating. They were on their last switch list, though, and he was planning to hit the crapper immediately upon achieving their quit. Distracted by events occuring in his digestive tract, he lined the wrong switch and the railcar heading for Track 34 started heading in the wrong direction.

Poopy sprinted for the correct switch, reached it seconds before the railcar, and bent down and lifted the switch handle in one great heave. At that point, he promptly shat himself.

It wasn't just one little turdlet. You know, like when you fart and then feel a lump? Happens all the time, you know that. Oh, no, my friends. As the engineer who witnessed this event regaled us with, this was a legendary defecation so gigantic that someone should have broken a bottle of champagne over its bow upon launch. Poopy slowly stood up from the switch and dropped trou right there in the rail yard, shook it out of his now untidy-whities, and climbed on the switch engine, leaving his deposit in the rail yard for all to see and marvel over.

They were all done for the day so they parked the engine and secured it, walked to the little switch shanty they operated out of for their south end yard office, whereby Poopy asked the other switchman and my friend engineer, "Hey, guys, don't tell anyone, OK?"

I'm sorry. Railroaders, we're all a bunch of yentas. There was no WAY on God's green earth that you could keep that kind of great fuckin' story to yourself. Word shot around our service unit at the speed of cell phone. "Poopy went for a quit, and instead got a shit!" By day's end, Poopypants had become enshrined in myth and legend in our yard, the turd growing longer and larger with the retelling. Hello, Guiness Book Of World Records?

I honestly felt sorry for the guy. I doubted he went to work that day with the intended goal of defecating himself in front of witnesses. Until it happened again a month later.

At that point, it changed in my perception from "unfortunate accident" to "unusual hobby"...

 

[TheBrew]

I had one happen to me yesterday. I setting up someone's account and asked them to enter their PIN on their CAC. She enters it in wrong three times and locks the card, so I have to send her to a different room to unblock it as they have a special computer that links to the Pentagon to verify and unlock the card.

I then realized that she had in fact locked my CAC because I had selected the wrong one. Boy was I embarrassed.

 

[SeerSGB]

One that didn't happen to me, and if it had would I sure as hell not tell anyone. I'd move, change my name, and disconnect the phone. But it happened to someone else, so <eg>

No names, I no I'm not saying on what job it happened. I will say it was food-service industry though.

A little backstory: Where we worked at 14 to 16 hour (and beyond) shifts were not uncommon. So the manager had a old used couch put in the break room. Microwave, TV, fridge, the ideal being we could grab a snack and crash for a few minutes on a long shift. I wasn't there when it happened, I showed up a couple hours later and the GM was still raining hell.

Okay: A couple of the floor staff started dating (Not a big deal; hell the average age for 17 to 18 years old of course you're going to have 'em hooking up). Well apparently these two couldn't wait till they got home or to the car cause they decided: Break room couch = Win. So they started getting it on during one of the breaks...small problem: Security camera in the break room, plus we all carried radios...voice activated radios...voice activated radios with really sensitive mics. Feel free to do math.

The GM called the girl's father (she was under 18) and the father called the cops on the boy (19). When I got there, the hilarity was still going on. Cops trying not to laugh, the boy red faced as one could get, father and daughter yelling at each other, and the GM yelling at everyone. That night the manager had the "love couch" removed from the break room and handed both of them their termination papers, the next week our radios were switched to models that had to be keyed to talk.

 

[TerokNor]

*chuckles* Oh I cannot stop laughing. My collegue was bend down in front of me picking something up from the floor and I was looking at her trouser and wondring where the big, round fleck/stain/spot (whatever word is correct) on her butt comes from. I glance to her chair and see a really flat chocolate-muffin, that she had put there some moments before. She forgot about it and sat on it! *L*
I know, I know Schadenfreude is bad, but it was funny.

TerokNor

 

[SicOne]

In a postscript to the Poopypants story, he will be called that the rest of his career. Once you have a nickname at work, especially a well-earned one like that, it is forever.

Guy could save thirty kids from a burning fucking orphanage, and we'll see it on the news and go, "Wow, look what Poopy did!"...

 

[Captain Shaw]

The back of my trousers split once ,I had to go into the toilets and staple them back together then I did the rest of my shift with my jumper wrapped around my waist.
Also had a bra strap go on me but I managed to get into the toilets and tie it back together before anyone saw anything.

 

[SPCTRE]

Okay, this one wasn't strictly embarassing, but it could have been if it wasn't my kind of humour and my co-workers weren't as cool as they are:

So two weeks or so ago, I went over to this colleague of mine (she was sitting right next to our CEO at that moment) because she owed me some lunch money. We're good friends and are joking around in the office quite a lot, mind you - but this one took me by surprise: She handed me the money, winked and said "you were pretty good last night"

It just came so out of nowhere. Needless to say, we all had a good laugh.

 

[omgahitsbritt08]

My most embarrassing moment would have to be when I was caught dancing. And I mean the bump and grind. I wasn't dancing with anyone but, to the music. It was embarrassing!!!