Have you ever embarrassed yourself at a work or social function?
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Us Girls..Our Views 
I have constantly embarrassed myself, but at the moment I don’t remember any of those times. Ah, the joys of the fading memory . . . . Mostly my missteps have been minor in the scheme of things, so the only person who probably noticed or remembered them was me.
OK, some things are coming back now. I forgot to bring business cards to a few business meetings with Japanese people. Very bad! Then once I ordered “sweet bread” at some disgustingly fancy restaurant because I figured that would be rather tame, then had to change my order because someone told me “sweet bread” is actually some nasty innards of some bird. (Obviously I was not sent away to finishing school.) Oh, and a couple times I was confused about who had made a dumb decision, and talked about how dumb it was in front of the person who’d done it. Ya know, brilliant stuff like that. People always say I have a good heart, and would never hurt them on purpose, but would be very likely to hurt them by accident.
I’ve said this before on an embarrassing question and till the day I die, my most embarrassing moment was when I was in the men’s room at Toby and Sue’s wedding adjusting my nylons and fixing my dress when my eyes went to the mirror and I saw the back of a man and realized I walked into the wrong restroom!!!! Never will that vision ever leave my mind!
You guys wonder why I hate public restrooms!! Look what happens when I use one!
Joy, that is too funny. I am sure it wasn’t at the time! I’ve gone in the men’s room a couple times too. Usually I know it right away because there are the urinals, right out for all to see . . . sometimes with guys standing there . . . yikes!
I just had a weird moment today in the restroom of some store. I looked down and the shoe of the person in the stall next to me was a huge men’s track shoe. Yikes! But I was in the right place. Either some lady has really big feet, or some guy was very confused . . . .
The thing was I went right in and went to the mirrors so I wasn’t looking around. I went right to the sinks where the mirrors were like I owned the place! I was a mess that day for many reasons and just wasn’t paying attention. I win the dumbass award for this Joan!!! Glad you weren’t there with your camera!!
Joy, pretty much everyone grandma I know got through their kids’ wedding day only with the help of happy pills.
I am always impressed that they get through it at all! Maybe I’m the favorite daughter because I never put my parents through that . . . .
Joy that by far surpasses anything I have done yet though I have done some pretty embarrassing stuff in my life, nothing like that gf!
This is the adult question right?
1. In a meeting with clients, big hobnobs with big account that I really wanted. They needed something so I turned to the Big Dude (as I called him secretly) and said “Oh don’t worry about that Sarah will service you just where you need it”… let me just say the WHOLE room packed up. That was when I realised I am quite innocent.
2. Similar, I had to go to a website for a client on Johari’s window, anyways I type that into the address bar and it’s a spanking site with loud graphics making all the sexy noises… I nearly died but then told him to not give me porn sites next time.
In both cases I never lost the company money… just so you know lol
Oh Sanity, your #1 is great! I had a boss once who had a crush on me, when I too was innocent, and then when I sensed what was up, I decided to play innocent because I was afraid to tell him off. He was big on double meanings – always trying to walk a line so he would get his point across without saying anything that could get him sued.
So anyway, once he was having difficulty opening a computer program and I said something about whether he couldn’t get it up . . . needless to say, he had a comeback for that . . . .
Can I tell about a humiliation via work email (isn’t it great to share)? I got an email from one of the top dogs in the company asking me to consider changing my scheduled training from DC to Miami to save the firm money. Well, I was off-and-on dating a guy who lived in DC, and I wanted to confirm whether he’d be in town on the training dates, so I could decide what to do. So I prepared to forward Mr. Top Dog’s email with my own note suggesting that if he was in town, we could get together as I had a company-paid flight and hotel room. Only I didn’t hit forward, I hit reply. I didn’t realize it until I received a “read receipt” from Mr. Top Dog. I about died.
OMG I have done that very same thing! Hmmm Not good luckily it then became the joke around the office… they even gave me an award at the “Prize Giving” for the most creative email ever… the contents? Sorry family show.
Ahhh I blame it on my blondness! (Shush all you peoples who know I am not blonde… I AM going blonde again)
When I was in the Navy, I was an intel analyst. It was my job to prepare and give the weekly briefing for my office (which was in a Very Important Government Agency). There were several times when embarressing things happened, especially when I first took over the job. There was the time I missed a button on my uniform at chest-level (and I wasn’t require to wear an undershirt). I also once mispronounced every single Russian name (and I’m a Russian linguist!) out of nervousness (important people were listening).
My favorite: I was newly pregnant with the twins (I didn’t even know there were two yet), and if I wasn’t tossing cookies everywhere I was violently hiccuping. Every single suppressed hiccup and stomach noise was picked up on the microphone and broadcast around the world. Some guy in Elmendorf asked if I was okay, and I promptly proceeded to the nearest trash can and ralphed. Somebody said I had morning sickness, and the next day I had a gift basket on my desk of crackers/ginger ale, stuff like that. Embarressing, but nice.
Oh, and the time I didn’t recognize the name or face of the National Security Advisor. Nothing like dealing with people way above my paygrade to freeze my mind. I loved that job, though.
As to social functions – there’s a reason I don’t go into public. : )
Aahh, yeah! The one that we all still laugh at happened when I was just hired. We were doing a total knee replacement and it was with an orthopod that scares the living beejesus out of me! We put the cement in and the prothesis and you have to wait for the cement to harden b/4 moving on. Well, it was the first knee I’d been in on so I didn’t know! We’re all standing around and I thought I’d look good and ask a question~”what are we waiting for?” The looks I got made me realize I should not have opened my mouth, and the surgeon says “the cement”(like, you idiot!) and I said “oh”. My nurse busts out laughing so we all laughed, but I felt like a moron and to this day I have a hard time looking that surgeon in the eye!
I don’t have any real embarrassing stories to tell.. I tend to keep myself out of social situations where embarrassing things are likely to happen. The only time i’ve been even remotely embarrassed was when I was 19 and had taken my 3 year old brother to the store with me to do some shopping. This HUGE lady walks by and at that exact moment he yells FAT ASS out at the top of his lungs. You could see this ladies rage. She was livid. I thought for a second she might knock my ass out at that moment. She was not happy. I got away from her as quickly as I could. I just dont tend to get embarrassed easily..
Ha! Ha! Sorry to laugh at your dumbass moment but that is funny. I’d have told him to get out, he was in the ladies room, just to see what he would say and of course, video his response.
I don’t embarrass myself anymore. Even if I do something that other people would think is embarrassing, I just don’t care what people think of me anymore. I think that comes with age. I also can make fun of myself with the crazy things I say and do . Now, on the other hand, I KNOW I embarrass my daughter because of that attitude so I try to keep myself in check when she is around but it is so hard.
I tend to find things more humorous than embarrassing. I just sometimes laugh myself silly at the things I do.
I will be writing about a lap dancing incident that happened last night at a bar. I wasn’t doing lap dancing on someone. Some young dude was lap dancing on me. Ha! Ha!
LOL Joan, I can’t wait.
Sometimes I wonder if I have blocked out my embarrassing moments because I can never think of any.
I don’t usually get embarrassed either. I’m not sure why. If I do something dumb, I just laugh and so does everyone else.