When you call someone to leave a message on their answering machine, but SURPRISE! they took a day off work. You really don’t want to talk to them because they’re longwinded, so you hang up. Then they call back because they saw you on their caller I.D.
I’m very close to my two neices who are 17 and 20 years old. The 17 year old has lots of friends and I’ve met many of them. I frequently run into them working at fast food restaurants, sitting at traffic lights, in stores, etc. Some I remember and some I don’t.
So I’m leaving Wal-Mart and I see a cute teen age girl and her mother about 150 feet away walking up to the store. They look in my direction and the girl yells, “Hi, how ya doin’?” Now, I’m given to using terms of endearment, and even though I couldn’t see them all that clearly I perk right up, put on my friendliest smile and hollar back, “Fine, sweetie-pie, how’re you?”
Well, I’m sure you all know where I’m going with this, but yep…she’s a total stranger waving to someone else behind me. Well, unless I wanted to take a long detour to my car I had to walk right by them. The girl of course was looking at me like I was a total idiot, and the mom was looking at me like I was an idiot and a pervert!
How humiliatin’!
Naw, that’s easy. Make them think their answering machine’s out of whack. Just talk like you’re leaving a message, ignore everything they say, then hang up. If the phone rings in the next few minutes, do not answer.
Here’s another work one:
I worked in a computer center where the doors were locked for security purposes. There was a long glass window through which visitors could look in. I worked facing the window and saw 3 African-American women waving to me. They wanted me to get the attention of the person working in the back corner about 15 yards behind me. So I yell out to Donna and tell her that her friends are trying to get her attention. Donna, also African-American, quickly tells me that they’re not her friends. Evidently, they were friends of Ramon’s (the Filipino guy who worked right next to Donna).
What do you do? As progressive as I believe I am, I’d probably make the same mistake again.
I spend much of my time in a place of more or less intense social anxiety when I’m out, or around anyone but close family, so I am filled with fight-or-flight response a lot of the time. This only contributes to my inability to listen to people, remember names, negotiate revolving doors, or avoid insulting wellbellied women.
I have begun to be able to spot people with the same problem. I am able to see when people are only actually perceiving me vaguely, through a thick veil of emotional panic and concern for the situation. It’s good, because it helps me understand the way they are, and I can compensate and sometimes even help.
However I think the natural method is always the best solution. In this case, your fight-or-flight responses are obviously being invoked for a reason. Clearly, one of these is your best solution. I propose trying them out.
For example, the sidestep shuffle where you can’t get past someone in a corridor… obviously your anxiety grows as the dance progesses, so eventually you may as well punch the dude. That increases your anxiety fruther, because after all, he’s your boss and future father-in-law. So your adrenaline levels increase. So whack him again. Down he goes. Repeat until you decide to try the other option, and run off screaming. Try to head for home, that’s what I always do, it makes it easier for the cops to pick you up.
The same solution may be applied, with the option of running off screaming at any moment, to almost every situation in his thread.
BATHROOM GREETINGS
You’ve just come out of the stall, having finished your business. Someone you know slightly comes in. What do you say? What do you do? If you start a conversation, you have to hang around in the bathroom. And what if they insist on talking to you while they use the toilet? That’s happened to me at least once.
Oh gowd. You had to remind me. I’ve actually done that, and with a co-worker to boot.
I had been staring moonily off into space thinking about my SO instead of actually working when, lets call him Al, phoned. We talked about some shipments that were due to go out, and in closing he said “talk to you later” and I said “I love you”
:smack:
He was astonished. I aplogised profusely, further embarassing myself. He gave me some odd looks for a while after that.
It happened almost a year ago and I’m blushing just thinking about it.
THE PAINFUL COMPLIMENT
(related to “when are you due?”)
“Oh! I can see the family resemblance !”
“That’s my stepbrother.”
"Say, have you lost weight? "
"Yes, I’m getting the chemo. "
**THE UNNECESSARY EXPLANATION **
Y’all must know that one.
Explaining something to a guy who turns out to be an expert in the field, but who is too polite to stop you before you’ve done yourself damage.
Feeling caught at something (goofing on the Internet during workhours, for instance) and deepening the hole by saying something like: “Let me show you this site, it really has some good work-related ideas!”
I have recently been reminded of another faux pas …
THE DREADED “REPLY TO ALL” MISHAP
Anybody who works in a company with email for more than a couple of months has probably witnessed it and, god willing, avoided doing it themselves. So HR sends out an email saying “Anybody who wants into the Prescription drug plan, please respond.”
Next thing you know, Bob from down the hall emails you with “Does this plan apply to Viagra?” Oh, wait … he didn’t email me. He emailed EVERYBODY.
And to a lesser extent -
The “I MEANT TO HIT FORWARD, NOT REPLY!” MOMENT
Nothing like the feeling you get replying back to the client with “Can you believe the stupid crap this moron asks for?” when you meant to send it to your coworker. Hasn’t happened to me, but I know of a couple of poor souls at work who did something similar.
Something very similar happened to me. In college there was a guy I knew through many mutual friends. He was very cute and had long blond hair that went quite a ways down his back. One day I walked into a friend’s room and he was there - with a shaved head. I immediately said something along the lines of “Oh, why did you cut your hair? It looked so good before, I really liked it…etc.” Then he replied:
“Yeah, well, the chemo was making it all fall out anyway, so I didn’t really have much choice in the matter.”
I wanted to curl up and die. He could tell, too, because he immediately told me that it was nice to hear an honest opinion about it, rather than just trying to be sympathetic, etc. I still wanted to die though. In fact, I still cringe about it years later. He recovered, BTW.
I did that once to my dad (he works at home). To further my embarrassment, he was on speakerphone, which means the person he was talking to heard me being dumb. He wasn’t even talking about anything that sounded like something he would say to me; it was a business call. Gah.
I don’t curse that much in real life unless I’m around my friends. Unfortunately, I sometimes forget or don’t realize that there are other people around, like small children. There was the time I was at a fair because I was playing at it with the marching band, and afterwards I was talking to a friend and said, “I could go sit on the buses, but what if someone came and raped me?” She just sort of gaped at me, and then I realized we were in the middle of a group of 5-year-olds. The other time I can remember was last year at the lunch table at school. For some reason, I was saying “fuck” a lot in whatever conversation we were having, and rather loudly. I didn’t realize why the people across the table from me seemed so shocked by my language until one of them pointed out that behind me was a small child (the daughter of one of the teachers, I think.) I really wasn’t expecting an 8-year-old girl to be in my high school cafeteria… but I’m afraid I scarred her for life.
I’d like to see the following short film: Two people are saying tearful goodbyes, maybe one is dying or moving to another country…much reminiscing and emotional bonding, then a wrenching final farewell.
Then cut to the parking lot where the two run into each other again, discovering that they’re parked nearby.
“Hey…what’s up” (slight raise of the eyebrows)
“Hey, huh huh. Take it easy.” (waves)
Then they get into their respective cars and drive off.
I did something like this to two of the IT guys at my work.
I brought a system issue to the attention of the VP of IT. I knew what was wrong, and I knew what needed to be done, and the only reason I couldn’t do it myself is because IT is not my department and I don’t have the proper system access. The first email I sent to him was pretty detailed and included a description of the problem, the reason it was doing that, and what I saw as the way to correct it. The email he sent to his boss(which I was cc’d on) clearly demonstrated that he did not understand my email and his speculation regarding cause and solution were way off base. The email his boss the SVP sent back (which I was also cc’d on) showed even less understanding of the nature of the problem and was so ridiculous, I had to forward it to my boss with the comment “Frick and Frack try to figure out how stuff works.” Well, somehow, the email went to my boss(good) and the VP of IT(uh-oh). 2 minutes later, the VP emails me a reply: “Who are Frick and Frack???” with a cc to the SVP, of course. Well, I apologized profusely immediately, and I have never to this day ridiculed anyone in an email. :o
I was out with friends right before we’d all be going on vacation for a couple of weeks. We were all standing around, saying goodbye and hugging before we left. It was all such a whirl that I managed to hug an innocent by-stander-- full-body, two-armed, and a kiss on the cheek. His wife didn’t look pleased.
I’m not a very huggy kissy person as a rule, but I’ve done this twice-- once at work!
Not too long ago I was in the ER with AbbieJR for poison ivy.
Her doctor was from India. Thick accent, dot on the forehead, the whole bit.
Since I’m an India nut, I’m thinking “oh cool, wonder what part he’s from.”
Me, trying to make conversation: “So what city are you from?”
Doctor: “Cincinnatti.”
Doh 
What about when you hear someone yell your name, so you turn around, or say, “What?” Only it turns out they were talking to someone else with the same name. D’oh!
A couple of times when I was in school, I accidentally referred to a teacher as “Mom.” :smack:
Once, when I was working at Kmart, a woman came through my line and her arm was all scabbed up. I said something like “Ouch, did you fall down-that must have hurt!” She gave me a dirty look and told me it was her psoriasis. Eep!
I’m not sure what you’d call this - Not-So-Mistaken Identity, maybe.
I was at the mall, and thought I saw a co-worker at the other end. I wasn’t sure enough to yell across the walkway, and since I was about to head in the opposite direction, didn’t do anything.
Sure enough, at work, he mentioned that he thought he’d seen me, and wasn’t sure enough that it was me to yell across the walkway.
At least he didn’t make a federal case out of it - most of the people in that dept. were so tightly wound they would have taken it personally or assumed that if the lowly assistant didn’t acknowledge them, their jobs must be in jeopardy (although how the lowly assistant would know is beyond me).
How about the dreaded dropping an innocent comment into a sudden silence in a crowded room so that it comes out all wrong?
Once in college, as we were nearing the end of the year, a bunch of my friends and I were sitting around a pub talking about making a movie in which we’d all have some kind of a ridiculous role. Someone down the table asked me what my role was, and I had to speak quite loudly so they could hear me over the nouse, so of course the room fell dead silent as I shouted,
“I’M THE TOWN PROSTITUTE!”
I tried to frantically follow up with, “In the MOVIE! In the MOVIE!” into the stunned silence that followed that remark, but I’m not sure I ever quite recovered from it. (Considering that it’s still traumatic over 30 years later, apparently I haven’t!)