This happened to me today. I was sitting at my desk at work when I got a call from a person in our other building who urgently needed a month-end report that she should have received earlier in the morning, but which had not shown up. (These reports are printed in my building.)
So, I got a printed copy of the report and volunteered to fax it to her, and then have the printed copy delivered to her.
Well, the only problem with faxing was I had misunderstood her name when she called and thought I had heard the name of a third person who also works at our firm, so I wrote this third person’s name on a piece of paper as a fax cover sheet. The only possible weak attempt at explaining myself is that she (the person who called me) has a heavy accent, but on the other hand she has called me before and those times I had no problem understanding her name. And she called me a little later and was not at all happy with me putting this third person’s name on the fax cover sheet.
It was a pretty stressfull day at work today, but at least I didn’t make any other blunders of that order! :smack:
A few years ago I was out seeing some band, and TWICE during the course of the evening I found myself screaming something like HEY I JUST GOT MY TESTICLES PUNCHED just as the band hit a sudden pause. (I don’t believe I’ve ever had my testicles punched; time has mercifully erased from memory what exactly I was saying.)
The other one that induces horrible cringes is the “Calling the SO by the wrong name” faux pas; I’ve done this once or twice. In fact, once during an intimate moment I called my then-SO “Leslie,” which was extra-weird because at the time I didn’t even know anyone named Leslie. Good luck explaining that one.
I set myself on fire, thanks to my Isadora Duncan scarf, while reaching for a canape at an extremely posh cocktail party. Damn votives!
At least a) my hair escaped unscathed b) I remained relatively calm and c) managed to come up with “Oh, how dreadfully embarassing” when someone alerted me to the flames.
I’ve done the Chemo Blunder…to a friend, no less, that I hadn’t seen for four years. She’s a big woman, and I complimented her “ohh, you’ve lost weight, you look fabulous!” She looked at me with such disdain, as if I should have been keeping up with everything that had gone on since I moved away, as she told me that she had a few more chemo sessions to go.
I’ve also done the “I Love You Sign-off Blunder” , as well as its Evil Twin, the " Buh-Oh, yeah, um, love you too" when a friend who has just been commiserating with you on the phone over some tragedy signs off with an “I love you” that you didn’t expect, and you were in the process of just saying “Bye” and have to fumble to get a “love you too” out.
Then there is the Misdirected Blown Kiss. Back in college, I was sitting in the flute section, daydreaming while the brass worked out some rhythms on a jazz tune that I had played at a summer music camp in high school. The song reminded me of my summer fling with a sax player that year, and I lazily reviewed our passionate gropings in my mind, then looked across to the sax section to blow him a kiss…except this is four years later at a whole different college and he’s not there…I’ve just blown a kiss to a total jerk who irritates the heck out of me! I come to my senses and try to recover by making fishy lips as if I’m working on my embouchure, but he gives me funny looks the rest of the session and tries to catch up to me in the instrument room. Fortunately it was crowded and I could sneak out before he got next to me…eek!
Eh, when I was about 11, I told my best guy friend “I love you.” Now I’m not gay, he’s not gay, but our friendship dithered after that. – And no, let’s not explore why I might have said that.
For the most part, I avoid major social snafus, but I have audiolalia or whatever. Where my friends say something and I hear something different, and usually sick. I suppose it might just be a dirty mind, but I hear things like “I don’t want to get home late” and my mind hears, “I don’t want to go home laid.” And causes my friends great pleasure from hearing my mis-hearings.
When it’s my birthday and people say “Have a happy birthday” I have been known to respond with “you too” and when I was in a Restaurant the waiter said “enjoy your food” and I said “you too”.
I work at a restaurant and I see lost of people when I work - and I HATE when someone comes in that I think I know, but I’m not exactly sure if I know…so usually I’ll just try not to make eye contact with the person until I leave, but if I do catch their glance I’ll just akwardly smile or something. Gah.
On a related note, a friend of mine works at a restaurant where they have to take your name when you order, then they call out your name so you can come get your order whe its ready. She says it’s really akward when she asks for the persons name and they reply with something like “you know who I am!” “…oh, haha yeah, yeah I do” takes them their food instead of calling their name
And fear not, I too am a victim of the “is that person waving at me?” phenomenon. Especially if its someone that looks familiar but not really, and you don’t know if their waving at you or not. Usually I just ignore them.
Oh and here’s something I’ll never forget. A bunch of my friends and I were hanging out in the cinema parking lot (yes I live in a small hick town) probably 2 years or so ago. I saw a girl get out of a car a little bit away and I stared for a bit to see if I could recognise her. And I never did figure out who it was because she left soon after. The next day my then-boyfriend said something like “Melissa wanted to know why you were giving her dirty looks yesterday when she came to cinema parking lot.” I WASN’T GIVING HER DIRTY LOOKS! And the worst part is, I haven’t seen her since! And I still feel really bad over it, because I think she hates me! And if I ever see her again I fully intend on telling her what really happened.
Used to work with a guy named Kevin Smith. S.O.P. around the place was that huge amounts of juvenile grief was passed around the crew pretty much non-stop. Hiding shoes under the raised floor, changing screensavers to lewd stuff, real top-notch witty stuff.
For whatever reason , I needed to throw together an email for Mr. Smith regarding his performance. Mr. Kevin J Smith. The importance of the full name becomes apparent shortly.
Aforementioned email became a festival of cursing and derogatory comments running over the course of several paragraphs, all lambasting Mr. Smith and his work performance. Pleased with my masterpiece of vulgarity I fired it off. Immediately, an address window popped up, asking for clarification of the recipient. I of course hit the return button, only to realize that I had just confirmed delivery to Mr. Kevin A Smith, an employee of a rather large and important company that we had just completed a merger with. I frantically called our email admin, hoping to capture the blue missive, but it was gone, and I quickly fired off an apology to Mr. Smith (II). Never heard a peep regarding the matter, but I have to wonder what the poor guy thought getting an email lambasting him like that out of the blue.
Not a major faux pas, but always makes me feel like an idiot:
The Unnecessary Repeat
I.e.: Either talking to someone who is half-mumbling or someone who I’m not really paying attention to, and they ask a question that I don’t quite catch. I say, “what was that?” and then, before they begin to repeat the question, I finally make sense of their first attempt and give the answer.
It’s hard to pretend you’re listening carefully to someone when this happens.
This is when someone makes a mess of something and it looks like you were the one at fault.
I was at work once and I was in the kitchen. I noticed some pig made a total mess of the the counter. I sure as hell wasn’t going to clean it because I was tired of cleaning up after people. As I am leaving the kitchen I walk into another co-worker. He looks at the mess and it looks like I was the one who left it! Eeeep!
**The Unintended Insult-to-their-face **
This is when you insult someone not knowing that the person you isnsulted is in fact them.
I saw a fund raiser form in the kitchen. I was in a grumpy mood and said aloud to my co-worker, with a major eye roll, " Oh I wonder who left this crap. These things are so obnoxious".
You’re walking down the hallway at work and see someone approaching from the other direction. She’s looking at you and you’re looking at her. Do you nod? Do you say hello? Do you just ignore her and do the walk-on-by? At what distance do you acknowledge her presence? Twenty feet? Ten? Five?
[QUOTE]
Douglas Adams’ work of genius The Meaning of Liff defines this moment as a “corriearklet” and then goes on to elborate on the rest of the ritual:
Variation on this theme. The Unintended Insult to Someone’s Mother.
(Ten extra points is you manage it in either Ireland or Italy)
Me and my friend once passed a friend of ours painting the wall of a house a hideous shade of pink. We knew the guy wasn’t very rich and therefore assumed he was making some extra money doing odd jobs for people. So we symphatically started making sarcastic remarks about the “lovely” colour he was forced (so we thought) to paint the wall.
F*CK UP THE CODEING AND THEN HIT SUBMIT BY MISTAKE (just before the board goes to maintanace mode)
:smack:
My own is the EXCUSE ME, I’D LIKE TO GET PAST - oh you’re getting off too…?
This happens most mornings on the tube into work - we arrive at my stop and I want to get off, but there is a pillock standing with his back to me, between me and the door. He/She doesn’t move as the doors open, so I nudge them firmly in the back and say “excuse me” at which point I realise that they have been politly letting the little old lady off before they get off and I am looking like one of the rude b*stards that run from one platform to another, trampling grannies underfoot, so that they can shave 60 seconds off thier commute time…
I’ve done most of these. Has anyone had “Insult the boss and find out he’s standing behind you?”
However, I’ve learnt three important life lessons: everyone else makes mistakes too, and most of the time will understand if you do; use forks from the outside in, and don’t care if you use one twice once; when composing email that is private in any way, delete the to: and cc: fields and put them back after.
How about the “I’m a Minimum-wage slave and my mouth is on automatic” faux-pas:
As illustrated by the time I wished every customer I saw that day a Merry Christmas, which seemed to be appreciated by everyone except the Hindu guy from the motel next door, who gave me a distinctly dirty look. Oops.
Ever been at work and someone is in the only bathroom and spends a long time in there when you really, really have to pee. Then they come out and the place reeks beyond all human belief, but you hold your nose and pee. Then two minutes late someone else goes in there, opens the door and says “Who was the last person in here that stunk up the bathroom so bad?”
I’ll see your INAPPROPRIATE “I LOVE YOU” and raise you an INNOCUOUS BUT STILL INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING.
Mr. S and I are rather touchy-feely – we don’t make out in public or anything like that, but we will often inobtrusively stroke each other’s arm or back or knee while together in a public place. You know, the way you would touch a lover (but no one else) in a nonsexual but still intimate way.
Once or twice I have been sitting next to, oh, my mother, or my friend’s daughter, and have started to absentmindedly rub their leg or back, out of pure habit. So far I have caught myself before it got really embarrassing. Thank God I don’t have co-workers or use public transportation.
I am also a frequent victim of the “Hi, how’s it going? Keeping busy? Yeah, me too! Ha ha ha” with people I don’t recognize until much, much later. Just the other night we went to Subway and I’m pretty sure that the man who made our sandwiches was our friend’s neighbor, but I wasn’t entirely sure. His greeting was a bit more friendly than you’d expect from a stranger, so we just played along and hit the same note – more friendly than usual, but not enough to be creepy if it wasn’t him. I hope.
Re the guy in the wheelchair and his dogs: Cosmopolitan is right. His dogs weren’t in little wheelchairs too, were they? The blind girl who lived in my dorm often said “See you later.” The person knows that they can’t literally walk, or see, or whatever. It’s just an idiom and more awkward if you try to dance around it.
You meet someone and you stick your hand out and expect him to reciprocate and complete the expected handshake. He doesn’t take the hint and you’re standing there looking like an idiot. Of course this one is the other guy’s fault, not yours, but it still makes you look stupid.
Poorly-Timed Fart
You’re in your cubicle all alone. You feel intestinal gas building up inside your body. Theres nobody around, so you decide to let it all out. The air around you is foul, but at least your gut feels better. Right then, someone steps into your cubicle and is treated to the aroma of your flatulence. :eek:
A similar faux pas to this is the Fart You Thought Was Going to be Silent, But Wasn’t.