# Stupid embarassing ways you muck up your clothes at work **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 13, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119 "2005-10-13T20:42:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/21 "2005-10-13T23:31:49Z")
The most noticeable would be the time I ended up with crystal violet stain spattered all down the front of my coat, up my arm, and liberally sprinkled on my neck/lower chin area. Purple’s my favorite color but that was going too far I think. Even so it’s better than blood or urine stains anyway. ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/22 "2005-10-13T23:34:51Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > … I’m just glad I don’t work in the poop lab down the hall. Unfortunately I do that too. But I’m veerry careful in there. I work with a lady that had a 72-hour stool collection explode all over her once. You never forget a warning like that. ---
**Author:** ![TwoOnSunday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@TwoOnSunday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoOnSunday)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/23 "2005-10-13T23:49:51Z")
At my job, I have to approve certain posters and fliers that go up around campus. On my first day, I was waving the stamper around and inevitable it found my white shirt. I walked around with “APPROVED” stamped on the middle of my shirt upside down for the rest of the day. It’s not bad enough that I ruined my shirt, but everyone was trying to read it. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/24 "2005-10-13T23:58:36Z")
I invariably spill a bit of coffee on my blouse, no matter what, and then I have to go through the rest of the day teaching classes with a stain in plain sight. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/25 "2005-10-14T00:00:03Z")
I did a short stint as a truck dispatcher for a copier company. Even though we were hidden away, I had to wear “business clothing” One day one of the drivers was standing behind me with his thermos if hot chocolate. A strange and irreproducable chain of events took place, where in his hot chocolate covered every visible inch of my off white, wool suit. The only white spot left, was where my butt touched the chair. Oh, and it also cover my hair. I went home, but my boss couldn’t understand why. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/26 "2005-10-14T00:16:15Z")
You want stupid? Try leaning against a freshly painted wall. While the painters are still in the room. Weirdly enough, in 12 years of lab work that was the most noticeable thing I did to my clothes. I once apparently sat on a dribble of phenol, but I noticed nothing until I took the pants out of the dryer and realized I’d have to discard them. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/27 "2005-10-14T01:41:49Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > I work in a lab. I have a large number of T-shirts with bleach spots around waist height from leaning against a benchtop shortly after they’d been cleaned. I’ve never gotten blood on my clothes, but that’s only because of the lab coats. There have been plenty of times when I take my coat off at the end of the day and see it liberally splattered with red dots. > > I’m just glad I don’t work in the poop lab down the hall. We seem to have a lot of lab workers in here (former, in my case). It never ceases to amaze me when they show any kind of lab work on tv, and people are all eating in there, and drinking out of beakers, and whatever other nonsense Hollywood can think of. Um, no, not ever, never, never, never, never, under any circumstances. You don’t even use the lab PENS outside of the lab, never mind drinking out of the freakin’ beakers. Okay, I think I’m done now. My funniest stain was when we were painting my sister’s apartment, and there was an open can of paint on top of the drop cloth on the fridge, and I slid down the drop-cloth covered fridge to sit on the floor and dumped the paint all down my back. Oh, from working in offices - you know how you shake Liquid Paper before using it every time you pick it up? Well, I shake it with my fingers HOLDING the cap on now, after the loose cap incident. ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/28 "2005-10-14T02:39:26Z")
I regularly have to carry heavy lumber and clay products. I especially hate carrying pottery plaster b/c it leaves big, white flour poofs on your clothes, no matter how careful you are. One day I was bending over a stack of them to garb something, got two big white spots on my boobs and didn’t even know it for the next couple hours. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/29 "2005-10-14T03:35:53Z")
Heatsink grease? Check. (That stuff is actually an animate life-form, I think) Toner? Check. One of our copier rooms looks like a coal mine with all the spilled toner. One day, troubleshooting someone’s network connection earned me a blob of gum on my back. Apparently, it was fairly fresh and on the underside of the desk, and when I was under the desk, it decided to see the world and hitch-hiked on my back. (blearghhhh!) ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/30 "2005-10-14T05:18:06Z")
I once dropped a Hersey on my lap. Unbeknownst to me, a piece fell off my lap between my legs. Two hours later, as the was walking back from the restroom, someone asks me what were those brown stains on my ass. ---
**Author:** ![Lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed655f/32.png) [@Lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lola)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/31 "2005-10-14T05:42:40Z")
A friend of mine, while we were both trainee teachers, went to school with a stomach bug one day, and crapped himself. Fortunately (and I’m aware that “fortunately” may be a bit of an overstatement), he did it in the staffroom, not the classroom. The staff managed not to laugh until he got out of the room; the kids wouldn’t have. I think I might have considered suicide, but he just laughed it off. And no, it wasn’t me. I did split my pants at work the other day, which really does change your method of teaching, though. No more ass-work. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/32 "2005-10-14T05:44:32Z")
When I was waitressing I was reaching for something over a tray. Our uniform was a white tuxedo shirt, tie, black pants. Dipped my right boob right into a bowl of salsa. There is just no way to cover that ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/33 "2005-10-14T15:19:51Z")
I have, on more than one occasion, scratched an itch with what I believed to be the end of a ballpoint pen, only to discover that I’d scratched with the point. This includes scratching my cheek in a meeting. ---
**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/34 "2005-10-14T17:05:00Z")
> [@Beadalin](#): > > I have, on more than one occasion, scratched an itch with what I believed to be the end of a ballpoint pen, only to discover that I’d scratched with the point. This includes scratching my cheek in a meeting. I did that this morning. Bright green gel ink from one end of my forehead to the other. Anything that will stain my shirt is naturally attracted to my breasts. I’ve leaned in toner, I’ve held a mail-machine cartridge _against my chest_ while trying to open it, I’ve done it all. Earlier this week there was a black t-shirt/powdered sugar incident that left me looking like I was wearing the Phantom of the Opera’s mask as a bra. I also have a tendency to stick my pen into my hair when I need to use my hands for something. I have gone home and taken my hair down to find as many as five pens sticking out of the bun I had. If nobody at the office or the gas station or at the 7-11 told me, that’s fine. I would have thought my roommate at the time might have said something, though. Earlier this summer, my best friend and I went to the Renaissance Faire. In order to drink, you get a hand-stamp. Well, this year’s stamp didn’t dry very quickly, and I almost immediately ended up with a big mirror image of a chicken directly on the white shift barely covering my prominently displayed boobs. I am _so_ classy. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/35 "2005-10-14T17:20:38Z")
In the interest of saving people’s hands and clothes, and because those of us participating in this thread seem to need it, I volunteer my information that printer toner should be washed off with COLD water, not hot, because hot water melts the toner powder particles so that it becomes a black liquid (basically ink). ---
**Author:** ![Rock\_n\_Roach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Rock\_n\_Roach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rock_n_Roach)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/36 "2005-10-14T17:21:08Z")
\*\*Stupid embarassing ways you muck up your clothes at work \*\* 1. Go to a meeting in the cafeteria with a hundred other people. 2. Sit on a packet of jelly and not know it 3. At the end of the mtg walk out with 80 people behind you and jelly and packet stuck to your behind. 4. Walk down 2 hallways before someone tells you. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/37 "2005-10-14T17:31:31Z")
> [@cowgirl](#): > > It helps if you include a chainsaw with the five violins, and it simply must be running. I wish György Ligeti or Edgard Varèse were alive to write for _that_ group. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/38 "2005-10-14T17:35:30Z")
I play saxophone. I have hyperhydrosis. I invariably wear a suit or tux when gigging, and almost as invariably, my shirt and tie are a darkened, shapeless, soggy mess inside of an hour. I occasionally bring a backup shirt, but it usually lasts only another hour, so what’s the point? If I get to eat on party gigs, it’s almost always buffet style, with teeny plates and no place to sit but on the bandstand, so in addition to a soaked shirt, I typically have at least one grievous food stain on my suit or tux. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/39 "2005-10-14T18:45:34Z")
Just picking out a decent outfit is challenging enough for me. Yes, I’m sartorially incompetent. My life is pretty much a geek tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119/40 "2005-10-14T18:57:32Z")
Be so out of it one morning to spill enough coffee on your chest to make a five inch diameter circle squarely in the middle of your cleavage. Don’t notice until you stagger home and gasp in horror when you’re taking the T-shirt off. And NOBODY TOLD ME! :eek: :smack: ☹ :eek: :smack: From that day forth, I always make doubly sure that the lids on the coffee cups are firmly snapped on good and tight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-embarassing-ways-you-muck-up-your-clothes-at-work/326119.md?page=3)