What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done at work?

[Nas!]

A sales guy from an area waste disposal company was recently courting my business, which is located in a neighbourhood well known for its thriving narcotics scene.

One day I spotted him in the back alley, sitting in his car. He saw me and got out to talk with me. Knowing that he was looking for me, I quipped: "You looking for smack? I think your man is in another alley right now."

To which he replied: "no. I kicked the stuff 2 years ago." He then proceeded to tell me how he spent eight years as a junkie, and how nearly it had come to destroying his life.

I don't make jokes like that any more.

[thenedstark]

Once I got my head chopped clean off and lost my foot. Ooops! I was so embarrassed! :blushing: :blushing: :blushing:

[A True Kaniggit]

This wasn't really at work, but I think it still fits.

One day after work I laid down on my couch and fell asleep at around 5:00 p.m. I woke up a couple hours later around 7:15 p.m., but I thought I'd slept straight through the night and that it was the next morning. 10 minutes later I was back in my car driving for work calling my supervisor to let her know I was on my way in and that I was sorry that I was late. She thought the whole thing was hilarious and told everyone at work the next day what had happened.

[Larry of the Lawn]

When I was in my early twenties working at this garden center/ landscaping gig in San Diego, I got a pretty good promotion one Friday at work. Boss pulled me aside, buttered me up, gave me the raise/promotion and said how much he appreciated my work ethic blah blah blah here ya go here's the raise you've been bugging me about so shut up and get back to work.

Well, Saturday mornings I opened the store and was in charge of all the deliveries, installs, etc. Anyway, that night, I went to a party at a co-workers house and got black out drunk. I took a cab home, and I tried to catch a couple of hours of sleep. When I say home, I mean to where my van was parked, because I was living in a van at the time. Normally, I'd park near the store so I could open in the AM, but that day I couldn't get a good parking spot on Friday afternoon, so my van was parked 7 or 8 blocks away in a residential neighborhood that I never park in. Not wanting to drive it drunk back to the store after the cab ride, I just passed out in the van around 4 AM after the party.

I didn't make it down to the store in time to open, and when I woke up after lunch there were about 12 messages on my phone from my coworkers. They'd sent a few employees out in the company vehicles trying to find my van to wake me up before the boss arrived to no avail. I was parked too far outside my normal stomping grounds. So I stumbled in half drunk around 1:00 pm and had to go eat crow to the boss. He was pretty cool about it, emphasized that I'd make it up to him, and told me to go get my life together. He told me he didn't demote people because then it's just a matter of time before they get pissed and leave in dramatic fashion, so to enjoy my new promotion and not to fuck up again.

[Jaxom 1974]

I personally have never done anything embarrassing. Not that I can think of...

I was sort of embarrassed when Mrs. Jax sent a series of lovely pictures of me when I was younger to my boss to hang about the school announcing it was my 40th birthday early this year...

[Theda Baratheon]

I very, very, VERY nearly asked a customer ''do you think I'm weird?'' today after 5 hours behind the till. i managed to cover it up with ''do you th-...NEED BAG???????'' and then had a heart palpitation over what i almost asked and then tried not to laugh for another hour behind tills

[Tears of Lys]

I was working at a company that arranged arbitrations between parties that were disputing some issue or another. I had a pretty responsible job and it was a quite business-like atmosphere.

Well, baby ToL had no sense of propriety (or common sense) back in the day, so I thought it would be cool to wear a long halter-top floral print maxi-dress with a shawl to work.

No one said anything, but there were several raised eyebrows, as I recall.

When I think back on it, at the time I was never terribly embarrassed at any job I've held, but in retrospect I'll sometimes cringe at some of the idiocy I was guilty of.

[Lykos]

ToL, are you sure the eyebrows were raised because your dress wasn't appropriate? I could see them being impressed with the fresh breeze of natural nonchalance that you displayed.

I was calculating the area of an appartment building for a project developer late at night and for some reason picked up the original plans and noticed that there was one floor less than on the current plans (not the ones added on top of the roof).

In complete panic I called the architect on his mobile at nine or ten pm, only to remember just at the moment he answered, that we had discussed thisthe same afternoon (how unusual it was to restructure a whole building like that - changing the hight of the floors, windows, stairs and everything - and coming to the conclusion that the house must have suffered serious damage during WWII, sothat it was practically a new building.)

I had completely forgotten this discussion, and the architect was really not amused (he had to get up much earlier than I did for some appointments).

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[Lily Valley]

I've had a week of horrors and it's easy to do embarrassing things when you work with teenagers, because they can turn even the most innocent of things into something that sounds suggestive. Was sick over the weekend and really stressed out on Tuesday. I tried to pull down my projector screen during class and pulled the whole thing down (it's like 9 feet wide and heavy) and it almost fell on me. Also pulled out a ceiling tile. This was in my difficult-to-manage class, while I was supposed to be doing a lab, so I had to call my boss in to help out and he told me to go take a break if I needed one, so I went into the bathroom and cried. (This is the only time I have done this, I swear. :P) Later that day, I had a meeting before my evaluation with my other boss, which resulted in me crying again because of all the demands he was putting on me and some political stuff he's trying to pull, in which on one hand he's calling me a magical wonder teacher of the future and on the other hand he's threatening my tenure process if I don't do certain things or fall under the influence of the wrong people on staff. So then later in the day I was trying to explain this to my union rep and telling him this was going on but I didn't want to file a grievance because my lack of tenure, retaliation, etc. and ended up crying again because I was so stressed out by the whole situation.

Then yesterday, I overslept before work for the first time in my life and ended up having to leave the house without a shower, breakfast or any of my usual morning routine. In fact, I was so hurried that I just threw on a school sweatshirt and jeans and forgot to wear a bra. Naturally, this did not help my general state of stress.

I managed to save face with my boss today, and hang up my projector screen again, but it's kind of held up with zip ties, hope and prayers. I swear, though, my current job is about to put me back on medication or something. FML.

Ouch Kat. Come work with me, my boss is so cool.

It turns out there are at least 6 ways to accidently draw a dick when you're teaching Classical Mechanics. I think I managed all six of them my first term. Thank GOD I wasn't teaching high school.

Do NOT EVER try to draw an early barometer. And fuck all problems involving the Moment of inertia.

[The Tower of Almond Joy]

I was working at Applied Science Laboratories in Boston. One day I picked up the phone and said "Applied Science Lavatories" Everyone who heard me laughed their heads off. All but me, I was so embarrassed.... I just wanted to crawl under my desk and hide. And, of course, I never lived that down...lol

[Lord Sapna]

Oh the thing affectionately known at my old work as the "haven't you seen my dog incident."

I started sleeping with the woman who sat next to me at work (not my best judgement call granted.) however we were REALLY trying to keep it discreet. My housemate at the time worked with me, so I never even had her at my house unless he was out.

Anyway one week my parents were on holiday and asked me to stay at my old house for a week to look after the dog, so I agreed since it gave me the chance to have her over without my housemate finding out and blurting it out at work.

Anyway one morning she came round before work for a quickie then once it was done we left separately in different cars, got to work went about our day as normal.

Then at some point the conversation amongst the team turned to pets and I started talking about my dog. She turns to me and says "I didn't know you had a dog." Without even thinking I just turn around and say in front of the whole team. "Yeah I do, didn't you see her this morning?"

It took me about one second to realise what I just said. Then she turned red, and I spent the rest of the day studying my shoes.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

I ate a co-worker's breakfast burrito. Let me explain...

I work with my wife, who often leaves me food at my desk. She works in the same department, but she's a couple of stations over from me. On occasion, I will be away from my station, and she will leave something for me, like a muffin or coffee or the like.

So anyway, I was away from my desk for a bit, and upon returning I find a breakfast burrito wrapped in a napkin sitting next to my desk. I was particularly famished on the day, and I proceeded to wolf it down posthaste. The second I finish it, one of my co-workers rounds the corner towards my desk, and gets this confused look on her face. She than promptly stifles a laugh and quickly makes her way to the back of the station. I instantly realize what I've done, and head back to find her and apologize profusely. She and another co-worker were laughing their asses off and starting laughing harder as I approached. I was mortified to say the least. I have yet to hear the end of it, and this occured more than a year ago.

[SnowCastle]

I was massaging a ballerina in her 50's who was saying how hard she's worked to stay in shape all her life, and I said "Yeah, you look way better than women way younger!". I meant well but as soon as the words were out I knew I'd stuck my foot in my mouth. A frosty silence ensued and I never saw her again. Not that embarrassing but it's stuck with me.

[Kenny Crybaby]

I broke up a fight between two 17 year olds in my classroom, and when I say broke it up, I mean I literally tackled them through desks, and had to physically restrain them while security got there. I've trained to fight for the last 8 years, so it isn't that big of a deal, but my jeans ripped from my hipe to almost my knee on the outseam. Luckily it was the last period of the day, and my kids didn't make a big deal of it outside a "They owe you some new pants!" comments.

[RezBarbie24]

I worked in a poker room and was in charge of the lists which had peoples names and which table they were located....

So a seat opened up so I looked at the list and read the name on the top of the list and saw he was on table#4 so I walked back to table 4 and looked around the FULL table (9 players) and said....

"OK.. I'm looking for Dick..."

and as soon as I saw one player look up a smile real big.... I REALIZED WHAT I SAID..... OMG [emoji15] [emoji15] [emoji15] !!!!

I just turned around and walked back to the other side of the room shaking my head "no no no no no no" and hid behind the desk for awhile with my face in my hands.....

Then a guy walks up and says "well I'm your man"

I look up and say "what?" And tells that he's Dick.... so I told him what table to go to and went back to hiding my blushing face in my hands.... shaking my head.... no no no no no....

I still blush telling this story... omg lmao!!! [emoji15]

[RezBarbie24]

Managed to touch the ass of not my co-worker, not my manager, but the goddamn owner and CEO of the company.

I also whispered (too loudly it turns out) to a co-worker "Check out fat Val Kilmer over in the Horror aisle"

Yeah, the customer heard me.

Yeah, that customer turned out to be actual Val Kilmer...

Really blew my chance at getting a autographed copy of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang".... Total bummer.

I would've at least try to say hi and if he said anything I would've went with "no.. I said look at THAT Val Kilmar... cuz I never thought you'd be in my store.... seriously!"... If that didn't work then I'd prolly say "Honestly I never said that and I'm sorry if that's what you thought I said...." (all innocent) until he looks like a crazy angry sensitive fat guy/star....

That'd be awesome....

[Larry of the Lawn]

Managed to touch the ass of not my co-worker, not my manager, but the goddamn owner and CEO of the company.

I also whispered (too loudly it turns out) to a co-worker "Check out fat Val Kilmer over in the Horror aisle"

Yeah, the customer heard me.

Yeah, that customer turned out to be actual Val Kilmer...

Really blew my chance at getting a autographed copy of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang".... Total bummer.

This is almost a year old but you are my hero. My incompetent employee hero.

[deleted01]

My old boss walked in on me singing at the top of my lungs while cleaning a toilet. I am not a good singer. Damn music, making me jolly and carefree.

[peterbound]

Two things:

I knocked a dude out in the Alarm room when I was 21, he insulted my wife. I got lead out in handcuff's by the base MP's. i was eventually not charged (he swung first), but it was embarrassing as shit.

I wrecked an ARFF truck on the back side of an Airfield once. Tore the side of the damn thing right off. Shouldn't have been driving the fucking thing if the first place. I think I was 18 at the time. Took me a while to live that one down.

[A True Kaniggit]

One night at about 2:30 am I was asked to page the on call toxicologist, which we really didn't do that often. As such I didn't have that number memorized. So I guess the first time I dialed in the number I must of mixed two up. Because two minutes later I got a return call from one pissed off Nutritionist. The Nutritionist did not find the mistake funny. The rest of the staff did.