Foot in Mouth Syndrome IIHave you ever said something and wished the ground would open up and swallow you? Tell us your tales of social embarrassment.
Thanks to BraynDedd for the suggestion
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 16 Aug 2012, 14:12)
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What not to say for a quiet life....So, about 6 or 7 years ago now, I found myself working for a logistics company in their shiny new head office. It was indeed a lovely building, and I was to be working as a part of their internal helpdesk staff, tasked with resolving all of the minor quirks and queries that our 2000+ users had around our choice of IT systems.
Being fresh through the door, I spent my first week or two being inducted into their setup, shadowing the rest of the team as they took the calls and worked through them to a reasonable solution. All in all, it was a pretty nice gig. Mornings were a little more stressful due to the flood of people who couldn't remember passwords, but apart from that, it was a really enjoyable entry-level job.
As I got into it, and was soon to be promoted to having my own desk, computer and phone (head-spinning times indeed!), I had only to visit one more of the established team to pick up a few bits on one of the more obscure systems. I had been warned previously that he could be a little bit quick-tempered and prickly, but it shouldn't be a problem as I'd only be with him for a couple of days.
So, the day dawned and I went and sat beside him, plugging my phone into the 2nd headset point so that I could quietly shadow his phone calls whilst taking notes. Our other new guy was also destined to be sat there for the same period of time, so there was a sense of solidarity there as our difficult days started.
As I had been warned, our instructor's mood went from tepid to foul within 4 phone calls. Every customer that he hung up from was a twat, every problem stupid and caused by the person who had made the call. I have to admit that I was finding it hard to keep my 'keen-as' attitude amongst all of his complaining and was trying to find a way to lighten the mood. I had noticed a single photograph adorning his cubicle wall, and after a particularly bad phone call, I pointed to it and said:
"Hey mate, what's this picture of? Is it you dressed in drag?"
As soon as I spoke the words I knew how utterly wrong I was. It was obviously not him now that I'd looked at it for more than 2 seconds. It was obviously just a slightly blokish looking woman.
He never looked at me, but he stopped his rant-mid sentance. After about 15 seconds, he looked at the picture and coldly replied.
"Actually, that's my Fiancee."
I worked my mouth a couple of times, wondering how I could undo this train-wreck of a sentance. My fellow trainee was sat with tears of silent mirth rolling down his cheeks at my misfortune. Without ever knowing why, I leaned in towards the photo, looked at it for a few seconds and stammered my follow-up
"N-No, that's impossible. It can't be a woman."
My fellow trainee's mirth was no longer silent, and I had made my first great foe in that particular job.
(, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 2:39, 13 replies)
oh godthis just made my afternoon
(, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 7:32, closed)
I also have tears of silent mirth after reading that.(, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 8:44, closed)
Tears of silent incontinence more like(
shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 12:31,
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Well played.There's no hole so deep that you can't dig a bit more.
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monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 9:01,
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a genuine laugh...the last bit made it!
(, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 10:40, closed)
Hahaha, that's awesome :)(, Fri 17 Aug 2012, 12:06, closed)
There's nothing like a bystander shaking with suppressed laughterto jazz up a foot-in-mouth story.
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The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Sat 18 Aug 2012, 15:37,
closed)
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