7 Most Embarrassing Situations at Work and How to Get out of Them ...
By Jelena • 6 Comments
By Jelena • 6 Comments
The office is seldom a working environment only, especially if we are talking about a big company with a lot of workers. You’ll run into a lot of quiet colleagues, a lot of gossipers, the ones that spend every moment of their free time grooming themselves and the ones that couldn’t care less about their outside appearance. You spend half of your day there, 5 days a week which comes to about 240 days per year give or take a few. An embarrassing situation is bound to happen sooner or later, so when it does, here’s some tips on how to act…
Fifty percent of people wouldn’t tell this to their co-workers so, if you realize you’ve been walking around with a piece of spinach or whatnot stuck in your teeth waaay past lunchtime, let it be a lesson to you. Always check your teeth after lunch and never be one of those “too embarrassed to let others know” types.
Men are the ones that are exposed to higher risk of going through this embarrassing situation but, given the fact that a lot of companies have unisex bathrooms too, women are not off the hook either. Stumbling upon your boss in the toilette is not a good time to be chatty, discuss business or anything of that sort. Casual “Hello” is good enough to greet him and then go and take care of your “business” and let him take care of his.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell him, “Gee, man, your breath smells like something has died inside your mouth!” Some people have bad breath no matter how often they brush their teeth – I’ve been told this has something to do with that small flap stop the bad smells spreading out of our stomach. Once girl that used to sit next to me sometimes in high school had very bad breath and I’ve found a very acceptable, non-embarrassing way to deal with it. Always have a box of breath mints with you and once you feel like you can’t take it anymore, take one and offer one to your co-worker and everybody that happened to be next to you at the time.
LOL! This happens to me all the time and, since I know I’m not the only one, I really don’t let it bother me. If I notice my zipper is undone, I close it and if others tell me, I sincerely thank them for the info. If, however, a co-worker has noticed this and he/she is trying to make you feel embarrassed because of it, simply return the ball saying, “Yes, it was, but you wouldn’t have noticed it if you hadn’t been staring at my crotch.” You’ll never get any heads up from that co-worker again but you’ve both learned a valuable lesson – you should pay more attention and your co-worker shouldn’t pretend to be all sweet and helpful if the end result is to embarrass somebody.
Like “boobs” instead of “books”, for example. Funny slips like this happen all the time and the best thing you should do is play it cool and be the first one to laugh. Everybody will laugh anyway, it’s just the matter of seconds. So, if you show your little mistake hasn’t made you feel embarrassed one bit, you might even end up being one of those office pranksters all co-workers love. Hey, you’re the person that said boobs in the presence of the CEO and, even better, he laughed his ass off too!
Hey, these things happen, we all know that. Those first two days of heavy flow really suck and no matter how many pads you bring with you, you always end up one pad too short. Luckily, most women keep one pad or a tampon in their bags or desks at all times so you can kind of walk past her desk, slip a little bit, apologize and give her a pad asking if she has dropped it(quietly). If she has enough of her own, this gesture will remind her it’s time to change it (the poor gal may be so buried in work she has forgotten all about it). If she doesn’t have any she’ll take it.
Okay, this is not such an embarrassing situation, unless it happens in the middle of the meeting. If you notice everybody in the room are staring at you and you have the feeling it has nothing to do with a business plan you’re suggesting, fear not, you’ll probably realize what’s happening when there’s no way to fix things but you’ll at least have the chance to make a funny remark and take everybody’s minds off work for the moment. Mishaps happen so laugh about it and then cover the wet spot by putting your blazer on and suggest you all ought to get back to business. Next time you’re about to attend a meeting, show that you have a funny bone too – bring a huge sponge and say, “Okay, I’ve came prepared, shall we start?”
And remember, nothing is so embarrassing you have to quit your job and relocate to a different company. We have a saying that news aren’t news after three days so, no matter how terrible your experience were, it will all blow over in the next few days. Do you have any of your mishaps to share?
Top Photo Credit: jeffk