The Unbearable Lightness of Being MetaMegan

Embarrassing things I have done or said at work:

This attempt to end my work related blog writers block is brought to you by my dad who says, "Laugh at yourself or spend your whole life crying."

1.) It was possibly my first meeting at a new job, and I hadn't met everyone on my team yet. One team member was giving a little presentation on some of the reports he had written to help us manage our databases. He meant to give a little background and then run the report to show the results, but he ran the report right away and said, "Oops, sorry. That report was prematurely generated." I laughed, looked around, realized no one else laughed, remembered that I am extremely immature, and tried to stop laughing, because it felt inappropriate. And what's funnier than extremely inappropriate laughter? Nothing. Well, aside from someone that can't stop laughing, but is trying to hide it. I spent the rest of the meeting silently weeping as I tried not to laugh. I don't work there anymore.

2.) OK, same job, some person even. I walked by the guy's new office, and there was giant coffee stain on the wall. I said, "Oh my God it looks like..." And then I realized that what I was about to say was, "you peed on your wall." Rorschach test much? Who thinks and then says something like that? So instead of coming up with something clever like, "It looks like... you should hang a poster over that stain." I just started laughing. Then crying. Then silently weeping at my desk because really - what was I going to say at that point? Once I gathered myself together enough to talk, how was I to explain what was so funny? I basically said, "It looks like you peed on your wall." And the crowd that had gathered just slowly backed away.

3.) Most facebook and other friends have probably already heard this one, but it needs to be told again. Have you ever worked in an office in the summer? And are you also a woman? Then you know that no matter what you wear, you are either going to melt outside, or freeze to death inside. So the day that it was 80 inside our office was probably the most pleasant office day I have every experienced. I was dressed for the weather I ridden my bike through to get to work. And I wasn't freezing as I discussed the weather at my friends desk. We both agreed the day was perfect. And just then, we were interrupted by another co-worker who came by to accuse Laura of messing with the thermostat and causing him to be terribly uncomfortable. "IT's so HOT!" he said. The gentleman in question was wearing khaki pants, a khaki shirt, and khaki hiking boots. Laura sent him to his desk with a thermometer so he could see that perhaps he was imagining the level of the office temperature. While he was gone, remarks were made that perhaps it was his desert storm themed ensemble that was to blame for his assessment of the temperature. I was annoyed. Way to much khaki for my delicate sensibilities. Plus, why should I be cold all the time?

He came back with the temperature and announced that it was in fact 80 degrees. And, "It's way too hot in here."

I replied, "THEN UNZIP YOUR PANTS!!!"

Because, you know, what is the f'ing point of khaki pants that zip into shorts if you are going to just wear pants and complain about the heat? I realized it was sort of awkward that I had said, "Unzip your pants" to a co-worker so I started to try to find a way to explain that I meant, unzip the part of your pants that will turn your pants into shorts without betraying that I find those kinds of pants horribly unfashionable and work inappropriate. But that line of thinking was rendered irrelevant when I realized he was not wearing pants that unzip into shorts. At all. Just regular khaki pants.

"I meant.." (commence laugh crying. Hysterical, horrified, laugh crying.) I sort of blacked out for a bit, but I know I made it back to my desk, and that I did actually sob a few times on the way there.

It was very cathartic. And I couldn't help thinking of Daniel Day Lewis saying, "Take off your clothes" in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and how I am nothing like that character at all, but it makes for a good blog post title.