Your worst faux pas

[AtChoService]

Reading a coronation menu just reminded me of this, it was 20 years ago and I still cringe 😬

I was in my first proper job, first posh Christmas party and the food had servers but you had to go up to the table, get a plate and go along the line.

The starter had a few options, ham, melon, compote stuff, a few other things.

I moved along the line and stopped and held mh plate out at each server, thinking this doesn't ago, this is a bit odd, got an odd look but thought nothing of it at the time, 🙈 you weren't supposed to take a portion of everything, you were supposed to choose melon OR the other thing, not all of it 🥴

I doubt anyone but the servers noticed but I still cringe a bit now.

25 years ago, at uni, we were messing about in the breakfast queue in halls, I quipped at my mate who was doing bad dancing that they looked like they were 'having a stroke or something', my other mate just looked at me with disgust. His granny had just died the day before after having a stroke. He was about to head off on the train home after breakfast to be with his family. I knew this! Why did I say this?!

I just remembered this one, Dh and I were in Oxford for the weekend, we went shopping etc… at one point I saw him from the back and playfully grabbed his arse… it was not Dh. Same person from the back, same short, Sameish top…he looked at me all red and looking mortified and I looked at him laughing but being mortified…his wife came to join him at some point and asked him what was going on, I ran away at that point

Many years back, my dad was at a local pub and the waitress said “Oh my God - you’re Tony Walker [NC]!” He said yes, he was, but was none the wiser as to who she was. She said “It’s Cheryl Watkins, from school, do you remember?” He wracked his brains, but had to admit he didn’t remember her.

She said “I used to be friends with Sue Smith and Carol Brown; do you remember them?” Something triggers in my dad’s brain and he says “Carol Brown… was she that really big fat girl?”

”No”, she replies… “that was me.”

Many years ago, all the family sitting around the table after Christmas dinner with things like dates, nuts, marzipan fruits when I say loudly "Eww disgusting! marzipan fruits are rank...they're disgusting!…why did you get these mum, no one likes them?"....made gagging motions and noises etc.
My step grandmother then said "I bought them....I quite like them".....silence...…

OMFG that made me laugh!

Mine’s not funny, it’s awful. I have an absolute genius for blurting out the one thing that I definitely shouldn’t in any given situation, it’s like a horrible tic. The worst was standing in a group at a drinks party with a lovely lady who had alopecia, & I suddenly introduced the subject of hair into the conversation for no discernible fucking reason - I honestly could have bitten my own tongue off.

We struggled valiantly through an excruciating 10 minutes of talking bollocks about haircuts and products, all of us aware but somehow unable to redirect the conversation, while she just stood there in silence, smiling. Still makes me clench with shame now and it was almost 20 years ago.

Oh, unclench.

Aged about 12, I had been invited to a friends house for a sleepover. I'd never been to her house before. She lived in an estate where the set up was all the houses were kind of off one big pedestrianised driveway.
My dad dropped me off on the driveway, just as a man opened his front door.
I assumed it was my friends dad so marched straight into the house, dropped my bags and sleeping bag in the hallway and said brightly "Thanks so much for inviting me over!"
Cue deadly silence from the random man as he stared at me. Eventually the penny dropped. "This isn't Ruth's house is it?"
He pointed me in the right direction and off I went.
When my dad came to pick me up next day I raced out and told him, and he was equally as horrified. "But you WENT IN THE HOUSE?!"
I know dad. I know.
It was about 35 years ago and it still makes me clench my bum cheeks thinking about it

I don’t understand either 😳

I've done that. I remembered that we'd spent a lot of time talking about them last time, and remembered WHY a bit too late.

Introducing new member of staff as Head of Accounting but missing out the O…. sent to over 400 people- whoops!

@EnjoythemoneyJane I do things like that too

I think it's a sub-conscious / misguided attempt at "I haven't even noticed you've not got any hair, so I'm just oh so casually starting a conversation about hair"

It comes from a good place

I also do this all the time.
For YEARS I would find myself thinking, "Oh we must ring / go and see FiL, haven't seen him for AGES".
I don't believe in an afterlife, but clearly my subconscious doesn't really believe in death.
I visited him in hospital for months, cleared up an awful mess caused by his final illness, was there holding his hand as he died, and helped arrange his funeral and scatter his ashes, but still my brain does this.
I KNOW HE IS DEAD but also, it seems, I don't.

Thank you - I’ve done it soooo many times, it’s mortifying. Good to know it’s not just me though! 😳

@MadeInChorley and @ATaxiForTwo both had me laughing out loud!

Went to the surgery in the local town last Saturday and when the 'on call' doctor asked me why I didn't go to the local health centre I replied "The doctor there never turns up, he's useless."

Guess where this doctor was based...?

Sat in the back of the car with new boyfriend. His mum and dad in the front, first time meeting them, desperate to make a good impression. All chatting and getting on well, dad asks me do I like Elvis Presley, I cheerfully say, 'God no, he's absolutely shit'. Massive silence. Dad was a HUGE Elvis fan and had been about to put his music on. Atmosphere changed immediately, rest of the ride in silence with BF edging away from me slowly.

Well, he did ask!

I feel sick even typing this....

I do a lot of zoom calls. They always start with a discussion about volume, cameras, being on mute etc.

New client, sound fixed I noticed there was then an issue with the lighting via his camera. It was making the monitor view reddish for whatever reason.

I said "you're a bit of a funny colour"

He said "I'm mixed race"

Even now, and he's still a client, I die a little inside.

This happened to my husband just last week, so it's fresh in my mind.

He's a builder and was griping about some of his colleagues, saying X was a pain in the arse, and Y was annoyingly passive aggressive.

He had his phone open, in the work WhatsApp group, and he must have accidentally hit the microphone button.
Yep...it recorded it and posted it in the chat.

I didn't know what had happened, when he jumped up and shouted 'Fuck! Fuck!', and I genuinely thought someone had bloody died!!
He deleted the message very quickly, but his client had already heard what he said.
Even I felt that horrible shiver of mortificado and it wasn't even me who said it.

Man alive! 😳

Did you try to style it out a bit, and blame the settings on your laptop, or something??

But the screen looked red? Why didn't you just say that? Sounds like his lame attempt at a joke to me.

Love it! This is totally what I’d have done at that age. Painfully shy and had to rehearse everything.

Not me, but read it in a magazine years ago and it stayed with me.

So the young lady was working in Spain. She was English but spoke some Spanish, and had got a job as a receptionist. Living out there, in a non-touristy area, her ear was very much attuned to Spanish.

Two senior British businessmen arrive for a meeting and she asks who they are etc., in English. "Lord Spank" came the reply.
"Lord...Spank?" she repeated, incredulous.
"No" he replied frostily, "Lloyds Bank"

I did similar when a receptionist now I think of it. Lady phoned up with a very deep, gravelly voice. She told me her name was "Myrtle Smurf"
I wasn't sure I'd heard that correctly, so asked her to spell it.
"Which part?" she answered pleasantly, "Nigel or Smith?"