Handhold needed - embarrassing workplace stories

[Weston14]

So I slept in for work.

Not just by a bit. By about 4 hours. I have absolutely no idea what happened I just completely slept through my alarm. Colleagues thought I'd died. Woke up to a load of missed calls. I. Am. Mortified. Boss is (understandably) livid.

Regale me please with your embarrassing workplace stories to make me feel better

[sleepyohsodleepy]

I can go one better than that....I slept in for a nightshift and only woke up when a policeman was shaking me awake thinking I was dead! Not sure who got the biggest fright.
I'd slept through; my phone, my buzzer, stones thrown at my window, hammering on the door, and lastly them kicking my door in 😂😂
Even worse I worked for the bloody police at the time so it was someone I saw on a very regular basis.....safe to say I never lived that down

[Twirlytwoo]

I was interviewing an applicant looking to rehome a dog. We did a house check and he was telling me how he and his wife have always wanted a dog, but they worked and it was never the right time to have one. I said to him "oh have you managed to persuade your wife to get a dog now?" And he replies "no she died last year." I wanted the ground to swallow me up!

[Polkadotpjs]

Pre smart phone days forgot to change my phone to the time zone of the country I'd flown to. Id been up silly amounts of hours and landed in one country in one time zone then driven to another. Had a whole night out on the wrong time and the next day I was woken by a call from my boss in the taxi to the airport asking where I was. I was so confused and tried to style it out but had to confess

[Annabanana1234]

I worked in a nursery in my younger years. It was an old 4 storey house that has been converted with an age group per floor and offices at the top. Top floor is also where they kept the paint. I only had 15 minutes to clear, sweep, mop and set up one of the rooms in the ground floor. The schedule called for paint. 9 pots to be precise.

We used to take 2 trips as a rule because we normally had 25 minutes to do the room but I was under pressure that day so I made the terrible choice to try to carry them all at once. From top floor to ground floor. It didn’t go well. The preschool hallway was spattered with green, red and purple. I kept hold of the other colours and began frantically scrubbing but the walls were marked and the carpet was a write off. A parent came in and stood in a splodge on the stairs then began yelling I’d ruined her Jimmy Choos and that I better be insured. The boss came down and joined in. It was bloody horrible.

[EKGEMS]

Once worked on a nursing ward where the secretary and a registered nurse had a fling that produced a baby then the male was flirting with a beautiful new employee and the ex lost her mind and physically attacked the father of her child and nursing supervisor had to physically separate the pair and send the pair to their respective homes. All this happened while I was on maternity leave

[pandarific]

@Violetroselily that's given me actual lols. Locked in his porch?! Tell me more!

[Thurmanmurman]

If it's a one off I think your boss being 'livid' is a bit harsh to be honest. I was once 30 mins late for an off site meeting in Birmingham. Went in to the office apologising profusely. Turns out the meeting was in the London office

[coconutcoconutcrack]

Got voluntold to deliver a presentation at a conference my then company were involved in. To be fair, it was a subject area I knew a fair bit about, however the thought of speaking in a conference hall filled me with dread.
So the night before I got very, very drunk. And got taken to my hotel room by the regional manager. Somehow the next day I managed to make myself look presentable, give one of the best presentations I have ever done because I was still pissed.
Whilst fighting waves of nausea. Somehow I got to the end of the presentation and then landed my manager right in it by saying 'and now over to MrManager for questions. I was supposed to be leading the Q and A, however I was in the ladies being violently sick.

Manager blamed it on dodgy shellfish I had eaten the night before, however as a fair amount of the conference was eating and drinking in the hotel a lot of people knew there was no shellfish in sight.
I was told later on when I had sobered up that I had used my get out of jail free card.

The next year I strategically arranged annual leave over the conference dates and made damned sure I was out of the country so couldn't get called back.

[Figmentofimagination]

In one job as back office staff in a college, I had to take an extra long lunch break and drive home to get changed after spilling soup all over my legs. Luckily it had cooled down enough that it didn't burn me.
The team I was on couldn't stop giggling as I waddled into the office (luckily not far from the staff room) with trousers soaked in soup to ask if they were ok delaying their lunches so I could nip home. Also was lucky that it was during the school holidays so hardly any staff around and no teenagers to see my walk of shame back to my car to go home.

This was the same job where I stupidly wore heels to work (can't walk in them), and rushed down some stairs in them. Slipped, grabbed the railing to stop my fall but unfortunately tumbled all the way down to land in a heap in front of a group of teenage boys. I had to take 2 days off work, was bruised all over, badly sprained my shoulder and had to wear a sling for 2 months.

[GinWithASplashOfTonic]

I rocked up an 1.5 hrs late for work once. My alarm had gone off but I'd thought it was a Saturday and rolled back to sleep.

Boss was understanding saying, we've all done it just make the hours up

[Crunchymum]

I once went in half a day late as I was attacked by a cat.

I initially called in sick but my manager was all like "oh right, OK, a cat you say" (it was a Friday and yes I'd been our the night before with workmates) so I went in to work after my GP appointment 2 different antibiotics for 10 days and I showed everyone who I possibly could my "horrendous wounds"... which to be fair I still have scars from 9y later!!

I also left early as I needed to attend a travel clinic for a Tetanus shot because my GP didn't have any

[k1233]

I was wearing a long skirt (just off the ground) and heels. I went to a meeting with two men. I get into the room and just as I'm saying hello, my right ankle rolls. I try to catch myself but my left heel got caught in the hem of my skirt and I went down like a sack of spuds, crashing into the glass wall. Luckily it didn't smash.

[GinWithASplashOfTonic]

There was the time I was late because boss was talking to me and a colleague and she couldn't make up what time either of us in the next day and then kept changing her mind. And I just got confused

[Clearthinking]

Needing to call an ambulance, when working for them as I over panicked when child tried to choke. As a carer, forgetting to go to a client's house on new years day to make sure they were fed and took meds, was over an hour late :-( and just recently husband works from home with regular zoom calls and I just happened to be walking past in just pants and a bra with 4 people in his team on the monitor!!!

[aquashiv]

I am crying at you shittyknickers that's a legendary rendition.

[Cismyfatarse1]

I taught a lesson for over an hour to 30 teenagers with my skirt tucked into both my tights and my knickers.

How I am still teaching 30 years on I will never know.

[TaighNamGastaOrt]

oh god, theres so many!
My latest one was two weeks ago I went round to my colleague's house to sort laptops. We'd both been isolating and both at a rough patch in our marriage and decided to have a socailly-distanced drink.
No biggie, just a gin or two.
You know where this is going. Absolutely gubbed. Gin, 3 bottles of wine and shots. I crawled in at 2am after falling off my bike and napping on the road. Took two days to recover, puked, couldnt remember half the evening!
speaking to colleagues last week, who reminded me that we'd phoned our young male co-workers at 130am, shrieking that I'd fallen down the stairs. I can't bloody remember any of this, but it does explain the bruises!
No more shots, I'm too old for this shit!

[MiniMum97]

Why is your boss "livid". Unless you do it all the time it's a one-off mistake.

Presumably you'll take action to make sure it doesn't happen again and you'll make the tonne up or take it as holiday.

Jesus done bosses don't seem to realise people are human beings and sometimes fuck up.

I once slept through my alarm I called my boss (apologising profusely of course) and they were very kind and understanding Livid is a complete overreaction.

[SmileyClare]

line manager drove round to his house and found him locked in his porch

Such a funny image. I'm imaging an awkward interaction when the postman came that morning and saw him sitting there.. Hi yes just post the letters on top of me, Thanks.

[pinkcattydude]

Ah we had an interviewee stuck in the porch (before mobile phones) his housemate had double locked the front door and he’d gone in to the porch and opened up his post. The other door slammed shut and there he was until his housemate returned home from work. He phoned the next day and we gave him another chance as no one could make up a story like that

[doskant]

@IsAnybodyListening

I'm generally a walking disaster at work to be fair. Over the last few years, the same colleagues have seen me walk across the office with my dress in my pants. Split my trousers on a sponsored 'cycle' on a stationary bike in the office. Slithered from my desk chair onto the floor many a time (because I can't control the multi functional bloody thing), walked into every closed door etc

The manager had to first aid me once, all I did was vigorously cross my legs, completely kneecapping myself on a table. There was blood, and I had a black bruise the size of my hand for weeks.

To be fair, if I overslept, my manager certainly wouldn't be livid. She'd probably be thankful I was tucked away and not being a liability for a change.

BWAHAHAHA! How do you “vigorously” cross your legs?!

[Guineapigbridge]

I was a new grad and I went to a meeting with my boss, a Partner, with the CEO of the country's biggest government department. The room was really warm and I fell asleep in the meeting.

[Notimeforaname]

Once I was so hungover... I showed up to work 5 hours early.
I'd woken up in that drunken panic, got ready and went in at 12pm only to discover I was on the 5pm shift. No way I would make the journey home and back again. I was hanging.
I had to push two plastic chairs together in the staff room to lay on and cover myself with a manky coat from the lost and found box.
It was that kind of hangover where you think, if I just stay really still, I won't puke or die.

[chatwoo]

@Weston14

So I slept in for work.

Not just by a bit. By about 4 hours. I have absolutely no idea what happened I just completely slept through my alarm. Colleagues thought I'd died. Woke up to a load of missed calls. I. Am. Mortified. Boss is (understandably) livid.

Regale me please with your embarrassing workplace stories to make me feel better

I did this once (10+ years ago now!). Alarm went off, I thought it was the weekend so switched it off. Was woken some time later by the bins being collected, which happens on a WEEKday... had a load of missed calls from my office. I think I said I was unwell/being sick, but it certainly ruined my lie in .

Also a few drunk stories relating to after work drinks but would rather forget about them, plus they are not very interesting (but still embarrassing the next day / following Monday).

[Munchingmischief]

I was relaxing at home when the phone rang. It was my boss was asking if I was ok. I thought this call was a bit weird but we had a nice little chat. I said, I was fine told him what I had been up to. He asked me what day it was I told him friday. Then he asked me what I normally do on fridays. I had a little think, I still couldn't work it out. My boss was a lovely man. Kind and gentle would do anything for anyone. So we carried on chatting happily. Then eventually the penny dropped that I should be in work. Just like I work every friday. When it finally dawned on me he just laughed, said he was doing the shift and I owe him one. I did feel awful, for ruining his day off. He was more concerned about me than mad because I never miss a shift and am never late. Work just completely went out of my head that day. He teased me about it for years. Always asking what do I do on fridays.