Work related awkward/embarrasing/rare situation 1

[l3city]

He fellas, what is the most rare and strange/awkward situation you have encountered at work (and personal if you would like to share it)?
For example, talking with your co-engineer about a design issue/problem while sitting at the toilet (ya'know). Or coming by surprise to your bosses' office and hearing or seeing something you rather not see.
Jaja, how you deal with this situations??
Any input is well welcomed..
regards

 

[AndrewTX]

Many years ago when I was still in college I had a summer job with a local plant services firm. In addition to other duties I was working on the construction crew builiding the companies new building.

One Friday the company president and his wife come by to bring us all lunch. I was stepping through a window off the roof of one level and into the main building when the inseam on my jeans rips out. This wasn't a small little tear, but almost a knee to knee rip.

Obviously there is no graceful way to go have lunch with your boss's wife with the middle of your pants missing, so I skipped lunch and went back onto the roof.

To this day my wife still laughs about that story.

 

[MedicineEng]

This one happened to me when I was still studying.
I was running late to a Math class and when I arrived there (some 10 minutes late) there were 2 very beautiful girls distributing a questionnaire about carrers and stuff like that. I was puzzled and astonished: first; it was unusual and second; one of the girls was really nice. And then I started trying to make my move with soft talk and the teacher warned a couple of times to finish my questionnaire and to stop stalking with the girl. I was really into it and I didn't notice some smirking and laughs in the rest of my colleagues. After the questionnaire filled up I continued and then they left. After that, I noticed that my teacher was a little bit harsh with me.
Later in the class finally I knew that that girl was his daughter ( I skipped the presentation part due to be late)...
Needless to say what happened to my grade in Math that year...

 

[jmw]

You know, there is a moral here: bosses who don't want workers hitting on their daughters should leave them at home.

This is, of course, a Catch 22 situation... either the daughter is attractive, the guys get out their best chat up lines and the boss gets uptight or the daughter is not attractive, no one chats her up, she is upset and he again gets uptight.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[JAE]

Not just bosses...but really most fathers are suspicious of most suitors for their daughters.

 

[EddyC]

Makes you wonder how these fathers used to behave when they were young & single.

 

[KENAT]

If they're engineers then while it may be different in the US,in the UK that pretty much answers your question.

 

[JAE]

eddyC - yes.....I have a daughter and I find myself praying: Please God don't let her meet anyone like me.

 

[SylvestreW]

kinda bad. Was my first week at a new job and the company happened to have the exact same printer as my old job so knew how to use it well.
Anyway, I walked into the copy room to get some copies done and saw a woman trying to scan something. She wasn't very successful at all.
I helped her out and decided to joke "don't worry, after 8 years of school, even the VPs with their MBAs still can't figure out these simple things".

Turns out she was the VP of finance & operations...and had an MBA.

 

[ivymike]

wow, sounds like they needed a provision in the healthcare for "foot in mouth" disease, or a sturdier glass ceiling...

 

[jmw]

Are you still employed there?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

I was walking through the offices one day with a colleague when we passed an engineer in his chair surrounded by flustered females fiddling with his collar.
"What's up?" my colleague asked in loud voice all could hear, "Has Mike died on the job?"
At that moment the ambulance crew arrived to cart Mike away.
Fortunately, after heart by-pass surgery, he survived.

PS: It only now occurs to me to wonder what he meant by "on the job", the alternative meaning is well within the range of my colleagues humour.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ivymike]

There are a couple of stories at my office about people dying and doing face-plants on the keyboard after long hours of work. I haven't been around long enough to witness any such events.

 

[KENAT]

I was once bombarding a guy from another company with emails and if I recall a few phone messages trying to get hold of him on something for a UOR in time for Iraq 03.

Got an email the next day telling me that he'd had a heart attack at work and died.

To this day I hope my bugging him wasn't the cause!

(P.S. some time I will post part 2 of my original post but I've been kind of busy)

 

[SylvestreW]

For those wondering, yes I'm still employed
Thankfully she had a sense of humour. Plus it was a pretty funny cliche.

 

[HVACctrl]

I emailed my boss once commenting on how one of our customers could have found the information he was leaning on me to provide if he only put in a little more effort. OF course I had hit the "reply to all" button instead of the "reply" button to only my boss and the email went to the customer as well.

The customer just straightned me out and indicated that he had tried to find the info. My boss told me that people get fired for that sort of thing- he wasn't intending to threaten me though.

As a matter of fact, that customer ended up loving me for all the stuff I did for him and my boss actually gave me a major promotion some time after the fact. It just shows that if you're on top of your game and a valuable employee, little things like that can be put behind you. Perhaps someone on a "bubble" would have been severely repremanded or even fired.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[jmw]

Ah! emails that never should be sent....
If you don't hit the "reply all" someone else will.. or they'll be too lazy to write a new email and will simply copy yours "to whom it may concern" and broadcast it out.

Having had the "the client is an idiot" email situation in the past, I am now very careful to compose my emails, especially to the sales team, as if they are going to be published in the newspaper. I have no problem who they copy "sales are Idiots" emails to.

"management are idiots" emails require some thought and a good CV.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ewh]

After having made the mistake of responding to all, I removed that option from my toolbar. Now I feel much more at ease when sending email.

 

[ivymike]

I had a very frank discussion with a coworker once, while a client was on hold on the phone, only to find that the client was actually on speaker (not hold), and had been listening quietly throughout the discussion. Luckily nothing too damning was said!

 

[HVACctrl]

jmw,
I have seen the term "CV" a few times recently, but not sure what it means. Can you tell me? This may sound like a naive question, but I really don't know.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[KENAT]

Curriculum Vitae

In the US it's usually a resume.