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

 

[zuccus]

I used to do a lot of CAD design consulting for a major firm. My counterpart at the company was pretty much worthless which is why I got the gig to begin with.

He was constantly trying stuff and failing or taking way to long to get things done in their system. What was funny was he forward emails to me from his boss stating what needed to be done. If you read through all of the emails towards the bottom, you would see that his boss was always giving him a butt chewing and he was pretty much begging for forgiveness to keep his job.

We would always laugh around our office about it, I even started a folder just for his emails. Finally my boss made me talk to him about it after about a year of this. He claimed he did it on purpose to make sure we understood how important it was we do a good job for him.

Zuccus

 

[VeryPicky]

I arrived all dressed up in a high level meeting 150 miles away from my office, put my briefcase on the boardroom table and opened it. Instead of a pile of project documents I had LEGO blocks in my briefcase packed diligently by my kids. They scattered all around and it was quite difficult to pretend they belong to somebody else.
So I asked "who wants to play?"
I mentioned the meeting was high level, all present proven to be equally high level, they laughed and we continued with the meeting.

Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering

 

[HVACctrl]

VeryPicky,

Sweet! One would HAVE to appreciate an ice breaker like that!

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[VeryPicky]

For those stories about people found with faces down on keyboards.
I heard the term "QWERTHOSIS" for the kind of imprint on the face after a nap in the office.

Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering

 

[VeryPicky]

HVACctrl

if it was done on purpose...Yes
It was quite a bit embarasing though.

Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering

 

[HVACctrl]

At least they laughed. It would have been WAY worse had they all just tried to ignore you or even worse, shook their heads at the scene.

Laughing kind of makes it seem like they accpted it.

Funny stuff. At least you handled it well.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[KENAT]

So seeing as my previous post didn’t get me kicked off the site here is the long overdue part 2.

Toward the end of the same transsexual contractors time at the company I went over to their desk to see where they were with the project with a view to doing a handover.

As a piece of background information, I should mention that I had a couple of pair of work trousers (pants for my friends in the US) that for some reason had shallow pockets. Due to this and my work on the shop floor/test rig/ slouching in chairs/cramming into my Ford Fiesta my keys had a tendency to fall out. To prevent this I got a short keychain. It was only about 6” long and all you could see was the clip onto my belt loop and the first couple of links, it wasn’t a 3ft chain halfway down my leg like sk8ers wear.

While I was talking to the contractor my boss, the interim technical Director, came over and started asking me questions and I stood up talking to him.

While I was doing so I felt something down by my pocket and glanced down to see the contractor playing with my key chain.

Had it been anyone else in the company, male or female, I would have told them then and there to get off in no uncertain terms, and may have even smacked them. However, given the situation with the contractors transgender and my boss being right there I wasn’t sure what to do so after overcoming my initial shock/annoyance/anger…. I grinned and bore it.

I don’t think my boss noticed.

After he walked off the contractor started telling me that in his circles the chain meant something.

At this point I made my excuses and went back to my desk.

I considered making a complaint but given that for some reason almost all the women employees in the general admin office downstairs had taken a fondness to the contractor I figured this would be more trouble than it was worth, especially as the contractor was finishing in a few weeks.

Final part of the story, a few months later there was a story in a national newspaper about a group of male to female transsexuals suing a small country pub for not letting them use the women’s toilet, supposedly because some customers had complained.

Guess who one of the plaintiffs was……….

 

[esloan]

I am on jobsites 99% of the construction season. Last fall towards the end of the season, I had a couple of pairs of jeans that were not going to survive much longer and I intended to throw them away after settling in to office-work. It's difficult for me to purchase new jeans for field work when it's the end of the season anyway.

One pair in particular only had a small hole at the corner of one of the back pockets.

On a day I was wearing these pair of jeans, I was on project with significant earthwork being done, so it seemed I was constantly climbing around stockpiles of excavated material or what ever. This morning, my client as well as the owner of the prime construction company showed up on site to discuss some issue we were having. I was attempting to work with them as well as keep up with the ongoing work by the crews.

I was walking to the site meeting from a crew that was a short distance away, and in the process had to climb over a small stockpile of excavated material. For whatever reason my jeans didn't make it. They ripped, from the pocket/hole down along the center seam to halfway to my knee! I did that doublecheck to make sure nobody noticed and there was no obvious "notice".

It really wasn't something that could be fixed or "played off". Should I mention that I am female?

Luckily, I was wearing layers. I took off my sweatshirt and tied it to my waist hiding the rip. I finished my site meeting, made sure everything was operating smoothly and made an excuse to head back to my office. I wasn't far away from home and was able to change into presentable attire.

When I got back to the site, several of the workers had grins on their faces. During one of the breaks, the operator running the large excavator of that crew told me that he saw the entire event! I didn't notice him watching since he sits up higher than everybody else and he had "stadium seating"!!!!

 

[casseopeia]

Next time he smiles just say, "whew, at least I was wearing panties that day". There will be a shift of power as you smile and wander off to your work.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[esloan]

what gave him credibility is that he knew their color. Last time I wear such a noticeable color (red to match my face)

 

[HgTX]

...at least you *were* wearing panties that day! (as opposed to some thongy thing, or commando...)

Just goes to show one's undergear should be as professional as one's overgear, just in case...

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[jmw]

Now that I run my own company I have no answer when my wife decides she wants to accompany on trips abroad. Of course, as a company officical she also has some rights here so she came with me to Singapore earlier this year and just recently we attemded a conference in Monte Carlo where I gave a paper.

When I worked for my previous company it was always more difficult because of keeping the expenses honest and arguments such as "None of the other guys/gals will have their significant others with them", "It's business, not play" cut no ice and often caused no little friction. Of course she was upset when I went to a conference in Buenos Aires and the sponsors of one of the evening events took us all to dinner at a Tango theatre.

However, at my last company I attended a conference in one of the US ski/casino resorts. Some guys did have wives in attendance but one guy told us about his colleague who attended a similar conference. He refused to take his wife since he would not be skiing, gambling or anything else axcept work.
She was not amused.
The conference turned out to be more than average boring and he did go skiing.
He fell and broke his leg.
He had all sorts of problems including that he could not drive so he rang and asked his wife to fly up and drive him back. When he explained why, she hung up on him.
He now had to fly (and arrange for his car to be brought back).
He tried ringing his wife to collect him from the airport but she hung up again. He got a taxi which, because of the distance, was very expensive.
When he got home he couldn't get in because she'd changed the locks.
True or not, there is a moral in here somewhere.

PS,
when not busy shopping like there's no tommorrow, my wife proved a very effective ambassador for the company at the cocktail party, dinners and of course, at the Monte Carlo Yacht Club reception. But it does mean I can now never go back to being employed by anyone because I will never be able to revert to "me at confernce and wife at home."




JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com