Probably everyone would agree that "adulting" is challenging, but nothing is quite as tough as initially launching your career. You're new to the field and uncomfortable, so you're bound to have some awkward moments, missteps, or simply embarrassing situations.
Thankfully, these bumps in the road teach us lessons that we can grow from. Nonetheless, it can still be funny to reflect (and laugh) about those cringe-worthy experiences down the line.
So, a bunch of women recently took to Reddit to share some of the most embarrassing things they did during the early days of their careers, and we've compiled their best stories.
Scroll to see all the most embarrassing things these women admitted to doing at work!
1. She thought a colleague was flirting. Spoiler alert: he wasn't.
Viktoria Slowikowska
"I was new to my role and attending a networking event out of state, lobbying for the first time. I thought one of the commissioners was flirting with me, so I stupidly considered leveraging that. I even gave him my hotel card, but he never came," one user said.
2. She spilled hundreds of hardware pieces down a hill.
cottonbro studio
"It was my first day with a new theater company as their master carpenter. Our shop was multiple buildings away from the theater, and we had to haul our tools and hardware over in shopping carts," a user recalled.
"I tipped over the shopping cart with all the containers of screws, bolts, and so on. Hundreds of little bits of hardware, all down the side of a hill."
3. She accidentally said "love you" to her team.
Edmond Dantès
"I was multitasking on a call and, in the end, when everyone said goodbye, I blurted out, 'Bye, love you!' to the entire team. I was humiliated," another user detailed.
4. She accidentally messaged her own boss about her lackluster raise.
Anna Shvets
"I was working in customer service, and I asked my supervisor for a raise because I was 'error free' and my call time states were pretty good. I had told my coworker (we were both in our early twenties) that I had asked for the raise, too. We were very open about our salaries," remembered one user.
"A couple of weeks later, my supervisor called me over to her cubicle. I sent an IM [instant message] to my coworker and said, 'Supervisor wants to talk to me. Called me over to her desk. I think I got the raise!' Spoiler: I did. It was just like $0.75 an hour or something dumb, but still, I was happy to get a raise," she continued.
"Immediately after, I messaged my coworker again and said something like, 'Yep, I got the raise. It's not as much as I would have liked, but oh well." I sent this to my supervisor and not my coworker. I heard my supervisor laugh and immediately go talk to the manager. I was so embarrassed."
5. She had a bucket of water dumped on her.
cottonbro studio
"Something that happened to me years ago: a woman dropped a bucket of rainwater on my head," revealed a user.
"She wasn't looking down; she meant to do it to one of my coworkers who used to leave trash by her door. She apologized, but still."
6. She fell off her chair (in front of her supervisor).
MART PRODUCTION
"I was working at a park district part-time and I sat at the front desk. One day, I got up to get something from another room. I come back, sit on my chair, and lean back," one user explained.
"I guess I leaned too far back, so I ended up falling on my tailbone. My supervisor was right there. I was like a couple of weeks in, too."
7. She made up her own phonetic alphabet.
Keira Burton
"I was trying to say the phonetic alphabet for a follow-up claim. I had the letter 'Y,' and the only word I could think of was, 'Yam!'" a user said.
"I laugh about it now, and I made the IT guy laugh, so win-win? But I definitely embarrassed myself at the moment."
8. She hit "reply all" while calling someone a jerk.
Mikael Blomkvist
"I hit 'reply all' in an email calling someone out for being a jerk. Ten years later, it's a department inside joke," a final user admitted.
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