Unknown

I received a Christmas card today from a local business.  It was addressed to Patricia Unknown. 
Did they really think my last name was "Unknown" or did they put Unknown and were hoping to verify my name before sending it out?  In any event, it got sent and now I am left wondering about my identity.

Office blunders: We all make 'em...

A friend of mine asked someone in her office to send a fax for her.  The person wanted to help and said no problem then promptly sent the fax to my friend's fax number instead of the number it was supposed to go to.  You can imagine her surprise when she received her own fax. I don't think she will ask her to re-send it...

Someone I know sent her boss to a meeting at someone's home rather than the office.  He knew something was up when he arrived in the residential neighbourhood.

Another friend sent a courier with an urgent package that had to get there on time, but transposed the numbers and delivered it to the neighbour, two doors down.  Oops!

What can you do, but apologize and move on and try not to let it happen again.  It does go to show you that those urgent things can always be fixed.  Human error is almost always taken into consideration.

Singing away at the office

Someone made my day today.  She sent me an email asking me to have my boss sing a letter. I was tempted to ask him to sing it for me...

Work wife

When I interviewed for my current job my boss mentioned that the admin role was similar to that of a work wife because we are so involved in everything they do.  I told him my last boss said I was worse than his wife. He hired me anyway...

One letter can make all the difference

I read an email the other day and had to look twice at this sentence:  “Our job could be to look at, asses, and recommend a course of action.” I wonder what the recipient thought when she received that email.

Church bulletin blooper

There was an announcement for a men's breakfast in our Church bulletin this morning.  Interested men were to sin up in the foyer.  I wonder if they had any takers?

Friends can say the darndest things...

A friend of mine had a medical test so called the doctor's office for the results.  I would have loved to have seen the nurse's face when he asked her if she had the results of his "autopsy."  Oh my...

End of day blooper

I received an email from an important government office.  I had been in meetings all afternoon so wanted to quickly reply to the person to let them know I had received their email and would respond to them as soon as possible.  I wrote my message and pressed Send.  As the Send was being processed and it was leaving my screen, I noticed with horror that instead of Hello I had written Hell.

My email went like this:

Hell Mr. Smith,
I have been in meetings all afternoon and will respond to your email first thing tomorrow morning.
Patricia

Ugh!

I quickly emailed him back to apologize and explain what had happened.  He emailed me back to say he hadn't even noticed, but he was laughing hysterically and said I had certainly made his day.

Like a dog going after a bone...

A co-worker mentioned that I can be like a dog going after a bone when I want something.  I mentioned that to my boss and he has now started saying "Drop it" when he wants me to stop pursuing something...  Did I mention my boss has a dry sense of humour.

On Broadway...

My brother in law is a member of a Union which is mostly made up of men -- he is in the construction trade.  In a recent memo inviting members to a meeting, they addressed it to Business Managers, Agents, Presidents, and Executive BROAD members.  I think they meant Board, although you never know...

What's in a name

My first week on the job at a law firm and it was getting complicated.  The lawyer I was working for was named Russel (with one L).  We were working on a case and the lawyer on the other side was named Russell as well (but with two L's).  Then the mediator on the case was Mr. Russell -- Ugh! It was difficult to keep everyone straight.

Names can be comical at times. I once worked with a Mr. Smellie, Mr. Butt and my chiropractor's name was Dr. Dick. Sometimes names can strike me as funny...especially if I am tired.

Another man I worked for was named Ray Zerr.  You have to wonder what his mother was thinking...

I remember one of my bosses telling me that his neighbour, who was named Hazel, married someone with the last name Nutt, which of course would make her married name Hazel Nutt. Hmmm!

Oops! Wrong address...

I found this neat website with all sorts of screensavers you could choose from called Webshots.com.  I had a nice peaceful meadow scene on my computer and a co-worker walking by thought it was beautiful and asked me where I had gotten it.  I started to type in the url address to show her, but what popped up on the screen was not exactly what I was expecting.  Instead of webSHOTS I had typed webHOTS -- which as you might guess by the name was quite a different website.  As I scrambled to try and get the images off my screen we were both laughing hysterically, but you can be sure I contacted the IT Department right away to let them know that I had accessed that particular site by mistake.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself...

The other day I was at the gym and wanted to weigh myself.  I forgot to bring my glasses so was standing as far away as I could to be able to see the numbers.  I yelled out to my friend that I certainly hadn't gained any weight as the scale was not moving.  She started laughing and called out, "Pat, you have to be standing on it for it to work."  I was standing so far back I had forgotten to step back on the scale.  Of course there were other people in the locker room so I said with chagrin, "Now that's a little bit embarrassing."  They all started laughing and said they were definitely laughing with me, not at me. 

Another friend said she asked an IT person to help her with a site she was having difficulty logging into.  He asked her to log off her computer so he could set it up and he would let her know when she could log back on.  After about 45 minutes she still had not heard from him so finally called and asked if she could log on again as she was busy and had to get some things done.  Much to his embarrassment he said that without thinking he had sent her an e-mail a few minutes after they had spoken to let her know she could log back on."  Oops!

Revolving door trouble

I hate revolving doors and today I have a good reason. 

They do have a purpose I suppose.  Up here in Canada when it is really cold, they keep the cold out because you don't have to open and close the door all the time. Maybe I'm a little paranoid about it, but I usually avoid them.  Except today... 

When I went to go outside at noon, there were signs on the doors that said in big black letters "Use Revolving Doors" so what else could I do?  When I pushed on the door I felt a jerk from behind and the next thing I know there was a woman beside me and we were in the same space.  I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. 

We just looked at each other and she knew she had done something wrong, but what could we do about it, we were both stuck in there.  Unless you've ever been stuck in a revolving door with a complete stranger, you have no idea how hard it is to get out and how awkward it is because you don't know the person.  And did I mention she didn't speak English. We had to take baby steps in unison until we were finally free... 

It seemed like we were in there for minutes, but it was probably only seconds.  We did have a good laugh about it when we got out and I'm sure the people who saw us in there enjoyed watching too.  Sheesh!

The Hazards of E-mail...

Since e-mail and social networking have come on the scene, it is a new way for us to make blunders and bloopers. Unfortunately, because it is in writing it can turn into a pretty sticky situation and it sure makes it harder to take your words back. People have been fired over e-mails sent to the wrong person, gotten more attention than they wanted because of them and some are just plain annoyed receiving them.

As serious as it can be, there can be a humorous side. I have seen e-mails where a typo has changed the whole meaning of the message. One e-mail I recently received used the word pubic instead of public. Without going into much detail, I’m sure you can see how embarassing that one might have been and since it was sent to a large distribution list...Well, you see what I mean.

In another e-mail, the person introduced themself as "...one of your fellow “sinners”" from a recent awards ceremony where they were both "winners."

E-mail is useful. I mean what would we do without it now that we have experienced instant messaging?  It is also the number one complaint I hear from co-workers -- too much e-mail!  E-mail can be annoying at times, but because of the speed we send them (sometimes without much thought or proofreading) they are also a good source of blunders and bloopers. 

HELL NO• I was writing an e-mail to a board member, but instead of writing “Hello Mr. Smith” I wrote “Hell Mr. Smith.”

RECALL FAILED
• My boss came rushing out of his office. “Quick, I need to know right away how to recall a message.” He was a lawyer and had just sent some legal advice meant for our client to the opposing counsel. Oops!

NEVER SAY NEVER
• I was reading through e-mails that were going to be used as evidence in a court case. In one e-mail the woman had e-mailed her boss (who she was having an affair with) and wrote “Thank goodness nobody will ever read these e-mails.”

Moral of the story.  Don't press SEND and regret it...think, proof and if you still really want to send it...then press SEND.

Bloopers

I have made so many bloopers in my life, it is hard to keep track of them all.  I wrote an article about some of them on my blog Laughing All the Way to Work: A Survival Blog for Today's Administrative Assistant called Office Confidential. Check it out and come back here and let me know what you think.

Since my other blog is a much more serious blog where I try to be professional most of the time, I decided for the times that I didn't feel like it, I would come over here and tell stories and hopefully share stories that people send me about what happened to them.

How about you?  Has anything ever happened that was embarrassing at the time, but now that you think about it was pretty darn funny.  I think the funniest stories are from real life.  For instance, I had only been working in my new job for a few weeks and was sitting at the front desk to relieve the receptionist.   My boss walked by and asked me what the password was on a site he needed to log into. The password was LRGPassword, but I told him to remember it was case sensitive and started to spell it out for him -- "Capital LRGP and then..." but stopped when I realized what the rest of it spelled. He looked at me with a knowing smile and said, “Yes, Patricia, continue..."

If you want to share, e-mail me at patriciaannrobb@gmail.com and we can laugh together.