Sloppy Seconds

I have a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Unfortunately, this gets me in a pickle during work hours. As my coworker once said, "You're a walking HR violation."

Then there was the time I learned the valuable lesson not to use idioms you don't understand. I learned this the hard way on Diwali, when my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I got two plates full of curry and unnamables.

My boss walked into the conference room as we all finished up our food. I extended the plate to him and said, in a dead-serious tone, without a hint of a smile on my face: "Would you like my sloppy seconds?"

His eyes became as big as the paper plate. It got deafeningly silent.

My coworker later educated me.

"You mean that's *exclusively* a dirty term??" I cried.

"Yeah. How do you not know this? You're 25."

I spent the rest of the month--seriously, a month--deliberating if I should go into my boss's office and apologize posthumously for what turned out to be a horrible comment. But my friends counseled me and helped me see the light: Just pretend it never happened!

Ah, and then there was that time my coworker and I exited an important meeting that our CEO hosted.

"There's an hour of my life I'll never get back," said my coworker, stretching and yawning.

"Yeah, I didn't pay any attention," I replied. "Except maybe during one part. Kind of. No."

Lo and behold, guess who was standing right behind us when we said that. Yup, you guessed it. Do I really need to spell it out for you?

Thankfully we were not fired, and our plans to start our own company did not come to fruition.

The unfortunate part of this whole story? I have many more troubling tales just like this.

Since I feel my PTSD coming on, maybe that's a blog post for another day.