We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their most embarrassing work moments. Here are their horror stories...
1. The Internet History.
"I had just started a job in the accounting department for a VERY well known and prestigious hospital in California. My second day on the job the IT guy came to my desk to set up my iPhone with all the email and wifi information so I could work from home. When he finished, he pressed the internet app and before I could stop him the gay porn video on Pornhub I had watched that morning started to play. He immediately put his head down and handed me my phone. My boss started laughing hysterically and walked away as I tried with every fiber of my being to not black out. Keep in mind, there were many other people around in their cubicles who I’m sure heard the video."
— submitted by mikerl14
2. The Halloween Horror.
"I have a very fun-loving office. So for Halloween last year I dressed as Darth Vader and planned to enter my meetings with his theme music playing. So I went to our meeting room, threw open the door, and marched in with this loud dramatic music.
Only to realize my meeting had been moved to another room and another department of very serious people I didn’t know were staring at me like I was insane."
— submitted by meigana
3. The Picture Perfect Mistake.
"I plugged my phone into the break room computer so I could charge it, because I didn't have a wall charger, and all of my pictures started uploading themselves onto the screen. ALL OF THEM. ALL. This guy was like "hey, Erica?" I literally TACKLED HIM away from the computer and ripped my phone off the charger."
— submitted by Erica Sloan, Facebook
4. The Medication Room.
"My allergy medication and my Ambien (sedative) were both in the same size bottle, both white tablets. On the first week of a new job at 8:00 am, I reached in my purse at my desk, opened the bottle, swallowed the pill, and realized at 8:01 am that I'd taken an Ambien instead of an allergy pill. I don't remember much except waking up in the company 'meditation room' 4 hours later. The secretary said I came running to her desk and said over and over "I've overdosed and I need to go home". She took away my car keys and left me to the meditation room. I made a great first impression."
— submitted by Angela Cloud Weich, Facebook
5. The Secret Career.
"Working at a law firm was incredibly BORING. The only way I could make the time pass was by talking to myself, pretending that I was a guest on a late night show. One day, my boss exited his office hysterically laughing because he had a security camera directly on me and had seen/heard my entire fake conversation. He then followed it with, "Really, Jimmy Fallon? I pegged you more as a Conan O' Brien girl.""
— submitted by Rachel Beth, Facebook
6. The Freudian Slip.
"I have a tendency to mush my words or just really butcher words together, especially when I’m tired. I was helping a customer out and they asked me what Anastasia Beverly Hills products we had in store, and I proceeded to say that we carry the Anastasia Contour Kit, but instead of kit, I said clit."
— submitted by 0ndray
7. The Southern Belle.
"I was folding some letters and the repairman came in to look at the printer. I had just finished with my last letters and as I was leaving, I heard the repairman muttering to himself: "What is wrong with this thing?"
Instead of leaving like a normal person, I stopped and replied, in a LOUD southern accent (I'm Canadian) "I don't know nothin' 'bout that there prinner!" He gave me a very confused look and I rolled my cart out of there hella fast."
— submitted by Hayley Schmale, Facebook
8. The Missing Stick.
"One day at the preschool where I work, I was drawing with chalk with one of the students outside. The kid asked me to draw her “dad”, and I did so, in stick-figure form. When I finished drawing her “dad”, she proceeded to yell: “YOU FORGOT TO DRAW HIS PENIS!!!” I was kinda mortified."
— submitted by kmgregory
9. The Greeting.
"I tried to tell a coworker 'hello' one morning, but it came out as 'howl'. He misheard me and thought I had 'meowed' at him. So he politely 'meowed' back to me. It was a big shit show from the beginning."
— submitted by markiehale0426
10. The Bandaid Butt.
"I've been a preschool teacher for years and this was at the first center I worked at. I got my period in the middle of our morning circle time but totally didn't realize it. One of the little boys saw and starts yelling "Ms Melissa is bleeding out of her butt!!!" Then ALL of my 10 kids of course had to see! I ran to get my jacket to cover up and I thought all was good until I could get coverage to change. While waiting, a new family with my director had come into my room where the little boy proceeded to tell all that I was bleeding out of my butt and must have a boo boo. He then asked each one if they had a bandaid so I could fix my butt boo."
— submitted by Melissa Kelly, Facebook
11. The Scroll One Too Many.
"I was interning in a political office a few years ago and one day I was assigned to staff my boss during an event. I was asked to take a few pictures at the event with my phone so they could be used for social media. That went fine, but when we got back to the office my boss asked to look at the photos I took so he could choose one to use. I handed him my phone and he scrolled through the photos but he scrolled one photo too far. This is the photo he saw…"
12. The Client Catastrophe.
I was working in a team of content writers for an SEO company and a colleague brought some randoms — a couple of guys and a woman —over to our desk clump to say hi. They seemed really nice and chatty so we were all cracking jokes. Then the woman asked how we'd feel about writing blog posts about fencing. I immediately rolled my eyes and went "Oooh fun!" in a very sarcastic way. Cue awkward silence. Turns out they were new clients. Who ran a fencing company.
— submitted by Clare McCarthy, Facebook
13. The Quesadilla a La Boob.
"I was working as a server at one of the nicest restaurants in town. One night a customer ordered a quesadilla which comes with guacamole and sour cream on the side. I brought the whole table's food out (four plates at once) and when I asked them if I could get them anything else I was met with blank and disgusted faces. I carried on serving all my other tables and finally ran into another waitress behind the bar who informed me that I had stuck my boob in the quesadilla customer's sour cream. No wonder they looked so grossed out. Quesadilla a la Boob."
— submitted by Kaylee019
14. The Popup Porno.
"During a sales presentation, with a big client, the sales managers’ laptop had thumbnails of girl on girl porn popup instead of the presentation. Needless to say, we didn’t keep the client.'
— submitted by caraw4f60b551c
15. The VaginaTime.
"One Saturday, I offered to work at my (then) new job partially because the workload was intense and partly to impress my jerk of a boss. He told me to call him once I got there but I really had to pee so I decided to kill two birds and do both at once but he didn’t pick up. I finished my business just as I saw my vagina in the phone screen under my bosses name. Apparently I had face timed him just as I was pulling up my pants and he got a shot of the goods right as he answered. We never spoke about it and I ended up quitting a few months later but never really could look him in the eye."
— submitted by hollypockets713
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.