[Misc] Putting your foot in it - your worst examples?

[Wozza]

Had a call with a Scottish colleague earlier. I obviously launched STRAIGHT into “Scotland get battered everywhere they go…”

Turns out he hasn’t been watching the football. His mate is in a coma, with his life in the balance, after he got hit by a bus at the weekend.

Oops.

That’s up there (down there) with the time I casually asked a new dad if his baby “had all its fingers and thumbs” - a ruddy ridiculous question, but I was v young. Turns out he did, but has Down’s Syndrome. A conversation I really wasn’t ready for at the time.

Worst ever was a few months’ back when I jovially asked a (distant) colleague how he was enjoying being a dad. Turns out his baby daughter was born with a brain issue and had died after a few weeks. *cringe*

Had a few “Are you pregnant?” scrapes too. I don’t ask unless they look at least 7 or 8 months in.

What’s YOUR worst?

 

[Eeyore]

I remember a mate taking me to visit a family he knew when I was 12. I commented on how nice the mum was. She wasn't the mum, she was the bloke's girlfriend.

 

[Is it PotG?]

As a keen young man I drove a long way for a really nice looking job interview.
All was going well, then the question why I left my.job as a copper.
'I was a little too young when I joined, and I didn't fancy becoming part of the funny handshake culture'

Needless to say matey was part of the local lodge, and my chance crumbled before my very eyes.

Still, we live and learn.

 

[JetsetJimbo]

I don't expect anyone believe this story, but it's true.

At this point in the early 00s, my workplace was close enough to my parents' home that I'd often pop round for lunch. After lunch one especially windy day, I was walking back to work and I saw two guys struggling to carry a mattress. The strong wind didn't help, it really looked like they could use an extra pair of hands.

So I sped up my walk to catch up with them, and said "do you guys need a hand?"

As the words left my lips, I noticed the older of the two guys had a full-on old-fashioned hook for a hand.

I'm sure I went bright red. I think they said they didn't need help, but to be honest I was too embarrassed to hear them at that point.

 

[Brovion]

I think I've told this before (but I'll tell it again).

When my wife was pregnant with our son, we went to ante-natal classes. One of our fellow classmates was a Chinese lady who lived up our road. My wife knew her to talk to, and told me that her family ran one of the local takeaways, but she didn't know which one.

One evening after class I thought I'd be friendly and was chatting to her about children, pregnancies, etc. Once we'd exhausted the immediate topics of conversation, there was a lull, and so I said:
"So what takeaway do you run then?"
She looked at me, quite angrily, and spat out "I work in IT!" and walked off.

Obviously I was terribly embarrassed, and my wife and I then had one of those hissed rows as I said "I thought you said her family ran a takeaway!" and she denied ever saying it. The good news is that I think she's long forgotten/forgiven as our two families have become friends. Neither of us ever mention it though!

 

[Kosh]

Sitting down with a farmer to discuss funding opportunities, telling him how I’d met a colleague of mine - top bloke etc. who had some insight into local water quality issues…

“That fucker, he ran off with my f***ing wife…”

Mike drop.

… ahem.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

A couple of decades ago I ran both an IT team and IT Project team. The IT Project team was five of us and we carried out a challenge to see how many KitKat fingers we could get in our mouths in one go - yes, I know, rather childish ! Anyway the the winner was a rather nice female engineer. When she left, as her manager, I gave the traditional leaving speech to the whole IT team ( about 20 engineers ). I happened to mention in the speech that she was able to take six fingers inside her ....... the look of horror on most peoples faces and how embarrassed she was were a picture but something I regret saying.

 

[dippy2449]

I was coming out of a gig one night and at the entrances was a piano with a girl playing with her back to me, I said "can you play chopsticks?" she turned round and she was Asian.

 

[Berty23]

Two relatively recent ones for me.

1) on the underground I offered a lady my seat thinking she was pregnant. She wasn’t. “Do you think I am pregnant?” Everyone without headphones on felt awkward. I got off at the next station and moved down a carriage.

2) before heading to an “awayday” I saw a programme about that family where the mum still breastfed her kids when they were something like 7 years old. I was chatting to me boss about it and someone said “do you think it is an odd thing to do?” And I answered honestly. Turns out this lady breastfeeds her 8 year old and that “it is the most natural thing in the world” (for a boy approaching puberty to be sucking on mum’s boobs.)

Maybe I am actually a misogynist.

 

[pasty]

BBC live feed about an hour ago

10 Mins. Croatia growing into the game and causing problems

11 mins. Goal Albania

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Aged 19, having been vetted for a specific job in the Navy, interviewed by security, with no less that four referees, I found out one girl on my watch was pregnant, and to a married man.
A few days later, I went back to Pompey, to see an old friend, and sitting on the top deck of a bus, after a visit to the cinema, I retold this story, amazed at how security had missed the affair, and the result. I didn’t mention any names.
Returning to work two days later, she had a go at me, asking why I was talking about her behind her back!
It turned out the bloke immediately in front of me on the bus, was the said married man!

Luckily, she was gone a week later.

 

[BevBHA]

Reminds me of this absolute classic from this DJ

 

[Balders]

Mrs B sent me an email from her work many years ago as one of her colleagues had invited us to her Wedding Reception asking me how she should respond, not realising she had replied to all. Back then I had a standard joke reply to things I wasn't interested in, which I sent inadvertently by pressing "reply to all" which simply said........... "shoot her in the face".

Whoops

 

[Cornwallboy]

I once posted a link on NSC to a article in the Daily Mail....it was like armageddon!!! The anger and abuse was unreal and after doing it I vowed to do it again!!

 

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

Years ago, I was in a customer's house having just fixed his washing machine.
He had made me a cup of tea while the appliance was on test.
I started talking to him about darts as I used to play super league and county darts back in those days.
He was a bit vague about my questions and asked why I was talking about darts.
I told him that I thought he was into darts and he asked why.
I said 'You've got a picture on the wall of you and Jockey Wilson'
He looked at me stony faced and replied 'That's my f***ing WIFE'

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Years ago, I was in a customer's house having just fixed his washing machine.
He had made me a cup of tea while the appliance was on test.
I started talking to him about darts as I used to play super league and county darts back in those days.
He was a bit vague about my questions and asked why I was talking about darts.
I told him that I thought he was into darts and he asked why.
I said 'You've got a picture on the wall of you and Jockey Wilson'
He looked at me stony faced and replied 'That's my f***ing WIFE'

Was it meant to be a picture of Jackie Wilson?

 

[Rogero]

Many years back I was in the Marlipins in Shoreham and there was an Indian fellow there . I thought I recognised and ask if the restaurant was shut that night . He replied that he was a doctor at Southlands , My mates still remind me of this .

 

[pasty]

Mrs B sent me an email from her work many years ago as one of her colleagues had invited us to her Wedding Reception asking me how she should respond, not realising she had replied to all. Back then I had a standard joke reply to things I wasn't interested in, which I sent inadvertently by pressing "reply to all" which simply said........... "shoot her in the face".

Whoops

Similar email error. My step daughter was going by train on her own aged 13 to see her dad. I put her on the train and asked her dad to let me know when he’d picked her up at the other end.

He duly did, so I forwarded the message to her mum saying “dick head knobjockey had picked her up”

Except I didn’t “forward” it. Yup, I’d hit reply

 

[Bry Nylon]

When I was a kid, the Saturday evening family treat was fish and chips from the local chippie. I used to go with my dad to collect the order and over the years we got to know the owner and the other regulars in the early-evening Saturday queue pretty well.

One weekend, my older sister was home form nursing college in London and when it got to fish and chip time, she offered to go and collect them and consequently I was dispatched to go with her, as I knew the ropes. In her mitigation, I don't think she'd ever really been to the chippie before in her life.

When we arrived in the bustling shop, the owner spotted me coming through the door and called out from behind the fryers, "Alright young 'un? No dad tonight?"
"He's at home," I replied. "But he said to ask if you've got a chicken leg?"
Whereupon my sister thought it would be a good time to shout out, "No - it's just the way he walks!", Eric Morecambe style, which to be fair, in different circumstances, could have been quite funny.
Instantly, all the chatter stopped and a deathly hush instantly fell across the shop.
"I'll have to check out the back," replied the owner, coldly, as he limped off through the coloured streamers, his prosthetic limb and platform boot scrapping along the floor.

FFS

 

[Happy Exile]

Many years ago I worked as a wedding photographer. I've got 101 stories of awful things happening at weddings and some absolutely mad moments including other people putting their foot in it but my personal worst moment was a bride misunderstanding a question I asked. It was about whether there'd be children in a group photo she wanted carefully choreographed around the features of the venue because if so we'd put them in position last so they didn't get bored and run off, and as she was about to go and get her make-up redone first I just needed to know how long she'd be so I could start setting things up and getting people in position.

It was something like "are there going to be children? And how long do you think you'll be?" In the context of the preceding 10 minute chat she'd cornered me for detailing the logistics of the photo that she wanted it was a completely innocent question but she interpreted it as me asking if her and her new husband were planning to have kids and make the first one that night - literally, that's how she took it. Her husband heard and was as perplexed as I was at her absolutely ballistically explosive reaction then just found it funny when he realised her misunderstanding which just made her angrier. One of those where someone reacts so badly you can't save it because they're past the point of reason. I spent the rest of the time knowing that at least half the guests thought I'd offended the bride on her big day though, the best man improvised a joke at my expense into his speech, the bride seethed whenever she noticed me...I still cringe remembering

A few years later the groom tried to hire me again to photograph his second wedding but I'd stopped doing it by then...he said the first one had lasted 6 months and he knew before even the honeymoon was over that he'd made a mistake!