Bonded By Cringe: Listeners Most Embarrassing Networking Stories

We've all been there, done something embarrassing. I said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I face flushes. We started to breathe heavily. If you're like me, you begin to sweat like a lot. Your body starts to experience the same fight or flight response you would have if you were in danger. It's terrible. But we all go through it. Welcome to episode 63 of this shit works. I'm your host, Julie Brown. And today I'm sharing cringe-worthy business and networking stories all shared by you. This episode is sponsored by Nickerson. A full service, branding, marketing, and PR and communications agency with team members in Boston. Los Angeles, Miami and New York city. Visit them@nickersoncos.com. Now, before we get into the stories, let me just say that these embarrassing moments, they may actually help you build trust with others. You know how much I love a good study and a recent study by researchers at UC Berkeley suggests that the display of embarrassment may increase others' perceptions of you as a trustworthy individual. Participants in this research watched videos of people describing their embarrassing moments and reported that they perceived those individuals as more generous and trustworthy. Compared to individuals who try to downplay the situation and pretend that they weren't embarrassed by it. I put out a call on LinkedIn and Instagram and asked for your most cringe-worthy business stories and you did not disappoint. Now onto your stories. My friend, Rebecca cracked me up with her story. She said I was running a breakfast program for a local industry organization. This was back in 2009 when we were still in the thick of the recession. This meant that the organization was really struggling with hotels and costs and attendance at the events. The event was on April 1st and there was a huge snow storm of all things that morning. This event included a terrific panel of speakers, discussing development and air rates in the Fenway neighborhood. I was flustered about all the no-shows due to this snowstorm. And in scanning ahead on my notes, what I should have said when I was introducing everyone, was I like to thank the speakers. But what actually came out of my mouth was I had like to spank. The speakers. When I said it, I couldn't believe it. I just paused for a moment. And she said, this is when her friend burst out laughing. So she said she just corrected herself and. That her mistake broke the tension in the room. So her lesson would be, be willing to laugh at yourself. She's since gone on to share this story with many teenagers and adults. Who are nervous about public speaking? I'd like to spank the speakers. That's a classic. That's a classic. My friend, Chuck sent in a story saying in 1997, I was the regional sales manager at the time back then I would wear sneakers while I was driving. So the heels of my dress shoes didn't where holes in the carpet of the format in my car. I would just bring my dress shoes with me and change in the parking lot. Well on this day, my boss from the headquarters in Virginia was joining me to do a presentation, a few towns over. So I met him there. When I got there and went to put my shoes on. I saw that I had forgotten my dress shoes at home. I had to go into the presentation with my boss. No less. With a nice suit on and a ratty shitty old pair of gym sneakers. While he was doing the introductions and getting the presentation going. I tried my best to hide my sneakers under the chair. And of course I was sitting right up front facing the crowd. Which was an all hands on deck, lunchtime, dog, and pony show. I tried my best to explain my interest in wardrobe selection when it was my turn to speak, but I know why I was being silently judged by everyone. Including my boss. This next one's a real doozy. I don't know if this person wants to remain anonymous. So I'm just going to call her D she says. I was part of a really great women owned business networking group with a number of, from leaders in my city. After seven plus years, all of us had become really good friends. And one of the architects from our group invited me to a dinner party at her house. I accepted. And the night of the dinner, I brought my amiable boyfriend. This is where it gets bad guys. So her boyfriend meets this architect at the dinner party and then connects with her on Facebook. And then these two started a major. Very public flirtation. She said, I asked them both about it for months and months and both denied. There was anything to it. One night, our networking group went out to dinner. At the dinner. She asked if I was still dating my boyfriend. I said I was, and she knew I was, and in front of the whole table, she says that she and my boyfriend had recently gone to a concert together. There was several open mountains at the table and thank God. One of the women had a clever change of subject. Anyway. Even with this information about them going to the concert together, they still denied that there was anything between them. In the end. I ended the relationship and soon after this woman by so-called friend of more than seven years and my networking buddy. Posted a photo of herself from his Cape pose onto her company, Instagram page. Anyway, sloppy networking at the most and disappointing to say at the least this is, this is not sloppy networking. This is like garbage, human being stuff. What a total Dick move to not only essentially break up a relationship, but to also throw away a friendship and to also show that you don't really care about your business reputation, as it pertains to networking and relationships. It's not just sloppy. Never again. Okay. Onto a lighter funnier story in a sentence from my friend Shera, who said, when I first started using zoom, now this was pre pandemic. So it was a while ago. I had an important design kickoff meeting planned with a large team with very difficult to corral team members. A big snow storm had made in-person impossible and I really didn't want to cancel. So we decided to have a zoom meeting. I woke up early and sat down at my desk to prepare for the meeting, thinking I would shower and get dressed later. But I got so engrossed and perfecting the presentation that I lost track of time. And I was still in my robe with bedhead hair. When the meeting time came up. I logged in and chose. Hide self view. Not realizing that while I could not see me, everybody else already on the zoom call could see me. Fortunately, I asked one of the guys on the call and the chat, if I was hidden and he was kind enough to tell me I wasn't and he quickly explained how to stop the video, not just hide self view. She says, I'm sure there are better stories out there, but I think everyone has a, had a version of zoom nightmares like this. It definitely could have been worse. She also sent in a story about one of her friends and it goes like this, in her early days in law. Before becoming a partner, she was a large conference call with all their offices around the country. They dialed in early. And my friend thinking she was muted, started telling her coworker who was a friend of hers, about a hot date. She had over the weekend. It was a salty story. With great detail. She ended her story to hear. Okay team. Now that C is done with, uh, her update. Let's start the meeting. Well, this woman went on to become partner in is super successful. So maybe sounding like one of the guys actually helped her. So Sherif says the morals of the story are check, mute, and check video status before starting your calls or meetings. Okay. One listener who asked to remain anonymous, sent in two stories as well. Her first story is about meeting a guy at a networking event who had a very interesting first and last name. By the time she had been introduced to him, she had had a couple of glasses of wine. And when he introduced himself, she just burst out, laughing and said, come on, what's your real name? Not your porn star name. Side note here. I also know this particular fellow and I too thought his name was made up when I first heard it. Her second story is short and I think it's something most of us have done. And when you realize you've done it, the blood drains from your face and you immediately go into a cold sweat. She said she had sent an email to her graphic designer bashing one of her clients. And then afterwards realized the client was still on the email chain. This has happened to me before, and this is why you need a 22nd. Oh shit. Undo button on your email, which I have. It's a real thing. Look into it. My friend told me, you said that her biggest nightmare lately is the fact that she has celiac disease and there is almost never anything she can eat when she was out at events. She says I'm a small person. And if I have a couple of glasses of wine, I really need some snacks. She says, I try to remember to eat something before, but with my schedule, it's not always possible. Or half the time I lined tell people I ate beforehand. To make things worse. If I tell someone I can't eat because I have celiac, they proceed to ask, well, what happens if you eat gluten? Like, do you really, she says, do you really want me to tell you that we dying on the toilet the next day? Or do you want to just web MD when you get home to figure out what would happen? Another anonymous listener. said that she was at a convention in Boston with developers and deal makers. She was working for an environmental firm at the time. At the convention, her firm had a huge blow up booth, that she says was actually really incredible. As the convention was winding down, she decided to break down her booth early, which meant. She wanted to try to do it on the slide. So she dragged the blow up booth behind the curtain of where her booth was supposed to be. If you've ever done a convention, you know, you'd throw all your shit behind the curtain. So she dragged the blow up booth behind the curtain. As she bent down to deflate it, she hit the pole. We were asked, she hit the pole, holding up the booth next to her. And that set off a domino effect that booth knocked down the one next to it. And the one after that until the entire room of booths came crashing down. Now, this has never happened to me, but anybody who has ever worked a conference or conventions knows what a pain in the ass it is to break down a booth. And I can't imagine how much of a ruckus this must've cost. All because she'd been over and hit her ass on the pole of the boot with the next door. This next story comes from my friend, Brian, who writes on my second trip to Las Vegas for a business convention, a few peers, and I were figuring out how to get one from one event at the Bellagio to another event at the Rio. I was the only one that had been to Las Vegas before and after learning that the wait for a taxi was over an hour. I suggested that we just walk. This was long before Uber. My parents told me I was crazy, but I said, trust me, I've been to Las Vegas from pro before, and I've stayed at both the Bellagio and the Rio, and they simply are not that far apart. Well, as the crows fly, these two hotels are only a five to 10 minute walk. But in Las Vegas, 10 minutes barely gets you out of the Bellagio. And 35 minutes into their walk. They were still walking along the perimeter of the hotel. He said they could see the Rio, but it looked like it was miles away. Uh, one of the women actually had to remove her heels so he said all of these people. That he had essentially Con-Ed. We're grumbling and unhappy. The taxis and Vegas are not allowed to stop on the roadways. So once they made that decision to walk, there was no choice left, but to try John. He says, when we finally arrived at the Rio more than an hour after they started walking there. He said they didn't really lose much time. Cause the wait for the taxi was an hour, but by the time they got there, they were all exhausted. They're hot, sweaty, thirsty, starving. You said he was quickly ostracized by his fellow walkers. Luckily within an hour of cocktails, everyone was laughing about it. And the story made the rounds at the convention and was the subject of chuckles for years to come. This sort of thing has happened to me. I attend multiple conferences a year and I am new tourist, really bad with directions and maps. So I feel your pain, Brian. My friend, Renee wrote in to say, because I'm constantly networking. I need so many new people at events several months will go by and then I'll meet them again. But I've usually forgotten that I ever met them in the first place, the old, oh, nice to meet you. And then they remind me that we met five months ago at an event. She said, I always feel like a big jerk when that happens. She goes on to say that she wants to hang out with an old colleague at a networking event for hours and call them the wrong name the entire time. And he never corrected her. And like, dude. That's that guy's problem for not speaking up and correcting you, like you say your name wrong once. Like you expect somebody to correct you. Like, If you say wrong ones and they don't correct you that's there. Here's another great one from my friend, Maria. She says one day I was meeting another business developer for breakfast. Fancy hotel in Boston. This hotel had valet for parking. So I parked and got out and threw my keys to be attended. Who asked me how long I was going to be. And without hesitation I responded. Um, just going in for a quickie. So probably one to two hours. As the words left my mouth, I heard myself and realized the valley now thought I was going in to engage in something sexual. And I could only smile and keep going. When I got to the breakfast table and told my friend, she howled with laughter and pointed out that at least we were at a nice hotel. So if he thought I was a prostitute, I was a high paid one at that. So. I think I saved the best story for last. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be anonymous, so I'm just going to keep it anonymous. The story goes. About 20 years ago, I was working with the local community college on an entrepreneurial program for small sole proprietors. Think painting contractors or construction, cleaning or plumbers. They took a six week course to learn how to set up bookkeeping, get permits, read blueprints, get bank loans, et cetera. And I finished out the course with the basics of marketing. Picture this. A room filled with 25 to 30 people. Mostly men of color. I'm talking about things like make sure you return phone calls, promptly, wear clean branded shirts to meet new clients, wash your truck, show up on time, et cetera. And when you hire employees, make sure that they, as the face of your company do the same. Except that I didn't say hire employees. I accidentally said. By employees. Bye. Employees to a room full of men of color. I said by employees, At panicked and instead of just shutting up and moving on, I started out, oh no. Oh no, not by you. Can't we, you can't buy people anymore. And my mouth kept moving. Thankfully a beautiful man with a sense of humor saved me and said, Nope. I'm not for sale. You will have to hire me and everyone laughed. That's crazy. I want to thank everyone who shared their stories with me. And obviously with you, we all make mistakes. Our lives and our careers are going to have mistakes, pepper throughout. I recently gave a presentation on thought leadership and how in order to call ourselves an expert, we need to be well-versed in failure. Only an expert knows how things can go wrong and how to anticipate and avoid that from happening again. I know all the mistakes I have made and networking has actually made me a better networker because I've learned from them, but maybe not just that, maybe like the study suggests when I embrace my mistakes and share them with others, I'm actually looked at as more genuine and trustworthy. Okay. Onto the drink of the week, which is the Spangler. Uglietto cocktail and Italians Bagley. Adam means mistake. So supposedly while making this drink, a bar tender, grabbed sparkling wine instead of gin, as he was making this cocktail resulting in this, what they call happy and delicious mistake. Here's what you need. Four ounces of dry Prosecco or other sparkling white wine. One ounce of sweet vermouth, a half ounce of compari club, soda and Aline wheel, which are going to do is pour the Prosecco into an iced field, large wine or rocks glass. At the vermouth and the compari and top off with club soda. Gently stir together and then garnish with align. And there you have it. If you have any cringe-worthy stories that you would like to share. And our next cringe-worthy episode, please feel free to pop over to Instagram or LinkedIn and send me a message. I'm so looking forward to next week's episode, where I will once again be sharing your ghost and paranormal stories in our second annual special Halloween episode. Until next week. Cheers.