I really have to think before I speak sometimes… One of my many faults I guess. I was at work on Friday, pretty much everyone was gone from the ground floor (I’m sure the fact it was a long weekend had nothing to do with that). Some random guy wanders up to me and introduces himself as the general manager for Canada (or some high ranking position). I am polite and jovial as I was taught. He asks where everyone else is and I tell him they are all gone, not sure where. I then say something (in a joking voice) about how I’m just waiting a few minutes more before I sneak out. “We don’t work that way here,” he says. So here I am backpedalling and trying to make it known I was making a stupid joke (which I was (mostly)) without sounding like a complete ass.
Then he’s on his way out and passed by OtherProgrammer’s desk and asks “so where’s OtherProgrammer?” “In jail probably,” I said, which is to be honest, the truth (OtherProgrammer had a minor altercation with the DMV that he had to go to a hearing to see if he gets a couple of days jail time). “What?! Are you serious?”
So I guess BigImportantManager hadn’t heard this yet, eh?
I (once again) backpedaled desparately, and said that of course I wasn’t, and that OtherProgrammer had something with the DMV to deal with today, and wasn’t in.
phew
So the lesson of the day was “think before speaking, think before speaking, think before speaking.”