I was getting ready in the dark so as not to disturb my husband. My boss was picking me up at 6 a.m. so that we could arrive at the conference on time, a location quite a driving distance away. I had picked out my suit the night before, a conservative navy appropriate for the insurance seminar we were attending. As I saw headlights turning into the driveway, I scrambled to grab my shoes and out the door I went. It wasn’t until I walked into the hotel and looked down that I saw a navy pump on my left foot and a black one on my right. 

Workplace blunders - like TV bloopers after a program showing that actors are human and make mistakes too. They laugh at themselves along with everyone else.

As embarrassed as I was, I had to laugh too. At a size five, finding professional heels was not an easy task, and when I found a pair that fit, I’d buy multiples in different colors. Brown, navy, and black. Hard to tell the difference in the dark.

Though not really a blunder exactly, I recall a particular time when traveling to New Jersey, a weekly work event. I’d arrived at the Boston airport at what turned out to be a bit too early and checked my bag. Thinking back, I wonder what I was thinking when checking a bag. It was a three-day trip each week. Wouldn’t everything fit in an overnight that I could store in the overhead bin? No, instead I checked a bag each week and boarded the plane. It was a quick flight and then I arrived at the Newark Airport. Apparently, my luggage had other plans. Luckily, after hours of searching, my suitcase was found in a locked room. It was put in there after no one claimed it from the previous flight. There is a downside to being too early!

Workplace blunders don’t just happen to the young professional. I was well into my career by this point and interviewing for a new position that I really wanted. It was back in the day when you actually had to interview in person, and I spent most of the morning in the same conference room meeting several different groups of people who would come and go. After several hours and a short wrap-up meeting with the hiring manager, we shook hands and I left. 

I had parked a distance away from the building, thinking about the interview and the people I had met as I walked to my car. It was then I realized I didn’t have my pocketbook with me. I’d left it in the conference room. When I got back to the building, imagine my embarrassment when I looked into the conference room to find it full of employees - those I’d interviewed with earlier - and saw my bag hanging on the back of one of the chairs. Naturally, I was spotted and the hiring manager came out of the conference room with my purse. “I was trying to be memorable,” I joked.