From fact to embarassment to comedy...

I had the most interesting situation happen today at work. In order for you to get all the details, I feel that I must give you some background information so you can truly appreciate this to its fullest and have a good gut laugh like I was able to have. Pure comedy my friends.

I just got a new boss last week, and I have officially lost count of the number of bosses I have had in my 9 1/2 years with the company, but it is more times than my job title has changed and more times I have moved my desk (both being a large number if you really want to know). Anyway, the boss asked us if we could set our Outlook calendars to share with him so he can actually see the meetings we have scheduled and not just what times we are not available. Immediately, I was like, no way...don't you trust us? Now, I didn't say that out loud as I know that would not go over, but that does not stop me from having conversations in my own head. I have found that the best conversations are often in my head and I can entertain myself for hours on end.


I have never shared my calendar with anyone on the new version so was uncertain how to do it. Once I found it, I realized that I not only have my work information in my calendar but also some personal items that I don't want to share with people at work. I have learned to protect certain things from situations in the past where people lack discretion, so I have opted to be discreet and save everyone else the trouble. I know that I have set most of my personal items to have the private check box selected not really certain what that action does, but figured it couldn't hurt and someday I might now. Well, it turns out that this is the perfect opportunity to find out since my boss wants to know my life.

I asked my boss to please let me know if he can see the information in my calendar marked private. He promises to email me and let me know.

Jump ahead a week and now we are at TODAY....


We have our weekly PMO meeting where we go over what is new from management and what all we have worked on, plan to be working on and anything driving us nuts. We get to my turn for an update and a colleague realizes that she still has not shared her calendar with our boss. At that point, I jump in and say, "Yes and you never emailed me about the Private options, so....You can't see my privates." Yes, after saying it, my boss turns red to the top of his head as he is bald, I feel myself blushing and try to recover, but how do you really recover from something like that. I try to say, "I mean my private meetings." But there is really nothing to do, so I feel myself go from innocent honesty to embarrassment to pure comedy and take that moment to laugh so hard that my stomach hurts and my eyes cry. I was not alone in this event because of the four of us in the room, 3 of us are laughing and crying. The one not laughing said he figured it was better to be quiet as he was pretty certain anything he said would land him in HR.

I have made it through almost 10 years with the company and have never officially landed a nick name for something stupid, but I am pretty certain this will be talked over at happy hours for a while and if I don't land a nick name like Private Myers, I will be in shock.

So, always remember to properly word your sentences as you may really be trying to provide valuable information and just leaving one word out can take you to comedy in a moment.