Six degrees of workplace humiliation

We’ve all had them, or seen them. Here are my top six ways (from personal experience or geninune urban legend) to destroy all workplace credibility:

1. Non-work related printer use. I was once, in my days as a law-firm assistant librarian, caught out printing a theme-party invite with a hip-hop flayvah and as I (I thought discreetly) collected it from the printer I had two secretaries smile at me and say “word up?”

2. Inappropriate snail-mail sent to a work address. At my big Sydney firm, one of the partners once had someone sign them up to a porn catalogue snail-mail mailing list. You know, as a prank. Or because they thought they'd like it. I dunno. Anyway, the discreet brown envelope arrived on his desk with a long slit in the paper and a cheery stamp from the mailroom reading “Opened in error”. Mmmm ... credibility in the mailroom, with the mail delivery boy, with your secretary ... strangest part of all, he told this story freely to the junior solicitors.

3. Christmas party madness. After a few drinks I’ll sometimes poke my tongue out and stick my face right in a camera. Blurry, crazy me. Didn’t realise it was the “official” camera. All photos posted to the office intranet. Ouch. (Doesn’t compare though to the urban legend of a Sydney firm Christmas party where a summer clerk snuck a boy backstage so she could kiss him in *ahem* a special way, until that is the curtain went up on what proved a rather special opening to the evening’s entertainment.)

4. E-mail. A law grad at my old firm had a bottle of wine plundered from the fridge. She sent a desperately complaining e-mail around, but instead of “all Sydney” she selected “all Firm” and got answers pleading ignorance of stealing her wine from Sydney ... and Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, London and Hong Kong. Lawyers can be cruel people - and way to look good in front of the partners (on a truly international scale).

5. The phone. Being caught in the middle of long, involved family or personal calls by a boss in a hurry …

6. Workplace relationships. Again, at my old firm, the year of summer clerks before mine had one particular summer-clerk romance. They decided to get hot and heavy on a pinball machine a partner had in his office. Shame he came back to collect some papers late that evening …


Stories, anyone?