Misstep

People e-mail me: ”Frank, you’re so perfect, don’t you ever commit mistakes?” No actually they don’t write this to me at all but I thought it would be a great introduction to my story. This story happened at my job a few days ago and it is definitively something I regret doing — badly.

One of my co-worker is a really, really shy girl. She rarely speaks and if you make eye contact, she is sure to look away after a few seconds. She always puts her both hands together and always shake a bit when you say her first name. She doesn’t speak very loud and always eat alone at dinner. She had had a very bad case of acne when she was younger and it left some terrible marks and scars on her face. I suppose it is the reason she is so shy and unsecure. She is really complexed by it too; once, I was moving my hands while talking and I almost accidentally touched her face; she jumped back all of a sudden, shocked.

Before I continue, let me say this: I hadn’t had a good day. There were rumors I was going to be transferred, I had been yelled at by my boss, I lost 2,000$ in stocks, etc. Also, I had also learnt that some of my co-workers “didn’t like me as much as I loved them” and that one of them in particular – I didn’t know who – wanted me out of this place. To add to the insult, every member of my team was going to spend the afternoon at Safari Park (a zoo in Québec), except for me, who wasn’t invited despite being part of the team.. It was free and everyone in the office was invited – except that I never received the invitation. So everyone would spend the afternoon having fun at the zoo while I would work. None of my co-workers ever thought a second about inviting me. Funny.

Before they left, I decided to ask a question to my supervisor (new one) when I saw she was in discussion with my Ms. Acne. Nice, I thought! I tried to engage conversation with both when everything crashed. It went basically like this:

Ms. ACNE: It’s going to be really really nice this afternoon! I can hardly wait!

SUPERVISOR: Yeah, totally!

ME (playing innocent): Oh, what is happening?

MS. ACNE: Ohhh…. Huh… We’re going to the zoo…

Hypocrits. Didn’t invite me. Stay here and work Frank while we enjoy our afternoon off! Here’s the sentence that ruined everything, said to MS.ACNE:

ME: Oh, you shouldn’t go there: they might take you for one of the animals and refuse to let you out.

I thought it was hilarious. Not here apparently. She immediately bursted into tears, hid her face in her hands and ran away. Come on, it was just a joke. No one I talked to seemed to think it was funny and now that the story is a few days old, I am forced to agree with them : perhaps this was a “slightly” misplaced joke.

This is a huge misstep I’ve done and now that I think of it, it wasn’t very bright of myself. Hardly anyone at the office talks to me now; apparently, stories go around quickly ;-).

Oh, I heard a few days later that she didn’t go to the zoo and rather spent the afternoon working. Oh, the subtle irony!