The Mean Lady Made Me Cry

I believe there is a continuum of failure…from your run-of-the-mill dropping of the ball to your large scale fails…the epic fail.  The only thing is that because of its overuse, the word epic has lost its, well its epicness.  'Wow dude that shirt is an epic fail'.  If a word like epic isn’t epic anymore, how should we describe the true epic fail?  Super Duper Epic Fail?

I’ve been on the delivery end of some super duper epic fails, and I’ve been on the receiving end of some.  In the continuing saga of epic service fails, this is one that sticks in my mind.  I feel like I’m the victim in this story, but I’m not 100% sure that’s true.

Twenty years ago this week I had my first date with my wife.  I knew the moment I laid eyes on her that one day she was going to be Mrs. Slater.  Twenty years later and she’s still not sure.  At any rate, I didn’t completely screw up our first blind date, so we wound up with a second, then a third.  Before I knew it, we were a year in, and I was thinking about locking things down.  I started to shop for a diamond.

The first date was good, I was hooked.  Seriously hooked.

If you’ve been reading along, you’ve more than likely gathered that I’m a bit anal and slightly obsessive, so why would diamond shopping be any different?  Within the period of about a month, I visited every single store in Ottawa that sold diamond engagement rings.  I saw every ring that was available, including some stunning selections that were well beyond my modest budget.  I remember a lady in Birks showing me a 20 carat sapphire ring she had to retrieve from the safe.  She knew I couldn’t afford it, but I think she just wanted to show it.

I knew every single cut of diamond from the princess cut to the pear shape to the baguette cut.  I knew my colours, my carats and my clarities.  I knew some of the salespeople by name, and they knew me.  I remember walking by a jewelry store window in the Rideau Centre one day, and I saw what I thought was the most beautiful ring.  It was actually a set, with the engagement ring and the wedding band.  The engagement ring was a really pretty pear shaped diamond, and when it snuggled up close to the wedding band, some additional diamonds in the wedding band turned that pretty pear into a magnificent marquis (a diamond shaped diamond).

Not exactly it, but you get the point

I had to have it.  I knew Laura would love it.  I went into the store and saw Monique who I had spoken to on a few occasions previously, and let me tell you, she was thrilled that I had finally settled on a ring.  Holding the beautiful ring in my hand convinced me even more that I had made the right decision.  I threw down a three hundred dollar deposit, Monique took the sizing information, and we agreed I’d be back in a few weeks to pick that baby up.

I laid down all my cash...$300 

I should mention that at this point, while I had seen every single ring in Ottawa at least once, I also had about six rings on hold in various jewelry shops around town.  I hadn’t paid any deposits, but they were holding them for me.  Once I settled on Monique’s pear shaped beauty, I had the unpleasant job of releasing all those other rings.  My friend at Birks with the humungous sapphire wasn’t happy that I let the little diamond that she was saving for me go back into circulation.

The rings I had on hold may have been slightly more modest

So the job was done.  All that was left was to come up with the rest of the cash and then take possession of the ring.  One day I was in the mall with Laura, so I trotted her past the window and casually stopped to scan the rings.  My ring was in the right in the middle.  I was completely horrified when she nonchalantly dismissed all the rings in the window.  Holy Crap.  I had three hundred bucks on that ring, and she didn’t even notice it.

Laura wasn't as excited, and I was devastated

Back to the drawing board.  Instead of going back to all the rings I had on hold, I started the search over again, and within a few weeks, I found what I believed to be the perfect ring and bought it.  Now I owned one engagement ring, and was paying on another.  I was fairly certain my deposit was lost, so I didn’t think too much about it and went on with planning the big engagement surprise.  (That’s another story for another day, but suffice to say, it didn’t go nearly as well in real life as I had planned in my head.)

Not exactly it, but it's close to the one I proposed with.  She said yes, so it musta been OK

The day I was going to propose, I happened to be in the mall picking something up, and I saw the jewelry store, and inside I saw Monique.  Monique was a big French Canadian woman who may have been a cross-dresser.  I had spent a couple of months avoiding the store, but that day, I thought I’d see if there was any money I could get back…I was sure I would have to pay for the sizing, but I figured there might be some cash I could put back in my pocket.  So in I walked.

Just a little bit prettier than the real Monique

Monique saw me, and rushed over.  She was thrilled to see me, and happy that I would be paying the balance and picking up the ring.  When I told her that I wouldn’t be needing the ring, and asked about a refund, she said, “Listen honey, I’m working with paying customers right now…I’m busy.  Go walk around the mall for an hour and come back.  I’ll have time for you then.”  I was completely shocked, but had some things to do, and in order to not rock the boat, I went and did the shopping I needed to do.

Get out of my store and don't come back...I've got paying customers

About ninety minutes later, I returned.  Monique saw me from a distance and disappeared into the back.  I asked someone to let her know I was there, and they said that she had gone on her lunch, and that I should come back another time.  I told her that I saw Monique go into the back, and that I was just going to wait for her there.  I waited about 20 minutes, and was really getting pissed off with the sales people going back and forth, whispering, chuckling, and on occasion, pointing in my direction.  Nobody spoke to me, and nobody made eye contact.

There's only so long you can take it before you snap

I saw someone that looked managerial standing by the cash register.  I walked up to him and asked if he was the manager and he confirmed that he was.  I told him that I was having a problem with Monique and he was just about to dismiss me when from somewhere deep, I summoned up a tear, and a story to go with it.  “I put a deposit on this ring about three months ago and I was about to propose to my girlfriend.  About 3 weeks later, she was killed in a car crash.  I’ve had such a hard time dealing with it, and today, I felt strong enough to handle this, and then this is how Monique treats me…”   By that time, tears were streaming down my face and my eyes were puffy.  He looked distraught, and to this day, I have never seen three hundred bucks come flying out of a cash register so fast. 

I'm pretty sure my performance was better than ole' Dawson's

He apologized profusely, handed me a box of Kleenex and asked if I wanted a glass of water.  I dabbed my wet eyes, jammed the three hundred bucks in my pocket, and split.  I’ve never gone back to that chain since.  I don’t know if this situation had anything to do with it, but about a month later when I was in the mall, I saw Monique working in another jewelry store.  I gave her a big wave as I passed by her new store.  I may or may not have used all my fingers in that wave.

Cash, Cash, beautiful Cash...See ya Monique!

While I’m pretty proud of my acting performance that day, I’m not that proud of the fact that I lied to get cash…that may be a super duper epic fail in the personal ethics department, but I still think it pales in comparison to Monique’s super, super, duper epic service failure.

And the Oscar for Best Actor in an attempt to retrieve a deposit on a diamond ring...

Epic Fails, Part 1

When I screw something up at home, my kids call it a ‘fail’, as in ‘that’s a fail, Dad’.  When it’s a major screw-up, that’s called an epic fail.  Everybody has epic fails in life and at work.  We had them in school, and we had them in relationships.   I had an epic life, school, and relationship fail all in one sentence once, when unbeknownst to me, I asked Allison Redding to the school dance…in front of the entire class.  Epic fail.

For 25 years, I’ve been a service guy.  I’ve worked in businesses that sell service.  Except for a couple of forays into the world of retail or food service, I’ve never actually sold a tangible thing like a car or fridge or a computer.  I’ve sold service.  I’ve delivered service, and I’ve managed people who sell and deliver service.  I’m pretty sure it’s different than selling something you can put in a bag and send away with the customer.  It’s unique.

 

I have been party to some pretty epic service failures, so I know what I’m talking about.  One epic fail that immediately rockets to the top of my mind involves a crying customer picking up small change off the floor of a Scandanavian build-it-yourself furniture store.  Absolutely not my proudest moment as a service guy.  Click here to read more about that one.

I bring up the Ikea incident as a segue to some other epic fails in customer service.  In these cases though, I’ve been on the receiving end of the epic failure in customer satisfaction.  I think that while I am hyper-sensitive to mediocre and down-right disastrous customer service that I tend to give the service person the benefit of the doubt.  Sometimes I think it must be corporate policy to be stupid and bitchy, so how can you hold that against anyone?

I once worked for Canadian Pacific Hotels and Resorts (now Fairmont) at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.  I think I learned everything I know about service from that company.  They taught me that the satisfaction of our guests was paramount, and that everything else was secondary.   I was empowered to make my customer happy.  

  

Compare that to another hotel I worked at in Calgary after leaving CP Hotels, where in training, I asked a question about my level of empowerment.  To this day, I can’t believe the answer…”Really Sean, you’re not paid to think.  You’re paid to smile.  That’s what the guests want.  We have managers to handle the problems.”   Hmmm.  Fantastic.  No more thinking.  Just smiling.   Four months later I worked somewhere else.   The ironic piece of this whole story is that the name of their staff training program is ‘Yes, I Can!’  Unless it involves thinking.

No blog about customer service would be complete without a shot at an airline.  Before I go on, we all know that Air Canada is really easy to pick on, but I have to tell you that generally, I’m happy with the service I get from them.  Not amazed.  Not delighted.  Happy.  I know from experience that there are lots and lots of fantastic people who work there, but I will tell you, that once you become Elite, it’s clear that they love you a whole lot more, but it feels like a long hard road to become Elite, and along that road you encounter some big nasty potholes just waiting to swallow you up. 

Air Canada has been won numerous awards for their product and service.

So allow me to take an easy swing at the nation’s largest airline.  A couple of years ago, some dude wrote a song about crappy service on United Airlines, so let me take my turn.  Some time ago, I got an upgrade to business class on a flight from Montreal to Toronto, so I was enjoying Air Canada’s cocktails in the Montreal lounge.  All good.  I boarded my flight, and had an uneventful 57 minutes between Montreal and Toronto.  As I was about deplane, something felt very wrong.  My briefcase was significantly lighter than it should have been, and when I opened it, I realized that I had left my laptop in the Montreal lounge.  Shitty.

United Airlines did bad things to his guitar, and he got back at them...social media style

We all know that feeling we get when we’ve misplaced our wallet, or blackberry, or eldest daughter.  Numb, then pins and needles, then nausea.  Surprisingly, I pulled it together fairly quickly.  Four or five ideas came to me as to how to deal with this situation, and I quickly decided that going to the Air Canada service desk was not the best course of action.  So I presented myself at the Maple Leaf Lounge in Toronto, thinking that it would be an easy call from the Toronto lounge to the Montreal lounge and the problem would be solved.  I was going back to Montreal the following week, so I would pick up the laptop upon my return.  Yep...in my head things work out just that easily.

I walked up to the reception desk, and told the nice lady my story.  She looked at me as though I had just dropped in from Saturn.  No concern for me, or my lost laptop.  No offer of assistance.  She simply asked me if I was either Elite or Super Elite.  I was neither.  She informed me in her most demeaning Soup Nazi tone that the lounge was only for arriving Elites and Super Elites, and as such, I was not allowed to be there.   I can still feel the way my shoulders drooped when she dispatched me to the service desk.  I informed her that I had been in the lounge in Montreal and that all I was asking of her was to make a quick call to her colleague.  She said, and I have no idea if it’s true or not, that her phone didn’t allow her to call the lounge in Montreal.  How stupid is that.  “Dear Air Canada…let your phones call each other.”  Duh.

 

There must have been something in how I received that news that made her think I was either going to cry or attack, as she suddenly thawed, ever so slightly.  She motioned for me to come closer to the desk so she could whisper something to me.  “Go see the Air Canada concierges…they’ll help you.”  Who the hell knew there were concierges?  Apparently they have a secret office that’s about as easy to find as Hogwarts.  “Go.  Go now,” she said, and she gave me the directions and the secret knock.

An elevator trip, two escalator rides, and about 2 miles of walking later, I entered the room where Air Canada keeps all the service.  The walls are lined with autographed headshots of Canadian celebs who clearly get the royal treatment from ole’ AC…Peter Mansbridge, Jan Arden, Lloyd Robertston, David Suzuki…a virtual who’s who of Canada… "Thanks for the awesome service, Love Peter”, “You make flying fun, All the Best, Relic from the Beachcombers”.  Gag.

Relic, played by Robert Clothier:  Canadian star power

 

It was a hive of activity.  One of the black-suited concierges spotted me and raced to my assistance.  I told her my story and that I had been directed to them by the lounge lady.  Wait for it…the magic question… "Are you a Super Elite, Sir?"  She knew I wasn’t.  She could just tell.  I’m sure she knows all the Supers, and I didn’t fit the mould.  “Well Sir, this office is for Supers only, and there are actually people waiting who are entitled to our service.”  At that point, I exploded.  No more benefit of the doubt.  No more smiling.  I dropped my bags and began a rant that started with “Listen” and ended with ‘Help me now.”  Rick Mercer would have been proud of me.  (I’m not sure if his headshot is on the wall or not.)

This concierge clearly wanted me gone, so she grabbed the phone, dialed up the Montreal lounge, pushed the phone at me, and walked away, presumably to deal with a much more deserving Super.  The story ends happily, as the Montreal lounge attendant found my computer, and connected be to a Montreal concierge.  When I arrived back in Montreal the following week, a smiling, professional concierge was waiting at the door of the plane with my laptop in hand.  That’s how it should work.  That’s how it should always work.

I took the opportunity to write to Air Canada to tell them the story, both the bad parts and the good parts.  To their credit they got back to me within the service window that their complaints website promised, and for my troubles, an apology and 10% off my next flight.   But only if I booked it within the next two weeks.  Sometimes they’re their own worst enemy.

I read a story in the Air Canada in-flight magazine last week about the concierges…apparently they’re coming out of the shadows.  If you’re a Super (or what Air Canada calls a ‘Premium’ passenger), a concierge will meet  you and take you by the hand to make sure you get to your gate on time.  Please God, tell me that David Suzuki can find his gate all by himself.  

He's grappling with the big environmental questions of our time...can somebody please help him find his plane...

Only 80 more flights this year 'til I’m a Super.  That’s something to strive for.

I'm Neurotic, Just Like My Buddies Hannibal and Sheldon

I swear to God there was once a time in my life when I was well-adjusted.  The more I write this blog, and the more I actually read it, the clearer it becomes that I’m a total mess.  If I didn’t know me, and all I knew of me was what I read on this blog, my neurotic personality characteristics would have me right up there as a cross between my favourite movie character, Hannibal Lecter, and my favourite TV character, Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory.  How in the hell did that happen?

                                            Sheldon Cooper, my neurotic hero                                               

According to this blog, I’m dependent on a mobile device, without which I have no idea how I’d function; I’m addicted to a flashing red light that I can feel blinking in my sleep; I don’t like people talking to me on airplanes; I certainly don’t like being touched by people I haven’t touched first; and I’m not opposed to pushing down old ladies so I can be the first to get onto a plane.  With this list of qualities, can you imagine who EHarmony.ca would match me up with?

You guessed it...My E-Harmony match:  They don't come more bat-shit crazy than this one

My latest neurotic addiction, and when I say latest, I mean in the last year or so, is a prolific little social networking tool called Linkedin.  I know you’ve heard of it.  It is a significant part of my work-life.  It’s always open on my desktop, and it’s always launched on my blackberry.  I know in real time what’s going on with my entire network, which has now grown to approximately 372 people.  I don’t think that’s a lot in Linkedin terms, but the odd part, when I really think about it, is that I know every single one of those contacts.  I’m addicted to it, but not to the point where I would regularly add random people I haven’t encountered in real life.

My daughter Haley mocks me because she says I have 12 facebook friends.  In reality, I have about 77, which is perfect for me (She has 210 Facebook friends).  She’s pretty unimpressed when I tell her that I have over 350 Linkedin connections.  I am as attached to Linkedin as she is to Facebook.  I could live without Facebook.  If it went down for a week, I probably wouldn’t notice, but if Linkedin goes down for maintenance for 8 minutes in the middle of the day, it’s a major inconvenience.  I use it as my address book.  When possible, I check out people before I meet them, and if not, then I check them out after I’ve met them.  If I’m interviewing someone, Linkedin is the first place I go after I look at the resume.  When I have been job searching myself, it’s the main tool I use to find opportunities and to network.  

The most amazing thing to me is that the 372 people that I know on Linkedin can connect me to 84,000 people, and those 84,000 people connect me to 5,524,300.  To think in high school they all said I’d never be popular.  I can’t even properly process 5,524,300 people.  Based on a quick Google search, that means that I am three degrees separated from a number of people equal to the population of Finland.  Or Denmark.  It’s staggering.  According to the people at Linkedin, I had over eight thousand people join my network today.  Today alone, I am now connected to eight thousand more people than I was yesterday.  That’s the approximate population of some country called Tuvalu, a Polynesian island country I hadn’t heard of until five minutes ago.  It’s staggering.

Tuvalu...I may want to visit, now that I'm connected to the entire population.

I look at Linkedin because I like to see who’s looking at me.  I’m interested to see who clicked on my profile, and I always wonder what made them do it?  Why me, and why today?  What were they doing that caused them to find my profile.  I recently had the husband of one of the people I work with click on my profile.  “Curious,” I thought to myself, then wondered what the hell the person I work with was saying about me that caused her husband to want to check me out.  How do you bring that up without sounding like a completely anal nutcase?  Well, go back to the top and re-read.  I’ve become a completely anal nutcase.

I'm so neurotic now I'm never more than one step away from going all Gary Busey on you

I hate it when I look at my profile and it says that an ‘Anonymous Linkedin User’ checked me out.  How is it helpful for me to know that?  And who are you, Anonymous?  And why do you think you need to hide?  It even makes you more of a creepy stalker when you’re hiding behind the ‘Anonymous Linkedin User’ profile name.  Apparently you pay extra for that.  

Either a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, or an anonymous Linkedin User...Either way, you have nothing to be proud of

It’s also bothersome when I look at my profile and it says ‘Someone from ABC Company,’ and you click on the link and you get a list of ten people from that company who ‘may’ have checked you out.  How are you supposed to know who’s stalking you.  Well, the nice folks at Linkedin have solved that problem for you, pay extra and you get to find out.   You have no idea how often I’ve thought of ponying up the cash to get a look at my full list.  So far, shockingly, I’ve resisted, but I’m fairly certain that I’m going to break one day.  Just wait, Linkedin, you’ll get my money soon.

What good is this to anybody?

I live in fear that one day, it’s all going to go away.  That some evil venture capital firm is going to buy into Linkedin, and they’re going to want to generate more revenue, and decide to hold my connections hostage until I start paying a monthly fee to use the service.  I can’t help the feeling that the social networking sites are like drug dealers…giving us just enough access to get us addicted and dependent, then whammo, monthly subscription fees. 

"Hey man, gimme 10 connections..."

For me, Linkedin is a kind of study in human behavior.  I’m always interested to see if my predictions are correct, based on the behavior of my contacts.  When they start adding contacts like crazy, are they getting ready to start a job search?  More often than not, when a contact adds a bunch of new connections, within a couple of months, you see a new job title, and a new company name come across the virtual wire.  Sometimes I see someone I haven’t spoken to in years check me out, and I count the days til I get a call or an email with an offer to sell consulting or other services.  It’s an amazing tool.

Could ole' Sigmund predict behaviour using Linkedin clues?

I would like to meet the people at Linkedin who create the algorithms for the “Jobs I May Be Interested In” feature.  Occasionally the jobs they serve me up are pretty appropriate, but the likelihood of me ever applying for a job as the Vice President and Chief Anti Money Laundering Officer for any company is slim to zip.  But I’m flattered they thought of me.

Somewhere in here it tells Linkedin that I want a job in the Anti Money Laundering industry.

I don’t know if 372 connections is a good number of people to be connected to when you’re in your forties (common, my early forties) after you’ve been in the working world for over twenty years.  Is it bad to want to have 500 connections?  Linkedin stops counting when you hit 500, and you get the magic “Over 500 Connections” designation.  I want that one.  It’s like winning a virtual prize in a virtual world.   Next thing you know, I’ll be starting a Dungeons and Dragons club.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Penny...Penny...Penny...

Pardon Me Madam, But Do You Have A Man?

The earliest memory I have of wanting to crawl under a rock and disappear because of embarrassment is June 1984.  We were screaming toward the end of year dance.  For almost a year I had sat across the science room from Allison Reading, and I was bound and determined to ask that girl out.  Instead of waiting for a quiet moment, like all the suave guys did, I decided that the end of class, when everybody else was busy cleaning up would be the perfect time to put it out there.

It could have been so beautiful.  But alas....

I had absolutely no indication that Allison would be open to a date with me, and I had no wing-man to check it out in advance.  So, during the chaotic clean-up period, I mustered up all my courage, and because it was really noisy in the room, I turned up the volume, and said, quite loudly, “Allison, will you go to the dance with me?”   Somewhere between the first and second syllables in Allison, the entire room went silent, and they went from my classmates to my audience, and let’s just say the show didn’t go well.

I was a complete laughing stock.  Sorry, Allison.

She was shocked and embarrassed, the teacher was dumbfounded, and I wanted to melt into a puddle.  Thank God the bell rang and everyone took off.  Including Allison.  She never spoke to me again, and I never again asked anyone to a dance.  I changed schools (for other reasons) at the beginning of grade 10, so at least I didn’t have to deal with four more years of embarrassment over that one.  And hopefully, neither did Allison.

I mention this because when I joined world of work, I sadly didn’t leave behind the world of embarrassing moments.  I’ve had my share at work, too, and like at school, embarrassing moments at work tend to stick.  Except at work, we refer to them as CLM’s, or Career Limiting Moves.

Kanye knows about CLMs-Just ask Miss Taylor Swift

Early in my working life, I was doing my best to become bilingual.  I lived in Ottawa, and worked for a car rental company, occasionally on the Quebec side of the river, at an office located inside a federal government complex.  Most of our customers were federal civil servants, and of course, they were slightly militant about doing business in French. 

Most of the time, I was pretty OK, en français, but on one day, it all went to hell.   A regular customer came in, but because I wasn’t a regular employee at that location, I didn’t recognize her.  She was a snooty Assistant Deputy Minister of whatever, and she was accustomed to being recognized.  I was already at a disadvantage because I didn’t know her, and when she walked in, every French word and phrase I knew just completely exited my head.  It was like my first day with the language. 

Leona Helmsley...neither french, nor an ADM, but you get the gist

“I have a reservation,” she said, en français.  Do you think in my wildest dreams I could think of what to say?  I couldn’t even remember how to ask her name.  Instead of a very simple, “Votre nom, madame?” I thought I’d go with something less formal and much more stupid, “Avez-vous un nom?”  Do you have a name?  Being the big Frenchy that I am, it never occurred to me that I had just completely offended this snooty federal employee by asking what sounded to her like, “Avez-vous un homme?”  Do you have a man?  She reported me for my stellar French skills to the manager of the location, and I wasn’t allowed to work in Hull again for a long time.

She came to rent a car, not find her perfect mate...

Still with the car rental company, I was working at the Ottawa Airport location, as the daytime shift supervisor.  Since I typically opened the location in the morning, I was always the one to pick up the shift notes from the evening shift the night before.   Normally there would be notes about a challenging customer, or directions about some cars the following morning, or a computer problem etc, but the woman that worked the evening shift a few nights a week used the opportunity to write her manifesto.

She liked to leave a note for the morning shift

The notes would be about overfull garbage cans, and the mess left by the day shift, and how nobody cared about her, and how she was all alone, and how could we rent all the cars and leave her with nothing.  Day after day, week after week, I read these notes.  It got to the point where just the sight of her handwriting would send me into a rage.  It’s a good thing I never saw this woman.

Like the Unibomber's manifesto, her handwriting could send people into a rage

One day, I was working a later shift.  Her notes were the same as they always were, and at the beginning of my shift, I had my rage filled moment, and moved on.  As it turned out, our shifts overlapped that day, and I got the pleasure of seeing her.   She walked in to start her shift, and opened her mouth.  All I heard was “lazy day shift, overflowing garbage cans, take responsibility,” and I lost it.  I was at the end of my rope with her.  In front of customers, I let her have it.

I don't think my rant was as bad as Ole' Charlie's, since I still had my job when it was over

I went on a rant of my own:  “I’m so tired of your complaining, You never have anything nice to say, Can’t you just start with hello, Why do you always have to nag?”  I totally went off on her, in front of some pretty stunned customers.  As soon as I finished up with my customer, I stormed off, into the airport to put some distance between me and the nagging freak.  I was sitting on a bench when Mr. Pinder, one of my regular customers who had been in line and witnessed this meltdown sat down beside me…he wanted to know if I was OK, and we just sat their quietly until he had to board his plane.

 

I went back to the desk, and as I walked in, she asked if I was OK, and I apologized to her for going off on her, but asked her in future to not be such a nag, and especially not to start bitching about stuff when customers were there, and she said, and I’ll never forget it, “What the hell are you talking about?  All I said was hello, and how are you?”   Talk about embarrassed.  Crap.  All I heard was some imaginary crazy nagging.   She, my co-workers, and some of the customers looked at me a little sideways after that one.

Many years later, at a different job, we had a handyman in our office that worked for the building landlord.  Whenever we needed lightbulbs changed or that kind of thing, we called him.  He was a great guy, but he stunk.  I’m not just talking about run of the mill body odour, I’m talking about eye-watering, nostril burning B-O.  It was terrible, and even though people had made complaints about him, his unique smell never changed.

 

I found myself in an elevator with him one day, and instead of going up, which I wanted, we went down, to the parking level.  I was just about dying, being stuck in the elevator with this guy, and couldn’t wait for him to get off.  We got down to the parking level, the doors opened, and he got out, but his stench remained, hanging in the air like mustard gas.  I had to go back up to the 5^th floor, and just as the doors were closing, a hand reached in and the doors re-opened.  Who else?  Our CEO.

Riding 6 floors alone with our CEO could be awkward at the best of times. Now that the elevator was filled with the nostril-burning stench of body-odour, that he could only believe to be coming off of me, it was the most awkward 34-seconds-that-really-felt-like-five-hours of my life.  What are you supposed to say?  “Really, Jim, that stench isn’t mine?” or “Wow Jim, have you considered showering before coming to work?”  Instead, you say nothing and you stare at the floor.  Then when the doors open, you bolt to your desk as fast as you can, call your boss, tell him the story, and beg him to relay it to the CEO so he doesn’t think you’re smelly.  Or at least that’s what I did.

It's great when the president of your company thinks you stink

I’ve had many embarrassing moments in my working career… grabbing and hugging somebody I thought was someone else at a trade show; falling asleep at meetings and at other inappropriate times during the work-day; slamming my office door so hard that everyone in the office thought my glass walls were going to shatter; and offering a customer a nice putain (a hooker) instead of a poutine (a Quebecois cheesy french fry treat).  I’ve found that when you make an embarrassing or career limiting move that the very best thing you can do is hold your head up high and find a job somewhere else.