I have not laughed so hard in ages. If you need a break from the world, take a few minutes to read this, and please be careful with your liquids.

It’s Mortification Week at Ask a Manager and all week long we’ll be revisiting ways we’ve mortified ourselves at work. Here are 16 mortifying stories to kick off today.

1. The rock star

In an interview, I was attempting to express this sentiment: “I know what everyone wants is a rock star, but flashy solo work isn’t for me—what a rock star needs to perform well is a dedicated crew doing set-up, tear down, and all kinds of maintenance behind the scenes. That’s who I am—one of the people who makes it possible for a rock star to show up and bring down the house.”

What came out was this sentence: “I make other people look like rock stars by comparison.”

2. The sign-off

Back in the late 90s, when I turned 20, I landed my first job with an email account. I signed all of my internal AND external emails “Love, Roger.” After a few weeks, my boss pulled me aside and had to gently explain why it wasn’t very professional and I shouldn’t do it anymore or it might color how people view me at work. I was genuinely stung at the time, but now anytime I think of my early email habits I want to chew my own face off with embarrassment.

3. The game

I was 22, at a work happy hour, way too tipsy for a work event (or for 6 pm) and led a game of “Fu*k, Marry, Kill” …using our senior leadership as the people we’d murder or sleep with … some of who were there … some of who heard me.

I got a very kind talking to by my grandboss, a man in his 60s, the next day about the need to stay professional at work events and that this game was completely inappropriate in any context. I still want to die thinking about it.

4. The Fabio flowchart

At my previous job as a team lead, I developed an ironic obsession with Fabio (the male model on all those romance novels). It went so far that I made an actual Fabio themed problem solving flow chart, which I hung on my cubicle wall. The shortest path was “Do you have a problem?”/”No, I am Fabio, there’s no problem I can’t solve”/”AWESOME FABIO, YOU ARE THE BEST!”/”IKR?” and had super useful solutions such as “Did you rip open your shirt to show the problem your waxed, oily and very manly chest?”. It also included numerous Fabio pictures.

Reader, I actually referred my team to this chart regularly when they had issues. I still have the flow chart. It can be found here.

5. The entrance

I managed an 18-person team, we had weekly team meetings. About 11 folks were in the office, the rest telecommuters. There was another team that was related, but worked for a different client than we did. That team was almost all telecommuters except ONE person. The manager of that team and I frequently collaborated and helped each other out, so I invited that lone employee to our team meeting her first week because every other person around her was in my team meeting. You know, welcome to the office, we don’t do exactly the same work but we can collaborate etc.

Let me be clear — I DO NOT REMEMBER DOING THIS. But the new employee that reports to a different manager said I started the meeting bursting into the conference room three minutes late and said “sorry I’m late, I was taking a shit.” I mean, I have no doubt this is exactly what I did, because that is the kind of professional norms I lived by in those days. Just I did not remember it as being a memorable moment. The new employee, however, immediately said to herself, “I need to get to know this woman!” So we actually became friends, and are friends to this day. And that is how she tells the story of us meeting. Which I cringe at every time she tells the story. I WAS NOT SUITED TO MANAGEMENT Y’ALL.

6. The fart

I have a gastrointestinal condition that I can control by watching what I eat, but it flares up once in a while. I had been working late alone and was at the tail end of an attack, which includes tummy pain and much bloating. Since I was working by myself, I was…ah…deflating on the regular and receiving much needed relief with every pass. Holding in just makes it much worse for me and just extends my discomfort unnecessarily and how embarrassing it would have been to be gassy on the bus ride home.

I walked to the printer to gather my papers and waiting for the print to finish, I felt immense pressure and knew this would be the last one and it would basically release me from the attack. I leaned over the printer to make it easier for me and let loose with abandon. (I might mention now that I’m also hard of hearing.) After everything was done (my prints and my farting), I breathed a sigh of relief for being pain free for the first time in hours, grabbed my papers and turned around right into a face-to-face with one of the line managers who happened to also be working late … and who I essentially farted on. The poor guy was working away in the back corner of the office where his desk was, and I had no idea he was there.

I recall letting out a squeaky “Oh!” and ran back to my desk utterly mortified and left this dude standing there, trying to process what just happened. I quickly packed up and left for home. I didn’t apologize or pardon myself, I just ran away. O_o

Thankfully, the dude said nothing to me the next day. Both of us left the company that same year.

Bonus: we ended up working together again for a brief period, and my supervisor asked me in front of him how we knew each other. Before I could stop my mouth, I told her, “This is the guy I farted on.” Dude choked on his coffee for a good hour after that and then came to my office to reminisce. We’re not quite friends but no longer traumatized, I guess. Fortunately, it appears we both find fart stories funny.

7. The voicemail

I worked at a huge, Fortune 500 company. Our campus has over 5,000 employees at one location.

When big news happened (good or bad), the C-suite would send out an all-employee voicemail with an update. They had to record it all in one take, and there were no redos.

We had great news as a business, and it was our Chief Marketing Officer’s turn. She was notoriously shy about public speaking, so she must have practiced the voicemail a thousand times.

She got through it flawlessly. She was professional, polished, and confident. But, at the very end, she said, “As a company, this is a huge step forward for us all. Thank you for all of your contributions. I love you!”

The voicemail had a brief pause, then an “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!’ shriek at the end. All 5,000 employees heard it, shared it, and played it all day. It was at once awful, but hilarious and relatable.

8. The smoothie

I was running late for work and didn’t have time to eat breakfast. I remembered I had made a smoothie for a lazy dinner a few days ago and had leftovers in the freezer. I grabbed the smoothie and headed off to work.

I remember briefly marveling that the smoothie hadn’t frozen entirely and made a mental note to check on my freezer when I got home. I then began to feel woozy and lightheaded, and a little foggy in my thoughts.

Suddenly it all hits me – I PUT BOOZE IN THIS SMOOTHIE! Since it was serving as my “dinner” a few days ago I had decided to have a little fun and glugged some Midori melon liquor and vodka into the mix. That’s why it hadn’t frozen, and apparently the confusing feelings I was experiencing were because I had gotten myself inadvertently tipsy at my desk by 9:30 am – OOPS!

Luckily I don’t have much contact with others when doing my job, so I just grabbed some water and sat mortified (and tipsily bemused, if I’m being honest) until it wore off!

9. The browser plugin

A couple years after college, I worked as a copy editor for a well-known independent newspaper, which also ran an official staff “blog” that was updated multiple times each day. One of my jobs was to proofread those blog posts when time permitted — which was usually after they had been posted.

Unrelated, I had recently installed a browser plugin called “clouds to butts” that just literally changed every instance of the word “clouds” on any web page I visited to the word “butts.” I found this hilarious, and it only showed up for me, so what harm could it be?

…yeah, as you’ve probably guessed by now, I went to edit a few typos out of one of those already-live blog posts (in something of a hurry, as was the norm around there), which happened to contain some weather-related news. And boy would it have been nice if I had taken one extra second to notice that my handy browser plugin had filled that post with “butts.” It was overflowing with butts. It was live on our website. I was blissfully ignorant. About two minutes later the managing editor SPRINTED to my desk in a panic like “WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS???” and I dissolved from sheer embarrassment and floated up into the clouds butts.

Anyway, I no longer install the dumbest possible browser plugins on work computers.

10. The weakness

When I was in college I was applying to on-campus jobs and got an interview to work at the campus gym. I was reading online advice about interviewing and had read that when they ask for your weakness you should give an honest answer and then describe what you’ve been doing to improve in that area. When they asked that question in my interview I confidently told them that I was “not great at working with other people but am working on it.” Their expressions said it all. I don’t know why I thought this was a good answer. Plus, I do work well with other people! I had some social awkwardness (obviously) in my younger years so I think that’s what I meant?? Obviously, I did not get the job.

11. The group interview

This was long ago, but as a teenager I participated in a group interview at a trendy clothing store. At the end of the interview, we were told to go out on the floor, pick out an outfit, and try to sell it to the manager interviewing us. The manager emphasized we should do this task quickly. Looking back, that was probably to limit disruption in the store. But I saw it as a speed race. I flew out the door of the back room and ran through the racks, grabbing clothes and attempting to slow down my competition. I left stacks of clothes a mess and tried to block access to racks. At one point I even muscled an actual customer out of my way. After what I was sure was a record-setting amount of time, I breathlessly presented my outfit, explaining that if the clothes were ugly (I specifically remember using the word “ugly&rdquo I could get them different clothes before anyone else had even come back with their first ones. The manager was horrified and I was informed I would NOT be getting that job. Looking back, I have no idea what got into me and I feel terrible for making even more work for the people who had to clean up after my spree!

12. The birth control

I once texted my boss, “Can you order a refill of my birth control at Costco?” – thought I was texting my mom.

13. The bathroom

I was substitute teaching and was using a (single person) washroom. Apparently, I forgot to lock the door because as I was sitting (the toilet was directly facing the door), it opened and in walked the attractive teacher I had noticed at a staff meeting earlier in the day. His face was a mask of horror, and he fairly ran backwards out of there, but as he did, he closed the door on his key lanyard and got it stuck in the door.

As I tried to finish what I was doing as quickly as humanly possibly, I watched the keys travel up and down along the edge of the closed door before dropping to the ground – apparently he had abandoned the enterprise.

I then had to track him down to give him back his keys.

14. The disposables

To this day I have no earthly idea why I did this, but it will haunt me forever.

About 5 years ago, my company decided to go green-ish, and one initiative was to get rid of all disposable cutlery and plates. While I fully support that, two problems arose: people kept taking the new reusable silverware home with them so there was rarely any available, and the dishes/silverware that remained were of … sketchy cleanliness most of the time. The CEO, who was a rather blunt and intimidating woman, decided the new ‘no disposables’ rule was her hill to die on, and she enforced it pretty strictly.

One day I forgot dinnerware from home, so I used a disposable bowl and spoon left over from previous takeout to fix oatmeal or something in. Our CEO walks into the kitchen and asks me why I’m not following the new rules. I swear I either lost my entire mind or was possessed for about 3 minutes, because what flew out of my mouth? “She’s using disposables too,” pointing at my coworker, and when the CEO turned to look, I RAN. I chucked my coworker under the bus, and sprinted back to my desk, PAST THE GLASS WALLS separating the kitchen from the office, where the CEO and my betrayed coworker could absolutely see what I was doing.

And it’s not like running did me any good, because that coworker? She was my cubemate. So 5 minutes later she comes in and sits at her desk and was like… “WTF?” I proceeded to apologize to her for the next year or so, and I might text her another apology now.

According to my coworker, she definitely did not get in trouble for her paper plate; our CEO looked at her, looked at where I had been standing, and said, “Did she just accuse you and run???” with no follow up. Coworker and I remained friends, CEO never held my bizarre behavior against me as far as I know, and plenty of other kitchen shenanigans eclipsed that moment. Still embarrassed though.”

15. The prayer

I’m waiting for my boss, and meanwhile I’m stretching the back of my neck, and this particular stretch looks a bit like I’m in prayer. So my boss comes in and jokingly asks, “Who are you praying to?” Only I have auditory processing disorder so I heard, “Who are you waiting for?” so I answer in all seriousness, “You, obviously.” There were like 5 seconds of uncomfortable silence and eye contact, and then he left on some pretense to come back later, and only then the understanding kicked in ! Fortunately we’re all socially awkward yo different degrees in my little startup, so it wasn’t a really big deal.

16. The day planner

This reminds of a time I was in a meeting with a coworker/friend and he had his day planner open and he had in bold letters: “JACK OFF EARLY”

I may have snorted something along the lines of “I didn’t know that needed to be scheduled.”

His son, Jack, got out of preschool early that day.