Opinion
Embarrassed after a work faux pas? Stay calm and carry on
By Jonathan Rivett
Question:
Every so often I get deliveries sent to my work office when it’s more convenient than sending it to my home. Last week I opened a package at my desk, thinking it was a computer component. However, it was an intimate item I had accidentally sent to my work instead of my home.
I quickly closed the box, but at least two colleagues saw what was inside. I was mortified, and I still cannot shake this feeling of embarrassment.
Illustration by John ShakespeareCredit:
My colleagues have said nothing, but I’m now always distracted by what they think of me, and am thinking I need to resign from a job I love just to get away from the humiliation and judgement. Should I?
Answer:
Your sense of shame really comes through strongly in your email, and I’m so sorry this unfortunate incident has led to such unpleasant feelings. You also mentioned specific details in your original correspondence - thanks for letting me publish your email after we removed them for reasons of anonymity.
Of course, we can never know for sure what other people are thinking. I’m not going to pretend I’m certain about what might have gone through your colleagues’ minds at the time they saw the contents of your delivery. What I can do is make an educated guess at what they’re thinking now: I think they’ve forgotten about it. If they think about it at all, it would be with indifference.
I’m not for a minute suggesting your embarrassment is completely unfounded. I think just about everyone would be rattled and feel uncomfortable in such a moment. It was a wretched bit of bad luck, and it would have been startling when you realised the slip-up you’d made and that others had witnessed it.
But I think most of us have a tendency to overthink and over-analyse our own stumbles, faux pas and mistakes. In part, that’s because of a phenomenon psychologists call the spotlight effect. The best way to explain it is to give an example:
I once went to a comedy show and drastically underestimated my need to have a wee before I sat down. About 45 minutes in to what I knew was an hour-long performance I was experiencing discomfort of a rare variety. I should have just gone to the toilet, but it was a small show and I feared that the comedian would have been almost duty-bound to mention my departure and make fun of me and possibly watch as I wet my pants in front of him and the other audience members, including several friends.
Now that might have been an example of the spotlight effect itself (there’s a chance I was completely wrong and could have easily slipped away with nobody, including the comedian noticing). But I really noticed it once the show ended. I clapped perfunctorily, hobbled to the toilets and, when I returned, apologised to my friends for making such a fool of myself - for wriggling in my seat, breathing heavily, making noises of desperate suppression and then disappearing all of a sudden.
Not a single person had noticed my actions or my absence. What had been so all-encompassing to me that I assumed it must have spilled out was in fact a non-event to everyone else.
Your story isn’t as silly as mine. And friends are different to colleagues in all sorts of ways. But I still think the spotlight effect is pertinent in your case.
Unless you can clearly see that your co-workers are upset about what happened, or you’re certain they’re treating you differently now, please don’t worry. Be confident that at the very worst they see what happened as a small miscalculation, a moment of minor awkwardness.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be true if it had taken place 50 or 60 years ago, but I would be astounded if anyone in your office, even the most cartoonish prude, felt this warranted your resignation.
Again, I don’t want to suggest I’m some kind of mind reader or soothsayer, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to predict that as time passes it will be your love of the job, not your embarrassment, that will prove more enduring.
But you might want to be a bit more careful with your delivery instructions from now on.
Got a question for Work Therapy? Send it through to jonathan@theinkbureau.com.au
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