14 Awkward Office Situations Nearly Everyone Has Experienced

Flickr/Split the Kipper

The words “awkward” and “office” go hand in hand far too frequently. Being constantly professional is difficult when embarrassing situations arise on a daily basis. Whether it’s that uncomfortable elevator small talk or feeling legitimately ill during an important meeting, we bet everyone’s been through the ringer a time or two. Here are 14 awkward office situations that you can, or will, probably identify with at least once in your life.

1. Contributing money to a coworker’s gift

Unsplash/Sharon McCutcheon

When everyone is asked to chip in for someone’s birthday, or your boss suggests a potluck, you feel like you have to contribute even if you don’t have the funds or the cooking chops.

2. Being asked to use your personal social media accounts for work

Maybe you’re a private person, and, in that case, you should be able to keep your social media accounts private, too. But sometimes, your work may ask you to use your accounts to fulfill your role. How do you tell them you’re not interested in putting yourself on blast just to retweet your company’s new product line? Womp.

3. Being in the kitchen with someone else trying to do the same food/drink prep as you

We call this the kitchen dance. You’re doing something in the office kitchen, like making coffee, when someone else is also interested in making coffee right then and there. You have to jump back and forth to move out of out of their way, taking longer than anticipated to get your damn cup of Joe.

4. “Casually” walking to the bathroom with feminine products

Look, it should just be a given at this point that women need to take care of themselves, and there should be literally no issues with that. Regardless, it’s still super awkward to walk by your coworkers wielding a tampon. It shouldn’t be uncomfortable, but somehow… it still is.

5. Feeling sick in the middle of a meeting

Flickr/Link Humans

Ever have a long meeting with your boss and suddenly need to use the bathroom? Most likely, you’d rather twist your internal organs in agony than ask to pause the meeting to relieve yourself. RIP health.

6. Having to make small talk in the elevator

“It’s super windy out.” “Yeah, it’s so crazy.” “…..” “……” That’s about as good as any elevator chat goes with someone you don’t know super well. The 10 seconds to your floor is excruciating, and yet it happens to everyone all the time. You’d think we’d all be used to it by now, but we’re still at a loss for words when we’re in the situation. Maybe it’s best to just say nothing? Who knows.

7. Making a private phone call with nowhere to hide

There’s nothing more attractive than having to call the doctor in the middle of the office to provide a vivid description of your stomach bug. But you’d rather not give your personal information out on the street, so what are you supposed to do? Hide in the bathroom, we suppose.

8. Dealing with a coworker’s distracting friend, child or client

Guests of coworkers can be a bit of a distraction sometimes, but what about the Bring Your Child To Work Day situation when your colleague’s toddler is drawing all over your desk with crayons? You can’t exactly say something, can you? We’re cringing just thinking about it.

9. Trying (and sometimes failing) to resist crying in front of your coworkers

Pixabay

Hey, we all have bad days, and more often than not, bad news seems to arrive between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Crying at work at least once is almost inevitable, but attempting not to cry might just be worse. Our advice? Seek solace (and quiet) in the bathroom and get your feelings out. Suppressing them feels (and looks to your coworkers) extremely painful.

10. Heating up your lunch and stinking up the floor

Eyyy, broccoli from the night before! You probably know to stay away from last night’s salmon dinner, but some foods may be less obvious when figuring out what’s safe to reheat. If you heated up something particularly smelly and your office knows it was you, you’ll want to just crawl under your desk and die with the stench.

11. Pronouncing someone’s name wrong (especially a boss), or vice versa

“Hey, A-lon-uh!” “It’s actually A-lee-nuh.” Yikes! It’s pretty mortifying to mispronounce someone’s name, especially a higher-up. Even more mortifying? Someone mispronouncing your name and you not knowing how to correct them if you didn’t jump at the opportunity the first few times.

12. Sending an email meant for one person to the entire office

We all have our office buddies, and sometimes you gotta liven up the workday by sending a funny GIF or video. But what happens when you accidentally send that pooping panda video to the entire team, including your CEO? Your soul dies. That’s what happens.

13. Getting too drunk at the company holiday party

Pexels

You might think, Well, they shouldn’t have had an open bar! if you got too lit the night before at a company event. Yet, when you see photos of yourself dancing like a drugged-out Spongebob on a coworker’s Instagram, you’re not exactly sure how to redeem yourself. We’re not sure, either.

14. Your boss giving someone else credit for your work and you not knowing how to correct them

This situation happens more than you’d think, especially if your boss has a ton of different things going on. If your coworker got the credit for something you did, you may not feel totally comfortable interrupting to say, “It was actually me.” Even though you deserve the credit, it just seems boastful to correct your boss. Ugh.

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