Once upon a time, long long ago, me and my colleague V, both of us the youngest and the most recent additions to the company, were invited to a meeting filled with head honchos. Both of us spent the meeting wondering why the hell we were there and also trying to remain as invisible as five and half feet plus individuals possibly can. Midway through the meeting, the projector powered off. Everyone was wondering why when V, blushing beet red stammered that he had accidentally pulled out the projector's plug with his feet. For the next 10 minutes, various people tried to bring the projector back up while V kept up a constant stream of embarrassed apologies. Finally, peace was restored. Half an hour later, the meeting was done. As we walked out, I told V, "O boy, I wonder why I got invited to the meeting. I must have been the most useless contributor there". V stared hard at me and then said ruefully, "Well, at least you did not contribute negatively by wasting everyone's time due to turning off the projector with your feet!"
Now, why this sudden raking up of past pain? I got reminded of negative contributions. Today I was helping a colleague debug some issue and gave her a brilliant suggestion to try out so that I could confirm the problem she was facing. Fast forward two hours. Colleague sends a terse email saying "I have lost all my email thanks to following your idea." Brilliant me had forgotten to foresee what would happen if the problem she had been facing had not been a problem at all. Apparently crashing email clients is the result. Sigggghhhh.
p.s. Though in both instances I felt genuine regret, there is one part me, that part with the horns sticking through the head, which simply can't help being amused. I know, evil me.
6 comments:
Wow - your account of V's embarrassment was so vivid, I could almost see him turning red and apologizing!
As for the mail - when it is all gone, you realise it wasn't that important anyway! So, your friend will probably start squeaky clean :)
Ha Ha... Come on, its all in the game. Take it easy.
Though many ppl like me would be happy if sometg of that sort happens, bcoz I can use this as an excuse for not responding...lol
ooooooo...i am really scared :P
Lol.Reminds me of the time one of my seniors rehashed an old PPT for one of the bank's directors to use. Unfortunately it came with an exciting sound track that he did not know about since his comp did not have speakers. Beet red would have been a good word to describe how he felt when the director opened the presentation. Think your sins are much lesser in comparison.
happens.. :-)
Saumya - that's how I tried to console her - unfortunately did not work :-(!
CM-chap - welcome aboard - lol - that's true!
Vishesh - ada paavi!
Anita - okay, now I feel better!
phatichar - welcome aboard!
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