Lesson Learned

Yesterday was an eventful day to say the least. A girl from our office is moving away so we had a little office party for her yesterday. Now these office parties are a little awkward for me as is because I don't really know anybody yet and everybody in my pay-grade and age-range are males and I feel dumb standing around talking with 6 or 7 boys but there's really nobody else for me to talk to.

Anyways, this story is much worse than just a few awkward moments at the office party... much worse. It all began when I was instructed to be the "bait" to lure the girl out of her back office and to get her to come up to the conference room where we were holding our party in her honor. As the receptionist, everybody who enters the office comes through me first so I was supposed to tell our guest of honor that a certain person from some organization she'd been working with was here to see her. When everybody was gathered in the conference room, I went to the girl's office and told her the lie I'd been instructed to tell her. She responded with "Oh f***, I hate that guy! Did you already tell him I'm here?" I said sorry but yes. She was kind of frustrated with me for this but said "fine, tell him I'll be up in a few minutes." I left and returned to the conference room where everybody was waiting in silence so as not to give away the surprise. As soon as I got there, I was bombarded with whispered questions: "Where is she?" "Is she coming?" "What's taking her so long?"

Well, as usual, I spoke without thinking and pretty much repeated everything the girl had said with one small difference. Instead of saying the actual f-word, I substituted just the letter "F," which is really just as bad. Now to me this didn't seem like a big deal since I have worked in restaurants for the past several years where I'm always the good Christian girl who doesn't swear. So just saying "f" didn't seem that bad to me... but the fact still remains: I just (almost) swore in front of my boss!! Let me help you picture this a little better so that you can understand my humiliation: all eyes were on me, nobody else was saying a word, complete silence. The Boss' eyes got really wide as soon as the word came out of my mouth the whole room burst into laughter and I was MORTIFIED!!! I spent the rest of the "party" trying not to cry, I couldn't even eat any of the goodies because I was sick to my stomach with nervousness wondering whether or not I would be fired at the end of the day (I wasn't, thank goodness!). But today, everybody (my immediate boss, several coworkers, my fellow front-desk mate) keeps walking into the office and saying "Oh efff." As if it wasn't bad enough that I endured the most embarrassing moment of my entire life yesterday... now I have to re-live it over and over again!! They will never let me forget this, I will always be known as the girl who swore in front of The Boss. I just want to crawl under a rock and die.

When I told Brandon last night he only said, "Well, that should teach you to actually think before you open your mouth. I've been telling you that for years." I get no sympathy. The problem is though that I have learned my lesson... the hard way... many times. Why must I keep learning it over and over again? What's the matter with me? Why can't I just keep my big mouth shut for 2 seconds to think over the appropriateness of what I'm about to say? *Sigh* Will I ever really learn my lesson?