My Blake Bergstrom Moment

“All  business all the time”

That’s my unofficial motto.

I’m a serious, contemplative type.   I’ve always been accused of acting twice my age.  (I used to take that as a compliment.)

So along with my seriousness, comes a slowness to laugh, especially at myself.

This week in all staff meeting I had my best (or worst depending on your perspective) communication faux pas yet.

I was giving our team some direction on writing their Performance Plans for 2011.  As I’m sharing some wonderful insight on how to create a performance plan that will “set you up for success”, I inadvertently told them to “set yourself up for sex.”

Yes, I told our team to make SEX a part of their performance plan!

Of course the room erupted into laughter and many, many sidebar comments that I think I’m thankful I didn’t actually hear.  I turned several shades of red and was pretty sure that the heater that has been broken in our office must have miraculously turned on.

Ugh!

All I could think of in that moment is that I wanted to quote the infamous Blake Bergstrom in his defining moment and scream “STOP LAUGHING!!”

I’m still not sure I’ve returned to my normal coloring.

But let’s just say “all business all the time” quickly went out the window and I took a step closer to learning to laugh at myself.

Ok, so please do share.  What has been your worst communication faux pas?

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  • gina November 11, 2010  

    there are worst people to mimic! That’s hysterical.

  • ash November 11, 2010  

    this didn’t happen to me, but one of the gals I used to teach with was working through the book Huck Finn with her students and accidentally interchanged the initial letters of the words in the book title in front of her 10th graders…they didn’t let her live it down for a REALLY long time.

    at least no one was videoing and this moment won’t end up on youtube!

    • Jenni Catron November 11, 2010  

      Oh no, teenagers are ruthless.

      Yes, I’m so glad that this wasn’t videotaped or recorded!

  • Jessica November 11, 2010  

    Ha ha ha ha I love it! And I love you!

  • Chad November 11, 2010  

    While giving a talk on the Book of Esther, I stated that the king asked his servants to “bring in the BREAST looking girls and let me pick the one I like the best.”

    It was a youth conference. So only about 2,000 teenagers heard it. That’s all.

    • Jenni Catron November 11, 2010  

      Hilarious Chad! Thanks for making me feel better.

  • Nicole Unice November 11, 2010  

    you know about my latest faux pass, but for the rest of your readers, I apparently called my six year old daughter a BIT** in front of the youth group last week. What I SAID was “Cameron is a bit…” but it didn’t sound like that. Yay me. Yeah for not taking ourselves too seriously. You can read the rest on my blog. 🙂

  • Clint Iams November 11, 2010  

    When I was a first time counselor at the Camp where I am now the director I was asked to lead a lesson of using the bible as the sword of the spirit. So I broke senior high campers (who I was just a year or two older than) into groups and gave them topics (drinking, relationships, parents, premarital sex) to find scripture related to each. As I wrapped up the effectiveness of the scripture and how it touches every aspect of our lives I said the following:

    “Look at the topics we covered with our bibles… we had drinks… we had sex….”

    Giggles and laughter ensued. Blood rushed to my face.

    That was 12 years ago… still remember it vividly… and probably everyone else has forgotten.

  • kevin November 11, 2010  

    So I used to work at a large healthcare staffing firm. At some point they shipped me a laptop to replace my desktop and I needed to get it set up on the network so that I could scan/email, etc. Our IT department was known for being incredibly incompetent, and this instance was no different. While setting me up, IT had complete control of my computer and I was also on the phone with them (they were at the home office in Utah, I was in our Oklahoma office). I had to do a test print and a test scan no less than 15 times. At some point I became really frustrated, and decided to write, in large letters, “IT SUCKS” on a page that I was trying to scan. They said “Ok, I think we’ve got it set up now, scan a test page.” So I did. And I sat down at my computer, and up popped an icon stating that I had a new scanned document. IT opened the file and up pops a white screen with “IT SUCKS” across the middle of it. 30 seconds of silence. I said “well, looks like it works now.” Then I hung up.

  • Natalie November 11, 2010  

    In college I was the resident assistant for 25 girls… During our hall meeting I closed us in prayer. In the mist of my prayer I thanked God for being MAGICAL… Seriously magical. Since we were praying I was spared a little of the laughter but still I can’t forget the day I deemed God a magician.
    And by the way jenni you handled your communication faux pas with the greatest of ease and confidence, you carried through like a champion 🙂

  • Miranda Telford November 11, 2010  

    We all loved laughing WITH you not AT you! 🙂