Tuesday, March 15, 2016

On Giving Low-Fives: My Most Embarrassing Moment

I have recently had occasion to relate my "most embarrassing moment" story and realized I have never posted about it on the blog.  We all have one (or should, shouldn't we?) and they get pulled out and dusted off to cheer us (or others) or to allow us to relive the embarrassment again in a safer moment and through the filtered lens of time.  I actually have two solidly mortifying experiences in my back pocket as my "most embarassing moments" but the winner is definitely the one that involved giving a senior law partner at a prestigious firm a low-five in close quarters, when he was not expecting one in the least because I completely misread a gesture (and apparently lost my mind for a second and thought that low-fives were a normal and reasonable thing to do in the legal practice or life in general for that matter.  I mean, of course, right?).

It was toward the end of my summer associateship at a big law firm in Palo Alto when I was invited by a litigation partner for whom I had done quite a bit of work to attend a large arbitration in San Francisco where there were something like 8 or 10 or so law firms representing various parties all with varying degrees of interest in the complex legal matter that was being handled.  Mine was a primarily observatory role with note-taking support for two partners from my firm and during the day the sets of legal counsel for the interested parties were shuffled between large and small conference rooms, first meeting in large groups and then 2 or 3 going off to discuss side matters.  I was honestly a little starstruck at the whole process and the views from the ump-teenth floor of one of the skyscrapers downtown where we were arbitrating and I had very little to do of substance besides just follow along and try to absorb as much as I could and keep up.  It felt sort of like a little gift to be invited along since I knew these partners didn't need me at all - like "take your daughter to work day", except, you know, I wasn't their daughter and I was getting paid.

So sometime after lunch I ended up in a small room with an older, kind of gruff partner from one of our main competing firms and his summer associate, and the partner from my firm.  We (okay, they) were discussing the merits of various arguments and points were being made by each side and (and this is where time slows down and a high pitched warning buzz fills my head) the senior partner from the competing firms makes a point while opening his palms at about waist level in a semi-"am-I-right-or-am-I-right?" kind of shrug which I (incorrectly) interpreted as an invitation for a low-five for no rational reason whatsoever.  Which I promptly accepted with an enthusiastic slap on his upturned palm (the instinct to connect the low-five before the hand was pulled away with a taunting "too slow!" apparently kicked in), thereby completing the low-five exchange and proving my social (and professional) ineptitude.  

The best part is that the poor old fellow didn't see it coming AT ALL and didn't seem to know what had just happened (neither did I).  I even had a time-slows-down-as-I-see-what-is-about-to-happen-and-can't-stop-it moment of alarm just before the slap.  The partner I worked for had missed the exchange while shuffling through some papers in a folder.  Or at least that is what I told myself afterwards, even though he kept giving me strange sideways glances for the rest of that breakout session.  The other summer associate looked scandalized (appropriately so).  But he also looked a little worried, like maybe it was normal for summer associates to act that way and why hadn't he been low-fiving partners all summer long?!!  I can't possibly be the only summer associate ever who overanalyzed these kinds of social exchanges this way.  So we all moved on like nothing had happened, while I sat there wishing I could shrink away to nothing.  

Even now I cringe just reliving that in order to type it up.  A week later I got an offer to come work full-time for the firm after graduation, so... all's well that ends well.

Most embarrassing moment Number 2 involves a boy and a crush and years of joking about it with my best friend who also had a crush on the same boy, until suddenly some guys who knew the object of our shared (and only partially joking) obsession who I did not know but who knew my roommate at the time were invited into my room and saw the boy's high school senior picture (which had been color-scanned out of the yearbook, enlarged and framed by the friend with the mutual crush on him as a gag 16th birthday present for me) sitting on my desk (as a joke!  A JOKE!).  And they were like, um, why do you have a picture of Greg* on your desk?!  Isn't he dating so-and-so...?  And I basically mumbled something about "oh, it's just a joke" and then ran out of the apartment in horror praying that it wouldn't get back to Greg (who never even knew I existed) and promising myself to get rid of the picture after the guys left.

So there you have it.  My two most embarrassing moments.  Now it's your turn to share.  

* Name has been changed because of the internets and me not wanting there to be a chance that somebody would do a google search that would lead back to this blog post.  Because that would lead to an unfortunate embarrassing moment of its own.

10 comments:

  1. I am DYING over here! I can't decide which is better - even though I've heard the latter half a dozen times, it still cracks me up. And the low five. Oh. My. Goodness. Hilarious!!! Your re-telling paints the picture so well. I feel like it should be a scene from a movie or something. SOOO stinkin funny! Thank you for sharing. You made my night.

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  2. Bahahaha. SO hilarious. And horrifying.

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  3. Hahahahaha! The writing of this moment makes it all the better! You are a great storyteller, my friend!!!!

    And I must say, it's probably better that it was the competing firm's partner, not your own partner, right? At least you never had to see that man again!! Oh my gosh--so hysterical.

    My most embarrassing moments: Fainting while running on a treadmill in a weight room full of buff college guys, Fainting while getting a mammogram and waking up topless with about ten people surrounding me and looking concerned, and--my other two mortifying moments shall not be revealed on a public blog, but if we ever (finally!) meet in person, I will tell you!

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    1. Oh my goodness, Rachel, you are KILLING me! The mammogram one! Oh dear! And yet another reason why we have to finally meet because I will not rest until I hear the other two stories!

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  4. You have no idea how much I needed this post today. Hahaha... although, I always thought your most embarrassing moment involved two cents and falling down the stairs...? maybe it's just MY favorite of your embarrassing stories. ;)

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    1. Bakeshow! How do I not know this story you are talking about?! Tell it to me because I seriously cannot remember? Is it really my story or does it belong to someone else?!

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    2. You were at BYU and had gotten copies in the copy center. You were two cents short for your copies but they just let you take them anyway- a day or so later you were walking by the copy center and just happened to have two cents on you. So you went to the copy center to pay it back. You knew they never expected to see you again so you were pretty proud of yourself that you went back to pay. As you walked down the hall you thought to yourself, "I am SO righteous!" and just then, you tripped and fell. It may not have been on stairs... but still, The lesson that we all took away from that was "Pride comes before the fall." bwahahahaha

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  5. I'm not super sure if I have a clear cut one. I have lots of small scale ones over the years but no single one that stands out as THE ULTIMATE! The first night I stayed over at my ex's house (a night of G rated cuddling, for the record) I had raging diaherra and ran to the bathroom every 15 minutes all night long, waking him up every single time I got up or came back. I laid in the bed while he snuggled me, praying I wouldnt crap on the sheets and trying to hold it only to run to the bathroom in a panic again. Then I decided I should just hide in the bathroom so he could sleep and I could be sick in peace. He had to get up at like 5am for a gym class. I felt terrible. And the bathroom. Oh it was not pretty. How we ever dated after that I have no idea.

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  6. I still get all red faced when I tell this story because I can not believe how naive I was. My friend had a crush on a boy on the basketball team but didn't want to go to the game alone so she convinced me that I should go with her and we could both like someone on the basketball team. She even got us shirts with their numbers on them. I felt so strange wearing this guys shirt like a crazy little girl and had no idea who he was. He recognized the shirt and came to talk to me. I couldn't even look at him and quickly left. I found it easier to never follow that friends advice again.

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  7. Oh my gosh, Amy--this is awesome! Great detail. You are a great narrator. My whole life is one big, embarrassing moment but I seriously can't recall any because I literally block out the most embarrassing ones. It's like shame overwhelms my memory. One time, I went to a different high school during a lunch break and asked out a completely random guy who I didn't even know in junior high. He said yes and we did this big group date, but to this day, I'm amazed and confused that I did that. :)

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