Have you ever...Follow

Said something and immediately wanted to take it back? Get a "redo"?

Let me set the stage:

Sitting in a meeting with about 10 other co-workers, In this room were the CEO and the COO of the company, both men in their late 40's early 50's and a bunch of other upper management types. I'm probably the lowest person to the totem pole. We are talking about a new marketing campaign and how to integrate it into our magazine. I start talking about how it would be a neat idea to put the logo on the cover in a different place every month to make it like a game....

Here comes the good part. I say:

"You know, Like they do with Playboy."

Immediately the room erupts into laughter and I turn about a red as a person can get without bursting into flames.

So how about you? Ever done or said something you wanted to take back immediately?

Edited, Jul 30th 2010 4:37pm by toohotforu

Oh yes.

Like the times when I've yelled out the wrong name. And it's the wrong gender even.

Oh god yes.

I don't have much of a filter on my mouth so I say crap I shouldn't all the time to pretty much everyone.

Pretty sure that they will remember your name in the future(especially if most of those people were male).

...the fact that they immediately laughed basically provides grounds for assuming that they know exactly what you were talking about and so you should'nt fash yourself about it. They're probably all at an "upper management-type bar" right now, drinking cognac and wishing they were as consumer-intuitive... as well as discussing whom their favorite centerfold in the past two decades was.

Sweetie, you did yourself a favor. As much as I hate to admit it, the glass ceiling is still there. You offered insight and did so with the majority responding positively. Had they thought the idea was heinous, no one would have laughed. What do y'all market?

Yeah. If anything, that's going to make them more comfortable with you and present more opportunities in the future. One of the side effects of our politically correct environment is that males in positions of power are often overly concerned about whether they might offend a female in the room and end out on the wrong end of a lawsuit. That discomfort can sometimes have the opposite effect as intended and result in fewer women involved in higher level meetings. Your statement effectively "broke the ice" in that regard. Which is a good thing. They don't have to worry that merely mentioning certain types of magazines might cause offense.


As far as embarrassing, there was one time we were in a meeting. I'd come in after the meeting started, as well as a couple of my co-workers (we'd come from another meeting right before this one). We were discussing something which was probably terribly important at the time with a group of engineers. As the meeting broke up, our group stayed for a few minutes to discuss how we were going to proceed based on the requests of the groups we'd just met with. After a few minutes of banter and jokes, with some references to what was discussed, we hear the conference phone give out some kind of automated message saying that the meeting was about to end. Then it followed with a "meeting recording will be available for upload at <somewhere>. BEEP!"


Uh... What? We couldn't remember if we'd said something which might offend someone, but there wasn't much we could do anyway. Nothing ever came of it, so we must not have said anything too bad, but still... Ever since that day, the first thing I do when I enter a conference room is make sure the phone is off (sometimes it's still on from the previous meeting believe it or not), and the second the official meeting is over, I make sure we've hung up and ended any call on the phone. You just never know.

Edited, Jul 30th 2010 6:32pm by gbaji

Wow. Gee, why would they ever look unfavorably on that?

Welcome to the real world.

I've said quite a few things in my time, and lost rank and pay once or twice due to it, but I can't think of anything I've said that I wish I could take back.

Indeed. In fact, I just took something back in this post. 1 rateup to whoever read it before the edit and can tell me what it said.

Edited, Aug 1st 2010 8:16am by Doug