A time you were made a fool of!

Feel free to share your story of a time you were made a fool of by someone? Here's my own tail.

This was something that occurred to me when I was new to working a security job. I was finishing a 12 hour shift, and about to swap with the guard who was coming in to replace me. I'd spoken to this guy a few times before and he seemed kind of arrogant. It was my first time working the night shift and I'd a few things I planned to say to him. None of them were really important, but more so the proper change over procedure.

Anyway I'd two things that I'd planned on saying to him. One was about a key... which was necessary to say, and the other thing I'd thought to say would have been relevant but ultimately wouldn't make a difference if I'd left it out. And it would have taken about a total of 10 seconds for me to say all this.

He arrived in and parked up his car outside the security hut. After he came in the door I said the first thing as planned. Then, as I began to say "and ah", as I was about to say thing second thing, he says "hang on a sec" and went out the door and over to his car to bring in the next thing he needed during his shift. This took almost 30 seconds. He wouldn't let me finish my thought. It wouldn't have cost him any more time to listen to me first before going to his car. To make it worse, the other thing that I'd meant to say wasn't really important, so there wasn't even important, so I realised that I was basically waiting there for nothing. As he came back in the door I said the other thing I planned on saying, and like a proper smug fucker he interrupted it and said "you can go home John". I should have just walked out after him, and said "no, that's all there is, good luck".

I didn't think my story would be that long.

 

too many times to count. especially when i was younger, but none of us ever become fool proof.
i don't see it as a thing to focus on.
learning the mechanics of how things work, social things included, and i'm not genius at that either, is far more useful.

but if it works for people for themselves to talk about it, then i guess its a good thing for those whom it do.
i really, this is one of those vast areas of human knowledge of which i am largely ignorant

 

Your comment made me laugh, remembering the time that a young guy started working with me at a west end theatre. He was OK when he first arrived, but just before the performance started, he went into the auditorium and seeing 1,800 people waiting for him to open the show turned him to jelly. I have seen stage fright in the film control rooms before, but nothing compared to that night, he literally did not know right from left.
To save him from embarrassment, I sent him to the workshop to work on the shutter phasing of a machine that was ghosting. (shutter opening during film pulldown), but when I went down to see how he was getting on, he had run for the hills. I was not entirely surprised that he was having second thoughts about his career choice.

The funny part was when I received a vitriolic letter from his mother a few days later, accusing me of sending her darling son down into a dingy room in a haunted old theatre, where I knew that their were ghosts. I could not help laughing when she admitted that her son had serious mental issues and was afraid of crowded places, so she had packed him off to work at a busy theatre where he would be among thousands of people, including well known stars and members of the royal family.
I was temped to tell her that if he had stayed until the following week, he would have been running a performance for the Queen, with 39 million people watching the live television coverage all over the world.

Thinking back to when this happened (in 1972) I can't really work out who was making a fool of who, but needless to say, I got the blame
HF certainly brings back some memories.

 

The only time I was ever made a fool of--I accomplished it myself and easily.