I can still feel it up the back of my neck, my ears and cheeks. Man. And it still makes my heart pound a little from the embarrassment. I mean, it wasn't humiliating or negative, but I feel silly!
Here's the deal: at each of our windows we have a headset intercom that we use for our interviews. There is also a button on the intercom to page. The page button sends audio to the whole waiting room on loudspeaker.
We usually call the next applicant to the window on the page button, then switch to the headset audio. . . I think by now you can probably see where this is going. Yes, not once, but twice, I've forgotten to (or mistakenly thought I had, but really hadn't) switch off the loudspeaker function when I click over to the headset, and continued my interview with the whole waiting room listening in. And I should have learned! I made this mistake yesterday, but someone came and corrected it!
I discovered that I was doing it today because the next applicant came to the window with a big smile and started telling me how great my Arabic was. Now, this was my first day trying it in Arabic, so I know it wasn't great. It wasn't even good, really - it was a messy mush of dialect and Modern Standard and English when the applicant could help out. But what can I say? The people were nice....
Lord. Lesson #4,563 in the past 4 days. They say it gets easier.... But if it's 9pm and I'm still blushing??!! Sheesh.
Here's the deal: at each of our windows we have a headset intercom that we use for our interviews. There is also a button on the intercom to page. The page button sends audio to the whole waiting room on loudspeaker.
We usually call the next applicant to the window on the page button, then switch to the headset audio. . . I think by now you can probably see where this is going. Yes, not once, but twice, I've forgotten to (or mistakenly thought I had, but really hadn't) switch off the loudspeaker function when I click over to the headset, and continued my interview with the whole waiting room listening in. And I should have learned! I made this mistake yesterday, but someone came and corrected it!
I discovered that I was doing it today because the next applicant came to the window with a big smile and started telling me how great my Arabic was. Now, this was my first day trying it in Arabic, so I know it wasn't great. It wasn't even good, really - it was a messy mush of dialect and Modern Standard and English when the applicant could help out. But what can I say? The people were nice....
Lord. Lesson #4,563 in the past 4 days. They say it gets easier.... But if it's 9pm and I'm still blushing??!! Sheesh.
1 comment:
Aww - I would have done the same thing! I remember my days of window working as a bank teller, and the stories I could tell you from that time. :). The best one was when a bum came in and went to my window asking me to give him lots of quarters, for free. His accent still lingers in my memory!
It will totally get easier, and just bank this in with all the other great stories you'll collect. And I'm sure your Arabic rocked and you know it!
ADoha from Qatar ;-). Waving to you from across the sand.
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