Embarrassing moments 1

 

Embarrassing moments

 

I guess a lot of what has gone before could be classed as embarrassing, however there are times in life when you say things that afterwards you wish you could take back.  Talking to people for a living tends to increase the odds of putting one’s foot in one’s mouth.

 

I was involved in the computer business and went to speak to a prospective client regarding the purchase of a computer system.  This was a number of years ago when computers were nowhere near as sophisticated as they are now. This prospective client was a scrap dealer who was based in West Lothian.  I arrived at the duly appointed time, driving into his yard and as I stopped and pulled the handbrake on two very large and menacing Doberman guard dogs ran out and paced about menacingly causing me, a confirmed dog lover, to consider the advisability of leaving my car.  I sat for a few minutes pondering what to do then I summoned up whatever courage I had.  I opened the car door and gingerly made my way over to where I thought the office was, the dogs running about, running in for the occasional sniff of where their next meal might be.

 

As I arrived at the office I was greeted by the owner and invited into his small office.  Enter I did with my two canine companions in tow.   I sat down, made the necessary introductions, making small talk about the dogs along the way to “warm” my client up.  He promptly informed me that he’d had another visitor that day who had left with a rip in his trousers caused by the guard dogs.  My poor wee heart started to tremble at that stage and just to make it worse he excused himself for a few minutes leaving me with the dogs in his small office.  As I sat there, I was very aware of their gaze on me, I tried to remember all the advice I had been given regarding dogs, show no fear, don’t look them directly in the eye and things like that.  Of course, I just smiled at them insanely hoping they would take pity on me. After what seemed like a lifetime my prospective client returned, we resumed our conversation where we had left off.  I established that he still used an Accountant to do his accounts, eureka I thought, perfect candidate for a computerised accounting system which should work out much cheaper and effective for him.  So, I said to him “Your Accountant will be costing you an arm and a leg!” as I said it everything slowed down and became slow motion, my eyes and eventually my brain recognised that my prospective client only had one arm.  He was gracious and the conversation continued, I left with the dogs following me, I could sense their malevolent presence behind me, however I reached my car in one piece and I was never so glad to have finished a call, in one piece but scarlet with embarrassment, realising how easy it is to slip into easy phrases which seem to suit our needs but not necessarily the needs of the person we are talking too!

 

I used to occasionally get the train from Kirknewton to Glasgow Central, the train passed through West Calder, stopping at the station to off load and collect new passengers. I had boarded the train at Kirknewton and managed to get a seat, one of four with a table in the middle (two on one side, two on the other), this meant I could I use the table for my work.  We stopped at the West Calder station, people boarded and as I sat at my nice empty area (other than me) a woman and her Mum sat across from me.  The Woman smiled over, and I smiled back as I recognised her face but couldn’t quite place who she was.  I knew she was from Polbeth, the village where I grew up, she leaned over to her Mum and said, “Mum, this is John Gibson, Helen Gibson’s son”.  Her mum smiled over nodding her head, I realised then that this was one of my Mum’s friends.   During the journey we made polite conversation, or so I thought, because in these situations you tend to talk about how things were and how they have changed.  I had remembered my Mum telling me that in her street there were now two drug dealers and a brothel and this I related to my companions in that self-righteous, what is the world coming too!” tone.  Days passed and I was at my Mum’s relating to her my story when she laughed and produced one of Scotland’s largest selling Sunday newspapers which had run a story about a prostitute in Polbeth, photograph and everything.  I blushed realising that my train companion was a “famous local personality”, nevertheless she and her mum were delightful companions on my journey.