Tuesday, December 29, 2009

I love the smell of bactine in the morning...

It started like a lot of days in my work travel life. Get up at 6 am, lots of coffee, etc. I arrived in Elizabeth City (a small and quaint north carolina town) around 9:30 that morning, right on schedule.

What transpired later will go down as probably my best story, and by far the most requested tale at parties and gatherings.

I had a very successful meeting with a very important customer. In his kindness and due to his eastern north carolina manners, he walked me out to my car which was parked on the street in front of their building. Now, I have tried to isolate the circumstances to prevent this from ever happening again. All I can say is that it was a cracked side walk, and I did have on inappropriately high heels (not so much a walking shoe, more of a sitting shoe).

It's hard to describe what happened next, but I'll try. I was walking towards my car, turning back to waive at said important nice customer. Somehow I fell. I don't mean that I stumbled. I mean that I fell. In the process of falling, many things happened all at once. I dropped my bag, spilling papers everywhere. I tore my ann taylor pants and cut my knee (not scraped, cut). One of my heels came off and flew into the middle of the street. When I landed, I somehow wound up hitting my head on the wheel of a car parked on the street.

I glanced at my customer, who looked at me in both awe and pity. Of course, due again to his manners, he rushed over to help me up and involve himself in the train wreck before him. My head was spinning and I knew if I moved quickly I would puke. He held out his hand, I took it (due to my north carolina manners), and then threw up in the street.

He tried to pretend that I wasn't puking, and promptly focused on picking up my papers and retrieving my shoe from the middle of the street. He then helped me limp back into his office.

I was ushered in to some kind of break room. Many elderly women were suddenly at my side. They provided a trash can (for future puking, I can only guess), wet naps, and also started a line of questioning, I guess to see how severe my head bump was. "Who is the current president", "How many fingers am I holding up". Then I hear the psst psst of bactine, being sprayed on my open wound, through the tear in my expensive pants.

It was by far one of the most mortifying events of my life, but funny in hindsight. I finally convinced them that I was okay to drive home, and they let me leave after bandaging my knee. I'm convinced that they think I am part of some outreach program my company participates in by hiring the mentally challenged.

To his credit, the customer called me two days later to check on me. I assured him I had made a full recovery, and he said "I keep replaying it in my mind, and I just have no idea how you fell and accomplished all of that".

Me either!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Corporate Gypsy-Here We Go!

My name is Amy. I have a job that requires me to travel.

My territory is all of North Carolina. This blog will chronicle my travels. I have a lot of stories built up over the years, which many of my friends and family find amusing.

The purpose of my blog is to share these stories. I’ll do this by posting a new story every week for one year, starting in January. I hope that people will get a laugh out of them, and I hope that I will become even more thankful for the experiences I’ve had by telling them.

I want this to be interactive, so monthly I will ask for your crazy work stories too!

I hope you enjoy reading about my life as a corporate gypsy!