[winterglen]

Two minutes to closing and I run into the customer I dread the most -- the customer in a hurry. When someone is in a hurry, I can never work quickly or efficiently enough to please them and they usually get mad at me for slowing them down. I hate being the person that slows someone down.

Anyway, the customer asked in a rush where a certain section is. There was no way I could point them to the right spot before closing, because I'm slow. I told them they should ask at the reference desk, and then I had to blabber on saying "I don't know how to . . ." Didn't finish the sentence, so they could be thinking I'm an incompetent idiot at anything.

They probably thought I meant I don't know how to find the section. I do know how to, but I didn't know how to articulate how to find it in a hurry.

If any of my coworkers overheard me say that, they'll report me. I'll get in trouble again for being unprofessional and my coworkers might push harder for me to be fired, because I obviously haven't learned my lesson from last time. They'll believe I was being rude and stupid on purpose, and that I don't care about my job.

[anna_goth27]

That is a difficult situation to be in, but know that you are in good company and that it happens to the best of us. To me it usually happens when I talk to one of my bosses, and sadly (unintentionally) it usually affects my co-workers rather than myself, which in turn to them they think I am two-faced of sly sometimes. I am really not (or try not to be), but sometimes the nervousness gets the best of me and I divulge more than I should or stammer out comments I probably shouldn't be making.

Please try not to beat yourself up too hard over it and just take it as another stepping stone. I read a quote one time saying something along the lines that some of us donts make the same mistake once, we make it hundreds of times to make sure of how not to do something. I think this applies nicely here in that one day soon we'll be able to overcome the nervousness and pressure to not trip up on what others like to call "simple stuff".