I snapped the photo above at a gas station near the Wisconsin Dells a couple of days ago. The Dells are on the way to Minneapolis from Milwaukee, about two hours into that five-hour car ride. It was when I noticed I had put on two different shoes…which I was about to wear to a new business pitch with two colleagues.
I’m sharing this embarrassing and (to me and to others who know the story) funny experience because it’s universal to make a misstep like this.
I spent 10 hours in the car that day; my colleagues and I used the time on the way up to practice our pitch, but we didn’t want to over-prepare so I had time to post this picture to Facebook.
I haven’t had so many “likes” on a post for months. “Been there, done that,” “I’ll bet you have another pair just like that at home,” “Don’t worry, no one will notice” and “HAHAHAHAHAHA” were the general categories of response. I connected with a bunch of Facebook friends who haven’t commented on a post of mine for a long time, and the back-and-forth was some of the most entertaining I’ve experienced.
I’ll consciously slow down and pay more attention, at least for a while, at home and at work. But I doubt whether this will be the last-ever silly outcome from my hurry-up existence. And the next time something like this happens, I’m going to share it so we can all have a laugh.
(How did the pitch go? Really well. Did we get the job? Don’t know yet. Did they notice the shoes? If they did, they didn’t say anything. But if they did I’ll bet they got a kick out of it later.)
