What's the dumbest thing you've done in a meeting

Fallen asleep

Not said a word in a 3 hour meeting with a client, even during introductions lmao

Had been on the desk for about 6 months and was in a CIM review session with the client and co-advisor.

Political news had been firery for a couple days and a few senior people were talking about how they "don't even watch the news anymore."
"Fox is too right", "CNN too left", "Can't even trust the papers like you used to" "If you want to know what's really going on, check news outside the US!"

Agreed! So true, I do the same thing! So I jumped in:

"Yeah I love BBC, the BBC..."

Probably could have slid by but because I corrected myself by adding "the"...

Most of the dudes (Chads) caught it and two or three snickered under their warm breath. Meeting went on but yeah...awkward AF. Thank goodness a senior guy jumped in and said he liked reading Al Jazeera. Most of the Chads reacted like it was some terrorist group lol
I quickly got myself back in good graces by leaning over to some of the chads and mumbling "yeah I don't read that one!" *elbow tap*

Couldn't even stand up and leave the room after it happened either because I had a half chub (have a little crush on an associate with the co-advisor and thankfully it went over her head.)
Hopefully can get her number at the closing dinner and ask her out, can also follow up with how that goes if there is any interest

Fell asleep

In the middle of discussions on a 60+bn merger, something like 7 people in the room, cut my thumb open deeply enough to need to ho out to reception and ask for first aid kit (law firm in Paris, nice lunch trays with real cutlery, I still don’t know how I did it).

Last leg of the $8bn merger talk, this very senior MD presented a slide on synergies which had the wrong numbers another analyst put together. I was never, and still isn't, a discrete person. The face of shock followed by snickering was obvious. MD smoothed over it by saying "decimals got too excited and moved a few places..." Client responded by saying "John here caught it first. Maybe he should be the one trying to close this deal..."

I was never staffed by this MD ever again, for the next 3 years.

Sneezed the most horrible mucus-y snot onto my sport coat lapel in the middle of a client meeting. It was very yellow which contrasted horribly against my blue sport coat. I wasn't sick and almost never sneeze unless I come out of a really dark room into bright sunlight. As the kids say these days, "it really shook me" to the point where I couldn't concentrate at all. Could only think about how embarrassed I was.

Fell asleep. To my surprise nobody said anything and I still got a return offer

Hot mic in a zoom meeting, "ugh, i don't like it here"

During a pitch to LP’s for a REPE Deal- we get to the pro forma slide and the linked spreadsheet just says #REF! across the board. Took everything I had not to face-plant into the table.

Oh man, I've choked on my own spit or water in meetings and gone into coughing fits so many times I couldn't even think of one to highlight. I would bet they genuinely don't remember OP.

On the other hand, it's only happened once where I had a bottled smoothie that I thought was capped when it wasn't and aggressively tried to shake up in a meeting. It took two solid shakes before I realized it was not capped. Flung it everywhere, though mostly all over myself. I've always wondered how it looked to the guy across the table that just watched me take an open bottle and blast myself with it.

I was an associate working a late night with 2 analysts getting ready for a CIM review with the client the next morning.  I changed their titles in the deck to "Managing Analysts" to try and get a quick cheap laugh.  Forgot to change it back and the decks went to print.  The next morning we're flipping pages with the client and they noticed it straight away.  Thankfully they found it very funny and everyone laughed in the room.  After the fact I got pee pee whacked by our hardo VP for "sabotaging our team".  So be it...  

Another time I yawned and got the most painful spasm/cramp in my jaw.  I was trying to hold it together but I probably had the most insane wincing face and tears were streaming down my face.  Potential client stopped the meeting and called the receptionist to call for help, to which I was insisting "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine".  It went away after a few minutes but the meeting was thoroughly derailed. 

Fall asleep on the phone when I was supposed to be taking notes. Maybe not the dumbest, but this happened more than I'd like to admit.

Wasn't me but I was a witness...

We have morning market update calls from strategists/economists running over data releases, overnight moves, headlines etc. There's usually around 100 people on these calls, most people dial in from their desk with camera off and mic on mute. 10 minutes into one of these calls, there's like a faint moaning noise. It was brief enough to think 'what was that noise? Was that from the call?' The presenter continued. About 30 seconds later it comes back louder, this time it is unmistakeably the sound of a woman moaning and the call software highlights a random phone number that has dialled into the meeting as broadcasting this moaning noise. The presenter paused for a second, then spoke over the moaning saying something like "I'm not so sure everybody is paying attention to what's being said here on rates, it sounds like someone is having a bit too much fun" the dialed number that was transmitting the moaning then dropped from the call. Not sure if they left or a meeting organiser kicked them. Thankfully I was wfh that day, was laughing so hard. No way I would have been able to contain it if I was in the office. I guess someone dialed in on their work phone, and then started watching something on their personal device without muting.

This was on a Zoom call, but pinged my teammate who was sharing screen "I have no idea what he's talking about" in response to something our VP said. The Teams notification pops up on her screen for everyone to see and my VP starts laughing.

Boss and I are meeting with clients over a zoom call. It’s two men and one woman, we both know the men well but had never spoken with the woman. Anyways my boss is screen sharing going over some stuff and it gets to the point in the call where we are wrapping up. My boss doesn’t stop screen sharing, goes to the clients website, goes to their people page, scrolls and finds the woman and clicks on her page and just leaves it there with her headshot on his screen. Part of me wanted to butt in and ask to screen share but the damage had been done. Boss is married with kids but still so awkward.

Was working from home, I keep my work laptop next to my home desktop. Was in a boring team meeting where some seniors were speaking. I decided to do some online shopping on my desktop, opened chrome and searched up “men’s fragrances”. Lo and behold I had a brainfart and actually typed it up on my work keyboard so it got sent in the zoom chat of the meeting instead lmao. That one still pops in my head when I try to sleep at night

When I was an analyst I was sharing my screen when we were presenting something for the global group (I was the lucky analyst chosen to work with the group head on shit like this), someone pinged our analyst group chat saying something like "can he shut the fuck up" and it popped up on the screen for the global team to see.

Worst part was that others piled on to tell him that everyone just saw that... which everyone then saw. Group head clearly read it and stuttered / forgot his train of thought and had to regroup himself.

Ripped the juul and fell asleep

I pretended that it was very interesting

I was working in construction (in Virginia) and made the mistake of not knowing who the Hokies were. The next 15 minutes of the meeting was just the client grilling me on college football teams. This continued into several other meetings where he would randomly turn to me and ask me what school various mascots represented. 

Pretty usual, thought i had a nice quiet squeaker of a fart, one I could cover with a chair move... it was not and even the microphone in the conference caught it... Was a tough month or so at the firm after that.

Wore a tie when everyone else in the meeting was wearing no tie. Felt like a total monkey.

Not me, but during a zoom meeting, one of our remote asset managers let the most insane nasty fart rip during one of the only times everybody else was quiet. It was very loud, and you knew it was him because his camera window went yellow as it's supposed to when you're speaking. If that wasn't obvious enough, he muted himself right afterwards which was the final nail in his own coffin of shame. Nobody said anything but my analyst and I both had to go cameras off for about a minute afterwards because it was impossible to hide the giggle fits.

Wasn’t something that I did myself, but back in the day when I used to work in audit, I was on a Zoom call with my director and a couple of client employees, asking them to walk me through how their procedure for something.

My questioning was quite in-depth (as it often had to be for that kind of work). The guy screen sharing was alt+tabbing across various Excel windows etc. About five minutes before the end, he accidentally alt+tabs to a Skype window where everyone on the call can clearly see the other client employee’s messages trash talking us. “It never ends, hold on tight, snore emoji” etc.

The rest of the call was them, utterly red-faced, trying to play it off with various versions of “oh no that was us talking about this project we’re working on”. I don’t blame them tbh, the walkthrough was very tedious and there must have been a thousand things they’d rather be doing.

When I interned at a consulting firm, my partner and my analyst were having issues joining one of our client calls. I'm sitting there sweating through my shirt (like a kid waiting for his mom in the grocery store line) trying to make small talk with this 50-year-old executive and his team. I have absolutely nothing in common with this guy, so he asks me what the name of my firm stands for, and I just completely blank. I hit him with the classic consulting, "I'm not sure, let me get back to you on that". We just sat in silence for the next 5 minutes. Thank god my partner wasn't on the call, still haunts me to this day. Made for a great story to tell the other interns though.

Had a bet with a friend as to whether or not I could say "buy the dip, short the vix, and fuck Credit Suisse". Director heard me but fortunately the client did not - he loved the balls and I ve pretty much been exclusively with him since.

First pitch I was ever in was completely remote over zoom.  No one could get their schedules to work in person.  Hop on the zoom and it’s standard we’re supposed to keep our mics and video on in pitches usually.  My dog decides in the middle of the pitch to jump on my desk and get two inches from my face and bark directly into it and then hop off.  I couldn’t react in time to mute and shut my camera off.  My VP immediately in the dead silence says “please mute your mic and turn off your camera.”  I have never been more embarrassed in my life.  Luckily it was never brought up again.  

Had an internal meeting with our group and someone’s mic wasn’t muted so everyone could hear him tapping away at his keyboard. Our MD finally had enough courage to say “_____ you’re not muted” Next thing you know we all hear is “AWWWW SHIT” and his mic goes silent.

Everyone and the MD tried to hold on the laughs but that was a great experience

Had an internal meeting with our group and someone's mic wasn't muted so everyone could hear him tapping away at his keyboard. Our MD finally had enough courage to say "_____ you're not muted" Next thing you know we all hear is "AWWWW SH**” and his mic goes silent.

Everyone and the MD tried to hold on the laughs but that was a great experience