Pass me the smelling salts

Another mishap in my professional life occurred yesterday. Quite a stunner too – I give myself ten out of ten for this one - falling down stairs or mistaking strangers for colleagues doesn’t even come close to this.

I will regale….

It was 4.30 pm in Hill Dickinson’s offices. All 16 members of the Corporate Team were in the main board room for our monthly presentation of business development activities. My mind had begun to wander away from the current presentation of the banking fee earner and so I idly cast my attention upon the plaster wound around the index finger of my left hand.

The previous night I had been cooking a fine Italian pasta dish and had neatly sliced across the top of my finger. It had bled somewhat and had been bandaged up by means of a simple cloth plaster. Whilst my mind wandered in the meeting, I was intrigued to discover the state of the finger and thus began to unravel the plaster from around it (remembering of course to smile intermittently at my colleague who has been pursuing some truly wonderful business development activities this month.)

The plaster had unfortunately been applied so as to stick somewhat to the wound itself. Removing it caused the wound to open somewhat to reveal unsightliness.

(and now, for safety, I shall take a break and go outside for some fresh air for writing this is causing some unpleasant sensations. Truly.)

I quickly replaced the plaster after viewing the nauseating sight of raw flesh and tried to ignore the persistent image of the offending wound in my head.

The vision continued to plague my mind.

I became hot and felt sick. I became aware of the now-echoey voice of my banking colleague.

Then all went blank.

I fainted.

I fainted sat in a board room of 16 colleagues….because of a small cut on my finger.

Fortunately when the fainting occurred I was sat down. So it could have been worse.

Obviously I know not how long I was ‘out’ for, my consciousness returned prompted by the voices of my colleagues trying to revive me. :))))))))

For the first few seconds, my head remained upon my chest and I was rather confused. Then I realised I was conscious and jumped up in my chair announcing quickly ‘Sorry, I just fainted for a minute’

EVERYONE was staring at me mouths agape with a repetitive ‘Are you OK?’ being directed at me.

Alas, there was no knight of a white steed to sweep me into his saddle and waft smelling salts under my nose. Instead, my good friend and colleague Melanie, a most confident and efficient woman, immediately strode over to my chair, hoisted me up and marched me out of the meeting for ‘air and water’.

As I left the room I said, ‘Sorry! I shouldn’t have taken my plaster off.’ (I mean, what the hell was THAT??)

I think in all the ensuing comments from colleagues (‘No wonder you’re a vegetarian...’ being one of them) the one that most amused me was my boss’s statement that at first he had ignored me and thought nothing particularly was wrong as, ‘I thought it was just you being dramatic’.
Cheers D.

So there you go. Another proud achievement for my catalogue of career climbing endeavours.