This Saturday, a week into my job at the Poynter Institute, I was running to work when I suddenly felt the urge to spit. I was about 60 meters from the front door before I realized the wad of saliva had landed on my shirt, where it clung in thick, gooey strands.
You can imagine my embarrassment when the person behind the front desk gave me the once-over and refused to let me continue into the newsroom until someone else verified that I did, in fact, work here.
That’s why, when I saw that a White House intern fainted at an afternoon press briefing Tuesday, on her first day of work, I felt a surge of empathy. She did something innocuous that many of us do from time to time — she just happened to do it in one of the most heavily scrutinized places on Earth.
You can watch the video below. Mercifully, the image of me shuffling into Poynter’s newsroom covered in sweat and spittle wasn’t recorded. But if someone took a picture, I probably would have fainted, too.
What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done during your first week on the job? Email me: bmullin@poynter.org, or tweet @poynter.
