I'm new at my job, so I'm still in the trying-to-please stage. Things are going well, but I still want to have a reputation of putting in 100%.
A few weeks ago, a senior employee from a different department asked me to help her prepare and carry out a conference at a local hotel. I was, of course, pleased to be asked and eager to be helpful and do everything perfectly.
Things went well during preparations, and as the meeting began I settled into my seat in the bag and began taking notes and prepping the coming sets of slideshows.
Fairly early on I started to feel queasy. I thought for sure that it was dehydration. I have always been terrible at getting enough liquids so I grabbed a glass and began sipping lots of water. I continued to feel poorly and kept madly drinking water, thinking that I just needed to get hydrated. I'm sure that others at my table were annoyed that I took all of the water.
During the first coffee break I stepped outside and purchased some anti nausea medication from a nearby pharmacy. As soon as I set foot inside the hotel on my way back to the meeting, I felt that feeling. That IT IS HAPPENING now feeling. I walked very quickly and THANKFULLY saw signs for the bathroom right inside the doorway. I dipped inside the door that led not into a bathroom but into a vestibule off of which the bathrooms were located.
I didn't make it in time. I puked all over the floor inside the vestibule. THANKFULLY there was that door there and I made it inside to the little hallway. Otherwise I would have puked on the floor right next to everyone who was eating their breakfast in the dining room. How horrible. I was so glad to be tucked inside a vestibule/hallway thing.
I then saw that the women's restroom was closed off, and I briefly entertained the thought of ducking into the men's bathroom. I live in a strongly Muslim country, so that action probably would not have gone over well. As I was thinking about this, I was relieved to see a unisex handicapped bathroom in front of me and ran inside, just in time to puke all over the floor in there.
Good lord.
I finally made it to the toilet. (I'm sure you are all thrilled to be reading this).
I felt fairly ok after, but had a noticeable amount of vomit on my new purple blouse. (Again, I know you're glad that I'm sharing this, but life isn't all baby blue water and white sand, right?). I looked all over for something to clean up with, but this bathroom was stocked with nothing. No paper towels, no cleaning supplies, no toilet paper! Fortunately I had a sweater draped over my shoulders and was able to button it up and look almost normal. Otherwise I would have had to go back to the meeting looking like a huge mess. I could hear the guys in the hallway cleaning, and entertained the idea of hiding in the bathroom until they were gone (I felt like too much of a mess to deal with people in another language!) I did have to go back to the meeting and explain, though, so I exited and apologized to the poor boy who had to do cleanup. Oy.
I went back to the meeting but still felt icky and, after a brief consultation with the hotel doctor, was sent home. Bummer that I didn't get to help at all with the conference, but at least there was someone available to cover for me.
There were so many senior people from my organization there and that conference was my first time meeting many of them. They were all so sweet to me but ugh, I hate that my vomiting was the first thing that we talked about, and that I didn't get to be wonderfully helpful and make a good impression.
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