Good morning.  As my 2-year anniversary at work gets closer (March 9th, for those of you scoring at home), I was reminded of a funny experience that happened on my very first day.  So why not share?

First allow me to set the scene a little.  This was a brand new gig and I didn’t know a soul at the place yet (aside from those who I briefly met in my lone interview).  I arrived at 10am as instructed and met up with the HR Director to fill out paperwork, get a tour, etc.  After the tour, he asked if he could take me out to lunch in a couple of hours, and I gladly obliged since I wanted to hear more about the company, its culture, my role, etc.

When the time came, he strolled by my desk and asked what I felt like.  “Anything’s fine,” I said (and meant), and he said he felt like going to the Greek restaurant that was just a block or two away.  I told him that sounded great, and off we went.  When we got there, we chatted a little while I half-looked at the menu.  I was debating between the gyro sandwich and the gyro plate, but had pretty much decided on the former since I thought having sides of rice and a salad would make for too large a meal (plus it was a couple of dollars more and I was over-analyzing my behavior).

The server approached, and I magnanimously gestured that he should go first.  “Yes,” he began, “I’d like the gyro plate please.”  Except he said it with a J sound and a long I, like j-eye-ro.  Shit.  That put me in a predicament.  While they discussed his sides and what he wanted to drink, I was quickly going through my two options:

  1. Pronounce it correctly as YEE-ro.  This would have the subtext of, “You said it wrong, Mr. Head of HR at my New Job on Day One.”  But I’d be accurate, which I care a lot about, but at what cost?  (See: “over-analyzing my behavior” above.)
  2. Copy his incorrect pronunciation.  This would avoid any awkwardness with pointing out his error, but then the server would think that I didn’t know the right way to say it.  I can’t explain why that mattered to me, but it did.

Neither felt like a good choice, and my time was running out.  I quickly thought of a third option: What if I said, “I’d like the sandwich please…is it j-eye-ro or…YEE-ro…or…” and let her point out the right way (as the expert)?  That didn’t feel right either, and as she turned to me, I knew I needed to decide right away and had a palpable moment of panic.  And then – boom! – glorious option number 4 popped into my head and I went with it.  “I’ll, uh, have the same thing please,” I said while pointing to the gyro plate on the menu.  I tried conveying with my eyes that I knew he said it wrong but didn’t want to point it out, and she absolutely picked up on none of that.

So I opted for my second choice of food over first day awkwardness, and I survived it just fine.  Even with a little too much rice.