Oh how embarrassing....

A few weeks back I was attending a conference in Cannes, France. This conference like most of my conferences are filled with 3,000 men. All of whom are network engineers, analysts, consultants. You would think that I would be in heaven right? No. Not exactly. As DD so adequately explained to me, these guys have zero game. Actually negative game. So their antics tend to drive me bonkers.

During lunch at the trade show, I had sat down briefly to enjoy what little normal food I could find on the buffet. I had settled for a ham and cheese pannini. I was looking forward to some quiet time to relax before going back and talking to more people. Then, my lovely luck, a gentleman sits across the table from me. Since this is Europe, appropriate distance and space regulations are significantly smaller than in the US. That and this guy wanted to talk to a female. It was written on his face. So I said 'fuck it' and chit chatted with him for a while. I explained what it is that I do (big mistake) and who I am. He was enthralled. He was ready to throw out the red carpet, engage a 40 piece band, and march down 5th avenue singing my praises with trumpets and a ticker tape parade. This was probably the 80th conversation that I had engaged in that day so I wasn't very impressed with myself. I was tired of talking but I let him do a lot of talking about himself. He's from Sweden, a network engineer, and enjoys long walks in the cold. After I had finished my lunch, I had to get to a meeting so I politely made my excuses and left. A nice pleasant conversation with a nice guy at lunch at Networkers. No big deal. All but forgettable.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was on my way to a customer site when an email hits the sales at mycompany.com email address. This email address is a distribution list for all sales team members (about 100 people in all). So imagine my surprise when the email starts off with "I was recently in Cannes and would like to speak to a woman who works for your company. She lives in the UK...." He goes on to explain that he was really impressed by me and would like to get my contact information. Yes. the whole sales team gets a copy of this email address. He enlists the team to find out who I am and what my contact details are. I will NEVER live to hear the end of this one. It's quite embarrassing getting hit on by a Swede with 100 of your coworkers watching. I am still blushing.

As soon as it was sent, I emailed the list directly with an "i'll take care of this"... Wrong wording to use. I started getting emails from all of our sales team. Here's a snippet of the one-liners I received:
"Oh I'll bet you'll take care of him"
"Be sure to get perfume, candles, flowers, and chocolate before you give it up to him"
"Your fame preceeds you"

One of the guys also said:
"I too met a beautiful woman recently at networkers. She had rays of sunshine in her hair." He goes on for a few paragraphs about molten chocolate eyes and rich, pouty, red lips... Seriously.

I will never live this one down. EVER.