I don’t know about you, but the world seems to be getting pretty (insert your favorite colorful word here) intense. While I like to stay informed, I also like to laugh to deal with stress. And, I need some chuckles these days.

Today, the wonderful Leslye Marks is here to help us laugh with an embarrassing story. Also, Leslye is giving away signed copies of A Time of Perfect Change and Changes Still to Come. Below the guest post, you’ll find more details about the giveaway.

Take it away, Leslye.

Email Fail by Leslye Marks

For close to 25 years, I’ve been fortunate to work for a fantastic company. I love the owners, and we’ve always had a great working relationship. We share a common vision of making sure to always take care of our customers, but feel that it’s ok to have fun in the process. Because of the particular environment that we work in, we have to make sure to maintain a professional atmosphere, so most of our teasing and practical jokes remain mostly behind-the-scenes occurrences.

I’m sure this will seem like a foreign concept to a lot of really young readers, but the internet was just becoming popular in our area when I started working at the company. In fact, for the first couple of years, we were actually on dial-up. (Don’t worry, I won’t break into woeful tales of walking barefoot to school in the snow, uphill both ways, etc.). We were trying to figure out how best to make this new technology work in our office, and email became our preferred mode of communication in most cases. When one of my bosses, in particular, would come up to ask me a question, he’d always stick his head in and jokingly ask if he was interrupting my porn viewing time. Can you even imagine the staggeringly slow video you’d have to endure if you were watching anything on dial-up? But, my answer would always be that I was, but I didn’t mind pausing it since he was the one who paid my salary. This became a running joke around the office, and we all got a laugh out of it.

One day as I was working away, I heard the familiar announcement of “You’ve Got Mail.” I clicked on the email, which was from my boss, and he was asking me to write a check to a local church charity and was letting me know that the pastor would be by later that afternoon to pick it up. Being the good employee that I am, I answered back and told him that I’d be happy to get the check ready, but I hoped that he didn’t stop by during my porn viewing time.

It seemed like I’d just clicked “send” when I heard him coming up the hallway, laughing hysterically. He stuck his head in the door and asked if I noticed what I’d done on my reply. When I said that I hadn’t, he told me to check it out. I felt sure I’d most likely earned myself a one-way ticket to hell when I realized what I’d done. Rather than just clicking “reply,” I chose “reply all,” so my response went back to my boss, the pastor, and all of the members of the board of this particular church charity. I felt a sudden flush of embarrassment wash over me, and I typed up a quick email apologizing to everyone and explaining that it was just a bad joke on my part.

The worst part of it all was when the pastor stopped by later that afternoon to pick up the check, which I’d conveniently left upfront so that I wouldn’t have to face him. He had a loud, booming voice that carried throughout the office, and I heard him ask the secretary if he could see me. I still owe her a kidney because she fibbed and said that I was in a meeting. He asked if he could leave me a note. He was always known to be a very serious, no-nonsense kind of guy, so, of course, I was expecting a bible verse or two, maybe a special invitation to a prayer service, something like that. His note just said, “Thank you for the best laugh that I’ve had in years! Porn isn’t often a laughing matter within the church, but, thanks to you, it will be when it’s between the charity board and me. Be blessed!”.

To this day, I STILL have that note taped to the side of my computer screen, and I STILL check and recheck every single email that I send, to make damn sure that I steer clear of the “reply all” option!

GIVEAWAY

A TIME OF PERFECT CHANGE
Taylor & Kaitlyn: Book 1

by Leslye Marks

Available in Kindle Unlimited

How could any teacher look forward to a mandatory meeting during their Summer Break?

Kaitlyn Collins has enough stress in her life without being forced to go to an Educator’s Conference during her Summer Break, but she doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. She’s been struggling to figure out where her life is going, so she thinks maybe a weekend away may not be such a bad thing. A chance encounter and a warped sense of humor will shake her life up in ways she never saw coming.

Taylor Ables thinks attending an Educator’s Conference is a giant waste of time and money. She’s happy with her life even though she’s sworn off love after having her heart broken a few years ago. Will this year’s meeting force her to step outside of her comfort zone and learn that sometimes it’s worth taking a chance for the possibility of love?

Just how far will a person go to change their life?

MEET THE AUTHOR

Leslye Marks is a first time author, longtime socially awkward dork, and lover of life.

She lives near Atlanta, Ga with her wife, a menagerie of pets, and the last of their three kids who hasn’t left the nest yet.

If you’d like to check out her debut works, they are both available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

She’s currently working on the third installment in the series. She’d love it if you had time to check them out.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.