The first day of anyone's career is always a great time to have awardrobe malfunction! (said no one ever)

It was all going too well. I woke up at 7am, got ready, put on my high-waisted pencil skirt and pink blouse and left my apartment right on time. I walked to work, despite the fact that it was kind of drizzling out, but it wasn't enough to be a bother. A few of my friends had texted me good luck, and my parents were telling me they wanted updates when the day was over. I was on top of the world!

And that's when it happened.

See, I probably should have mentioned earlier that the pencil skirt I wore had a zipper that spanned the entire height of the material. The 2 zippers were facing opposite ways and you zipped one up to the top and the bottom zipper could go as low as you wanted, depending on how high you wanted the back slit to be. I had it down all the way, leaving a little room at the bottom because it got SUPER narrow, I didn't want it all the way closed because it was hard to walk with it like that.

This is what the zipper looked like.
Imagine that bad boy splitting completely open.
On your first day of work.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="232"] This is what the zipper looked like. Imagine that bad boy splitting completely open. On your first day of work.[/caption]

I was walking up the LAST curb to the block of my office when I felt the pressure of the skirt suddenly relieve itself mid-lift. All of a sudden, I felt the bottom of my skirt start  to SPLIT OPEN. That's right, a side of the zipper-lining at the bottom had popped off, ripping the zipper off one side. I didn't know what to do. With every stride, the back of my dress would open more and more and I had to be at new hire orientation in 10 minutes. I was starting to panic.

I ran into a souvenir shop 3 doors down from my office and asked if they had any safety pins. If I could just hold the skirt together with those until lunch, I could run home to change. The guys hardly spoke english and didn't understand what I was saying (also contributing to this miscommunication could have been my frantic state of mind), so I went to a corner of the store and totally took off the skirt. I was completely exposed for all the world to see! If I could get the broken zipper back on to the dress my problem would be solved.

After attempting for probably 2 minutes (though it only felt like 10 seconds), I realized that the zipper was never going to work again. I had to find some way to cover myself though - FAST. AND there were no stores open at this hour in the morning for me to buy something else!! I ended up using this wide belt I was wearing to hold the top of the skirt together against my waist, and then I tied my blazer coat around my waist under the belt so the torso part could cover my butt (think like a cape but lower). I would be border-line mooning people wearing this option but I honestly had no other choice. THANK GOODNESS advertising is business casual!

I walked into the office and immediately asked the receptionist if she thought the skirt was bad. She could tell I was super stressed and went into the bathroom with me to try to fix it. It actually wasn't a DISASTER, but I couldn't wear this for the entire day! AND at this point, orientation was beginning (I checked in to the building at 9:01, the lateness was KILLING ME inside).

I went into orientation and luckily, I wasn't the last one there. I have a friend in advertising that went to a different college, and she told me to look out for her friend who was also starting at my company today, and luckily she was sitting next to my assigned seat! We talked for a little and I told her what happened, she said  the skirt didn't look too bad and I started to calm down about the whole situation.

Turns out, everyone thought my debacle was HILARIOUS. I apologized to the first few people I met and they were all like "this is a great story already!" No one commented that my skirt was inappropriate at all - they were more concerned with if I was okay! So yea, I work for pretty much the coolest company ever. 2 of the girls in my department even went shopping with me during lunch to pick out a new skirt (we ended up just going to Kmart because the store they wanted to take me to ended up being closed). And I found something that I would DEFINITELY wear again!

So that was my first day as a working professional. Sure it had a TERRIBLE start, but I'm glad everything happened the way it did. PLUS, I handled a very bizarre, stressful, traumatic situation pretty well, if I do say so myself!

I'M SO EXHAUSTED NOW AND WANT TO GO TO BED. Here's to a smoother tomorrow!

<3, Charlotte