Bum-first in the pond

After finally graduating with my journalism degree, I spent four amazing years at Television New Zealand, working on a consumer affairs show called Fair Go - then one of the highest-rating shows on Kiwi television.

I was on-air for three of those years. It was the best gig ever. I got to travel around the country meeting the most fascinating people in the most interesting places, and producing stories from the heartbreaking – stories on insurance companies not paying out and leaving families destitute, to the quirky – I remember a story on malfunctioning gumboots that involved me standing – splat - over and over in cow pats.

One of my first assignments for Fair Go was to accompany a seasoned reporter on an ambush interview. This guy was a gypsy roof-painter who’d been fleecing old ladies for years, disappearing and reappearing when he needed more cash.

We tracked him down to another old ladies’ roof. My job was as second camera – I had a handy-cam and was meant to film the encounter from another angle. He was around the back of the house, so we arrived out the front and sidled down the side of the house. I could hear him up above, and trained the handy-cam on the roof as we quietly came around the corner.

All I could see through the viewfinder was the overhang of the roof, so I started creeping backwards, hoping to capture him in full roof-painting action.

Being so focused on the viewfinder, not on looking behind me, I walked backwards into a garden bed, landing – plop – bum first in a bird bath. My squeal made the painter turn around, which would have been a great shot if the handy-cam had been pointed at the roof, but sadly, it was flailing wildly around in my hand as I tried to get my wet behind out of the slimy pond. And there went the element of surprise…

I made the blooper reel that year. It wasn’t the first - or the last - time I amused my colleagues with my clumsiness.

Have you done anything super embarrassing at work? Please, make me feel better…