??♂? My Business Dinner Nightmare [True Story]

Back in the 1990’s, I was working with this big Fortune 500 company.

At the headquarters, I got to know one of the higher-up executives, a senior VP of purchasing.

We became friends.

I took him to a nice restaurant to say thank you?for everything he had done for me.

It was my very first time going out with him and our wives.

Back then, you could take people out; nowadays, I feel like it's frowned upon.

I took him out, and we had a very nice (expensive) dinner.

Everything was going great.

And then that bloody check came…

I whipped out my card to pay.

There was NO WAY I was letting this man pay for this dinner.

The waiter picked up the card and left.

A few minutes later, the waiter came back and said, “Um, sir, we have a problem with your card… It was declined.”

I could feel the blood drain out of my face.

“Are you sure? There’s no way!”

That was my only card.

I had no cash.

There were no ATMs.

I was in full panic mode.

Was this going to end the relationship?

Did I just ruin everything?

This was the one person I wanted to impress the most, yet somehow I managed to completely embarrass myself (and in front of my wife).

He ended up looking at me, kind of smirking, and said, “Don't worry, I got it.”

He reassured me it was okay.

Miraculously, it really was okay with him.

We ended up going out to several dinners after that… And yes, I paid.

We kept in touch, and we became very good business friends.

Remember to make the best out of bad situations.

At the time, I thought this incident was going to end my relationship with him. It was so bloody embarrassing.

But it didn't, and in a way, it made our relationship stronger.

We were able to go on and thrive in this Fortune 500 company.

Sometimes, things aren’t as bad as you think.

— Norm