I should have known better than to make a cheap joke at the expense of my boss in such a loud voice. I wondered why no one was laughing (usually we all love to laugh at her), and then I noticed the boss was standing right behind me.

The boss didn't mind though. We've known each other for years, we don't really get on, so I think she was quite pleased that I wasn't being more abusive.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not particularly tactful. As well as never thinking before I speak, I forget people’s names, like to spill food over myself, and often seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here are my top five recent embarrassing PR moments:

• A client excused himself for not sending some information across, as he was “rushing around like a mad thing”. I quipped back “LIKE a mad thing?” and the client tersely explained that, yes, he was recovering from a breakdown.
   
• When I went on stage to introduce a client at one of our events, his name completely went out of my head. What can you do? I decided to mumble and hope I'd get away with it. I didn't. He's no longer a client.
   
• At a pitch to a confectionery client, I was asked which flavour I preferred of a particular product. I said I liked the one with nuts. Of course there wasn’t one that contained nuts.
   
• I booked a day’s leave and told my boss I was going to Brighton for the day. I then bumped into her in central London. As I was dressed in my smartest suit, it was obvious that I was going for an interview. How we laughed! Guess she thought she might get rid of me! Sadly, for her, I didn't get the job.
   
• Despite having checked the names of all the clients I was about to pitch to, I hadn’t registered that one of those names was familiar to me. It was someone I had fired three years before. We didn’t win the pitch.