We stumbled across a recent Facebook post where a reporter asked his colleagues:

"What’s the worst mistake you’ve ever made as a reporter?

Obviously, it wasn’t bad enough not to survive from it, so don’t hold back. Let’s hear it."
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These fine professionals did not hold back! They shared some of their most vulnerable, cringe-worthy, and laughable moments with the court reporting community.

We hope steno students get ahold of this article and realize: No one is perfect. May you find some wisdom, feel comforted by these veterans' blunders, and avoid spitting out your coffee as you read!

"I realized quite a way into a depo that I didn't swear in the witness. I think because there was a videographer, and I'm kind of on autopilot waiting for the "the court reporter will now swear in the witness," which he didn't say. When I was like, Oopsie, I didn't swear the witness in, it really confused the witness. He thought he was being accused of lying, not that I just forgot. Not an English speaker. I felt bad."

"My very first job I forgot to administer the oath. I had to stop the depo in the middle and swear him in, incorporating the past testimony in the oath. Yikes!"

"Forgetting to swear in the interpreter. My firm had me type up an oath page for him and go to his house and have him sign it"

"So I was doing a depo of a woman that was working in a science lab and had an accident. Science was not my favorite subject as you will see. LMAO. I'm writing and I keep hearing her say buns and burgers! Well, so I thought. THANK GOD I came out of that depo and was speaking to another court reporter, and I mentioned this to her and told her, "I don't get it, why is she talking about buns and burgers." Here it goes... She said, 'Do you mean Bunsen burners???' I'M DEAD! Every time I tell this story. 😂 😂 😂 I will NEVER FORGET THIS!"

"This was recently. Witness was answering a question, and it was something mean he said, but it was so funny! Not only did I laugh but I told him, 'That wasn’t nice.' Oh, I was mortified because it flew out of my mouth!"

"Beginning of realtime. Closing arguments. Jury didn't see but all else did. Counsel was winding down the great closing argument for $$$. He said, It's just like the little old lady in the Wendy's hamburger commercial that wanted to know: 'Where's the ... BEER" vs. Beef; it definitely took the solemn moment right out of the courtroom! It was hard NOT to laugh!"

"I told a client, right after the depo, what a SHEUT SAPBD WEUFP he'd made of the record. I was pretty fed up and used those words. Never heard from that client again. I cashed in my goodwill by being candid. They Can't Handle The Truth."

​"One of my first jobs, non-video, I was unaware of the deponent's ethnicity. He had practically NO accent, but something he said threw me for a loop. Of course, he was in Texas for the depo, but he was living in a city in Idaho before moving to Texas, and he lived someplace else prior to that. But I didn't understand what he'd said. Idaho was a state I hadn't lived in, so I was like, 'Maybe he said a different city than I've heard of before.' So I asked him to spell it. The attorney and he both looked at me, like, 'What rock did she grow up under?' And then he said AOER/AUK, I-R-A-Q. Omg. The worst of it is...one of my parents speaks Arabic. Holy... LOL!! I was beet red, mortified, and later asked the firm owner if I needed to include what I said in the record..."

"We had husband and wife plaintiffs come in to read their depos. They came out after a while and were both laughing. They said there was a problem with the transcript. The husband proceeded to tell me that starting on Page 69 of the transcript, there were wrong words. The reporter accidentally globaled the word "To" as the word "Fellatio" through the entire transcript, from Page 69 on. The taking attorney laughed hysterically in the office when I had to explain what happened. Her expert had sent the transcript back simply saying, 'Something's not right with this transcript.' Object fellatio form. I tried fellatio put my pants on. There were some really crazy ones."

"First time using a scopist (years ago), I figured I didn’t need to proof the transcript. BIG mistake! Attorney complained, and when I finally did look over the depo I was mortified."

"When wraparound skirts were in style, I stood up at a zoning board hearing and the tie broke and my skirt fell to the floor!"

"Wearing two different shoes."

"Many years ago, a depo of plaintiff, she wore a nice white blazer & sat across from me. As I was loosening what I thought was a stuck cord, the cord came loose, and my hand flung into her coffee cup! It dumped all over the front of that pretty white blazer! I wanted to crawl under the table! I apologized profusely and gave her my info & asked her to send me the cleaning bill!"

"I was leaning over my machine to put in the paper (back in the day), and my necklace apparently got caught in the keys. When I straightened up, beads went flying everywhere, and one of the keys came off the machine! I taped it back on with a bunch of scotch tape and carried on."

"Not a mistake, but I was sent to replace a reporter in court because she was wearing the same dress as the defendant and she needed to go buy a different outfit. The defendant was charged with murder..."

"Leaning way over to retrieve notes out of my tray to read back, my long pearls caught in my keys and took a while to untangle, with my chin down near the keys."

"I showed up to court 8 1/2 months pregnant in SF Giants flip flops. Thankfully I was in Alameda and the judge was a Giants fan. LOL! I honestly just couldn't see my feet and pregnancy brain. We all had a laugh, jury and all, and then we just went about our day."

"Back before we had to report closing arguments in a jury trial, the judge would make a record that both sides were resting, the instructions were fine, then excuse the court reporter. He excused me, and when I a took a step, my heel had gotten caught in the power cord for the county attorney’s VCR/DVD and TV combo and I fell, not quietly, in front of the jury box. The jurors all gave this huge collective gasp and the courtroom was deathly quiet until I managed to stand up. I just started laughing, because what else can you do? My dignity and pantyhose had taken a hit, but my sense of humor was a-okay!"

"Well, as a pro tem working in court for the first time straight out of CR school 27 years ago, I had all my equipment with me, waiting for the deputy to open the courtroom door so I could get in ahead of the jurors and set up. I was waiting in the hallway with hundreds of jurors, and we were packed in like sardines. I was next to a wall with an "employee only" door that would open to a hallway behind it. I was wearing a dress, of course, back when that was kind of a rule in court. For some dumb reason, I turned my back to the door and leaned on it since I was carrying heavy stuff and getting tired of holding it. My rear end hit the bar that opened the door, and I fell straight backward through the door and landed flat on my back with my dress up over my head! I had to do jury selection the entire day with all the people who saw me do that! I don't even remember how I made it through that day. I felt two feet tall!!!"

"Spilled coffee all over a stack of exhibits. Then painstakingly removed all of it with the help of bleach, q-tips, and a microwave! 😭"

"Made the mistake of having my husband mail two sets of exhibits for me, who, of course, mixed up the agencies."

"As a newbie reporter in the late ‘80s, I loved to party and was footloose and fancy-free. I made money and stayed out late with my girlfriends, even on weekdays! (I think about how I did it back then). Had to go to cover court and got there at 8 a.m. I had three hours of sleep. It was a heavy criminal plea day, and the way they had me set up, I was sitting right in the middle of all these defendants and the judge. Well, it was taking so long for them to get them all lined up to take pleas on all these DWI’s I fell asleep, and what woke me up is the judge, very loudly announced to this whole courtroom of people, 'If the court reporter is finished with her nap, let’s get this started! Ms. Court Reporter, are you with us?' He was not happy. I did my job, but when I got back to the office, my boss said the judge called him and told him never to send me back again! I was mortified and it never happened again. So embarrassing!"

"Got to a depo opened my back door and NO MACHINE!! Thankfully, I’m obsessed with being at least 30 minutes early, so I ran home, and we ended up 15 minutes late! After that I will check repetitively that it’s there. It is my biggest fear."

"I left exhibits at the ferry building in San Francisco. They were just copies and only a few. Today, I wouldn't freak out. It was my first month, and I thought I was going to throw up. I was going through the dumpster looking."

"Threw away a whole stack of exhibits..."

"Just once, after 23 years of reporting, I forgot my machine at home. Took down the depo in the shorthand I learned decades ago."

"Not really a mistake, but I lost an important flash drive that was marked as an exhibit. I know I sent it in a manilla folder with the rest of the exhibits, but my agency contacted me a few days later saying there was no flash drive. I tore my office apart looking for it and never found it. Pretty sure my agency thinks I lost it but I know I sent them it. Oh, well!"

"Leaving the exhibits on the subway."
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​"Forgot my tripod and did the first half of a depo with machine on table; forgot a laptop charger and usb cable more times than I care to admit."

"Went to the wrong location. I GPSed the witness's address and not the depo location. Wound up at a post office box rental. Finally showed up at the right place 40 minutes late and could not find parking ANYWHERE. The witness yelled at me for the inconvenience."
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​"One of my very first depos, I left a bag at home that had all of my cables and chargers and whatnot. Sat down. Realized it. (I was early.) The interpreter was in the room. I said, 'I’ll be right back.' I calmly walked to the elevator, and then ripped my heels off and RANNNN to my car and drove home and came back. Lost the parking ticket on my way in, as I was RUNNING back with no shoes on. I got to the front door of the office. Took a breath. Put my heels back on and got in the elevator and back up. Everyone was in there now (still early), and I am sweating, panting, and shaking. They couldn’t have been any nicer about it and just joked that it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t think my heart stopped racing the whole time. Being a bit more seasoned now, I realize I could have just used my machine and not hooked up to my computer, but as a new reporter, I thought that was the end of me!"

"I was going through my paper notes (in the '80s) on the way to the note reader's house. My husband was driving, and I had the window partially down. The wind caught my notes and pulled them out of the window. They were trailing behind the car. I shrieked, and my husband pulled over before they were lost/destroyed. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve them. Whew! No audio or electronic backups in those days."

"Witness in wheelchair. During the swear-in, I asked the witness to raise his right hand. He used his left arm to raise his right hand. Nobody told me the right side of his body was paralyzed. I felt like crawling in a hole!"

"Not really work-related, but I went to the grocery store, pulled my case out of my trunk, and rolled it into the grocery store with me!"

"Forgot to ask an attorney what firm they were from and had to call about 10 attorneys with the same name and ask them if they were at the depo of so-and-so."

"I’ve heard other people have made the mistake of not joining their court reporting organizations. You need to be informed and updated on what’s going on politically and locally regarding court reporting. Your opinion matters!"

Here's the TL;DR (too long; didn't read). The moral of these stories are as follows:

Unfortunately, our Stenovate support team cannot help you wear matching shoes, but we can support you on your journey to organize your transcripts and streamline your workflow with your favorite (or new!) scopists and proofreaders.

We hope you learned from and enjoyed these stories from your fabulous court reporter colleagues! Feel free to share this article with your court reporting friends or students who need a little encouragement or a good giggle!

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