I worked on a customer support line for office printers. Before one difficult call, I put on my headset and said to the coworker beside me, "Time to pretend I am emotionally invested in paper trays." The call had already connected. A customer answered, "That's okay. The printer isn't emotionally invested either." I apologized until they started laughing. We fixed the problem, and I thought the incident was over. A week later, my supervisor played a recording during team training as an example of how humor can calm an angry customer. The audio began several seconds before the official greeting, so the entire department heard my paper-tray confession. For the rest of the month, coworkers left supportive notes on my desk saying things like "Your feelings are valid" and "The toner believes in you." I became much more emotionally invested in checking whether a call was connected.