What's the biggest mistake you've made at work?

Arohanui

Today I am as stressed as I have ever been in my life because of an oversight I made at work. A mistake was made by someone and it was my job to catch it and I didn't and now there will be some very serious consequences. I decided to ease my fears about my P45 being on my desk next week by drinking as much wine as I could without being sick. And having done that, I want to know what f**K-ups other people have made? I don't mean leaving the person who you realise now was destined for you or any other such b****x, what have you done that nearly got you fired? Or even better (such is my schadenfreude mood) actually got you fired?

Pighead

Pighead doesn't really do any work so unfortunately I wouldn't be the best person to ask. Anyway just popped in to say, great thread buddy.

Lump

OP, did you kill some one?

If not, it's hardly the worst mistake ever.

andrew

Arohanui wrote:

Today I am as stressed as I have ever been in my life because of an oversight I made at work. A mistake was made by someone and it was my job to catch it and I didn't and now there will be some very serious consequences.

So what'd you do?

and......

maybe he did YORE MA!

Pighead

Hope its got nothing to do with a Life Support Machine and a fcuked fuse.

cormie

I got fired for telling the manager that the company sucked and they treat customers like shoite and that I'm not going to lie for them and how dare they ask me. It wasn't a mistake though.;) I suppose I wasn't really being fired either. It was more them saying "well if you feel that way I wouldn't be the best manager if I let you stay with that attitude".

Silverfish

My advice is start blaming the system. Fast. First offence? Talk your way out of it.

Eh..... my biggest mistake in work? Possibly the time a part went on a machine that was the most important machine in the production line. Thousands of computer chips would be sitting useless unless this part was replaced. We didn't hold one in stock as it was extremely expensive. Year's salary expensive, kinda thing.

So, I ordered it from the manufacturer in Japan. Got it ferried to a plane. Got it flown to Ireland. Got a taxi to collect it from the airport and drive like the clappers to the plant.

Grabbed it at reception and ran down the hallway to hand it to the maintenance engineer....... and dropped it.

In fairness, he tried to catch it. With his foot. Both our faces drained of colour as we watched this part shatter all over the corridor. Ahhh, fun times.

Arohanui

Ok, I didn't actually kill anyone. I really don't want to get into specifics because I know that workmates frequent this place. I'll just say the mistake that I didn't spot will potentially cost a scary amount of money in factory downtime. That's all I'm prepared to say at this juncture :-) Bring on the horrific stories people!!!!

Arohanui

Silverfish is setting the bar high. That's the calibre of story I am expecting to make me feel remotely better! I seriously feel your pain and thanks for a story well told :-)

Lump

Silverfish wrote:

My advice is start blaming the system. Fast. First offence? Talk your way out of it.

Eh..... my biggest mistake in work? Possibly the time a part went on a machine that was the most important machine in the production line. Thousands of computer chips would be sitting useless unless this part was replaced. We didn't hold one in stock as it was extremely expensive. Year's salary expensive, kinda thing.

So, I ordered it from the manufacturer in Japan. Got it ferried to a plane. Got it flown to Ireland. Got a taxi to collect it from the airport and drive like the clappers to the plant.

Grabbed it at reception and ran down the hallway to hand it to the maintenance engineer....... and dropped it.

In fairness, he tried to catch it. With his foot. Both our faces drained of colour as we watched this part shatter all over the corridor. Ahhh, fun times.

Surely insurance covered it?

Arohanui

I would hazard a guess that the downtime in production cost far more than the part itself cost...

Dingatron

I don't make mistakes!

Well ok, this one time at band camp...... Upgraded the wrong database and lost 5 years worth of important data. :eek: Luckily we had a backup but system was down for a few days.

Scraggs

Broke the safe key in the safe so it couldnt be opened or closed. Another time I mislaid ten grand but thankfully it tuned up in the end ..phew...

Ruu_Old

Scraggs wrote:

Broke the safe key in the safe so it couldnt be opened or closed. Another time I mislaid ten grand but thankfully it tuned up in the end ..phew...

Just resting in your account was it?

cormie

Silverfish wrote:

My<snip> Ahhh, fun times.

Your manager wouldn't have thought to order 2 incase it happened again no? And it did, because of you:D

thomj42

dude, chill out, it won't be as bad as you think. work isn't really very important in the scheme of things.
i haven't done anything particularly stupid, although i know a guy who was interviewed by a woman for a position, and then when asked how he got on by another colleague proceeded to explian how "he couldn't concentrate because the interviewer had savage tits"... he wasn't aware that the colleague he was talking to happened to be the interviewers sister... eeek.

scojones

That time I got caught having a ****.... man that was bad.

Arohanui

Thanks for the encouragement Thomj42 - but the first friend I relayed my tale to after was less than encouraging

"Don't be worried, sure it's not like you're the only supplier in the world"

"well actually, well-meaning friend, we are"

"well, it's not like anyone is going to die, is it"

"well actually, this will potentially impact at least on the quality of peoples lives in the short-term. Dying is not an impossibility"

"Ooooh.........you're f***ed so."

"Yeah, I know. Thanks."

Ciaran500

Can you not fix this mistake or at least try limit the damage?

thehomeofDob

Hmmm... I was messing on one of the phones at the customer service desk. Well, two of us were. I hit the "P.A." button, that supposedly doesn't work any more and started talking into it. About 20 seconds later the guy in tech knocks on the window at me an tells me he can here me. I start shouting obscenites at him and what not. Every colourful word under the sun.
Just after I'm done, I find out that the P.A button now broadcasts to every phone with a loudspeaker on it. It just so happens that there is one of those phones in the managers office, and one in the training room - where there happened to be 15+ managers from other store branches!!!
Biggest Mistake Ever.

Kingsize

biggest mistake I ever made in work was not telling my boss(from a couple of jobs back) To FUKK Right OFF.

seriously if you reckon youre gonna be fired you'll probably just get a "ticking off" take it like a man & give it all the "wont happen again" act.
Everyone is essentially paranoid i've managed to stop myself from waking up in the middle of the night wondering did i do something right or wrong in work.
Also if its your job to make sure somebody has done there job correctly youre already one level of abstraction away, can you always imply that the other guy fooked up in such a way that it wasn't noticed.

Arohanui

Oh don't worry, damage limitation is being employed to the max but there is only so much you can do when lead time exceeds the amount of time left in an essential material in production...

el rabitos

when in doubt , just blame everything on that foreign guy Tebor

county

sjones wrote:

That time I got caught having a ****.... man that was bad.

at work:eek: control yourself man

Green_Martian

My biggest mistake in work would have to be the following:

When i was in charge of a group of ppl one of the staff emailed me asking for time off, but this person was taking days of left ,right and centre for job interviews, and my boss and i knew this.......So i emailed the boss saying "Is he/she taking the piss i know for a fact he/she is going for an interview, does he/she think we are stupid, we need to have a serious talk with them"

Of course i NEVER hit the Forward button, i hit the REPLY button :eek: :eek: :eek: , and of course the mail was sent back to the staff who orignally sent it. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me...........Man i was fooked.....thought i was getting by P45 by 5pm that day:p

Green_Martian

el rabitos wrote:

when in doubt , just blame everything on that foreign guy Tebor

LMFAO:D

Zapp Brannigan

el rabitos wrote:

when in doubt , just blame everything on that foreign guy Tebor

Ah tebor, how many times have you saved my ass?

On another note, I actually used to work with a guy named Tebor. I laughed my head off my first day!

county

Slurms wrote:

Ah tebor, how many times have you saved my ass?

On another note, I actually used to work with a guy named Tebor. I laughed my head off my first day!

dont tell me he`s hungarian:rolleyes:

Lust4Life

I've never made any holy sh1t mistakes at any job I've had.

But I can relate a tale from my previous job. A Fabulous error made by upper management!

I needed a disk containing vital information to forward off to a customer.
Two people in the company had copies of this disk. My Boss, Bill, and our Gov't sales Manager who just happens to be gay.

I sent E-mails to both asking for a copy of that disk.
Ten Minutes later the Gov't Sales Manager comes running up to my desk yelling "Don't read it! Delete! Delete!" with this look of terror on his face.

He was too late, though. I was already rolling in laughter at his failure to use spell check.

His reply was "I think I gave my d1ck to Bill.":)

thelordofcheese

I think the time i took the server room key to Hi:Fi and locked the entire company out of there for the whole weekend.

Thankfully no server fell over, if it had i would have been lynched.

The_Minister

ROLF L4L

I once sent confidential informationabout one company to one of their rivals. This was accounts and stuff:(

The Roach

I'm still fairly new in my job, but since I've started I know a few people that have made COLOSSAL mistakes!

The largest of these that I can think of was when an engineer analysed data from a piece of equipment incorrectly. The equipment was then used in the production line for a few weeks, and it was only when the first products reached the final testing phase that a problem was seen. It was traced back to that piece of equipment, which was adding severe defects to every product it processed. EVERYTHING that had been processed on that piece of equipment had to be scrapped - approximate commercial value of product that had to be scrapped was about €120million.

The engineer in question only got the "be more careful next time" speech.

From what I gather from most of the guys I work with, everybody has screwed up at least once. But accidents happen; it's only if you keep repeatedly making the same mistakes that you're likely to get in severe trouble.

Fracture

I've done quite a few stupid things in my time,
I used to work for my uncle when i was 12 - 15 selling petrol at a station, more often than not there was only 2 of us there. I was a bit of an edjit and i kinda had a thing for fire, so out at the back of station on a warm summers day i decided to light one of the bushes on fire, before i knew it there was quite a few of them on fire and getting a bit close to the petrol. Luckily the other lad i was workin with came outside and seen me throwing sand on it and kicking it to try and put it out, so he grabbed the fire extuinguisher and put it out. THANK GOD!!

I also got caught by the same uncle one day playing with all the takings near the end of the night, i was havin a laugh while throwing all the notes up in the air to have a money shower effect, was fun i must say. He wasnt too impressed tho lol.

Black Swan

Signing a contract without qualified legal representation. Not smart!

Siogfinsceal

I used to work in a v big global finance company. their quality department spent over a year developing their changeover to the euro- you would think they had back ups of the disks. Anyway in addition to my own server maintenance work they used to get me to retore files, wipe disks etc at night. One night I was very busy and instead of restoring a file I wiped the disk.......they had no back up, the entire euro conversion had to be stalled while the disk was sent to Wales to be reconstructed....it then got lost on the way back and ended up coming back via germany 2 weeks later. The only reason I didnt get fired was that my boss told their boss it was their own fault for not having a back up! Lets just say I was nto popular after that.......


Another time in college during the summer I was working for a similar global company and one the first day I decided for the laugh to photocopy my face in the massive photocopier. I heard a voice behind me and thought it was the lad who sat next to me so just laughed - only to discover it was the head of european business over from the UK

The Sweeper

One week into a job, I once assigned the same piece of work to two different freelance staff. It cost us £30 (yes, thirty pounds) on a million dollar project. The guy who was doing the handover to me went mental and swore at me and told me I had to get my goddamned act together. (This same guy, who was based out of New York, later said to me "I can't believe you and the team were working until 4.30am. When I managed this project we never, ever worked past midnight." Yes, moron, in New York, which is five hours behind us.)

The biggest mistake I ever made was not telling him at that moment to shove his job so far up his hole it was waving out his mouth.

ferdi

i was working for a logistics company in Germany which dealt with booze...moving liquor around for big hotels, airlines etc and i was processing order forms (mind numbing drivel). long story short, i photocopied over one of the incoming orders (worth in excess of 10,000DM) making it unreadable. panic. i looked left...i looked right...i looked behind me....all clear. i scrapped the form and kept my gob shut. never got cought.

tibor

el rabitos wrote:

when in doubt , just blame everything on that foreign guy Tebor

cамое меньший, котор вы смогли сделать должно получить мое право имени!

cormie

tibor wrote:

cамое меньший, котор вы смогли сделать должно получить мое право имени!

According to babelfish that means:

camoe smaller, you is which we could make must obtain my right of name!

Numina

Pighead wrote:

Pighead doesn't really do any work so unfortunately I wouldn't be the best person to ask. Anyway just popped in to say, great thread buddy.

theres a mistake right there

Archeron

A few years ago, a girl in accounts kept ringing me and going "BEEP" before giggling and hanging up. She done this about 40 times in one day and I was freaked. So my phone rang, I picked it up and shouted "Would you ever f*** off and leave me alone or I'll come down there and kill you" (as you do)
It was the MD of the company calling me from the boardroom where he was on speakerphone and surrounded by all the senior board members.

is_that_so

Nothing major personally but one guy in a company I was in ran
rm *.* as part of a script on the main server.
A whole day lost .:rolleyes:

Binomate

Some of these stories are priceless.

The only accident I've ever had while working was when I was working in a little shop and I was bringing about 40 or so, two litre bottles of different soft drinks on a trolly from the store room to the shop to stock the fridge. The store room was across the road from the shop (stupidly enough) and the road in between the shop and the store room was on quite a steep hill, and to top things off, there was a peir at the bottom of the hill. I heard a noise and noticed the trolly lift thingy was getting a lot lighter. I looked back and saw all 40 of the 2L bottles rolling down the hill and off the peir in to the water. Had to get a rowing boat and go out and collect all of the bottles. : /

phantom_lord

Binomate wrote:

I looked back and saw all 40 of the 2L bottles rolling down the hill and off the peir in to the water. Had to get a rowing boat and go out and collect all of the bottles. : /

lol, that takes the biscuit!

User45701

i made a 10,000+ euro mistake in my 2nd week

joe_chicken

I left the keys to a forecourt petrol station in the middle of the aforementioned forecourt... overnight... with the ligths on... beside a pub

Woke up the next morning and it somehow dawned on me what I did

Luckily they remained... but god was that stupid

okidoki987

Heard of a girl who worked for HR in a major bank.
Was sending a memo out to her boss about new recruits and how much they were on and what the job spec was but she sent it to the whole company :eek: and there was war.
People went straight to the MD complaining that the new recruits were earning more then they were etc, cost them a fortune!
Girl handed in her notice that day.

Dan133269

User45701 wrote:

i made a 10,000+ euro mistake in my 2nd week

care to tell us what it was?

whatsupdoc?

Not me (thankfully) but a colleague (since departed) made a major mistake and ended up costing the company 1 MILLION Euro :eek:

tj-music.com

Biggest mistake? Easy: Showing up

mountainyman

is_that_so wrote:

Nothing major personally but one guy in a company I was in ran
rm *.* as part of a script on the main server.
A whole day lost .:rolleyes:

I put something like that into a stored procedure in a place I used to work. I thought they were going to try to f ck me over when I resigned but they were really sound.

I had to ring my replacement and get him to swap the stored procedure for one that didn't have the kill line.

MM