Biggest mistake you've make at work!

Royale with Cheese · 20-07-2009 12:37AM

Put a massive dent in the roof of an Opel Combi van I was driving as part of a merchandising job. There were no spaces left in the carpark so i pulled into a gap just below the ramp above without thinking. Crash.

Told the boss the next day. These things happen etc. All was grand. Took it back to Avis and got another van, thought nothing much more of it (I was on a short contract with not much hope of being kept on, and I knew straight away any chance of being kept on was now gone). Got an irate phone call a few weeks later from the head office in Cork after they'd received an insurance claim. Seems I was supposed to call them about this (although to be fair I had no idea this was the policy, and I'd told my superiors in Dublin who just let me go about my business). Anyway I'd been driving around uninsured for about 2 weeks. Oops.

piby · 20-07-2009 12:50AM

tribulus wrote: »

This didn't happen in work but while doing my thesis in college I had to use a particular antibody. A small vial of it cost about 10K. I only had to use a small amount but I pipetted into the wrong sample, rendering it unuseable, that probably cost a grand or so.

I just flushed it down the sink and said nothing but it was an anxious few days!

Oh I've been there alright!

Armin_Tamzarian · 20-07-2009 12:53AM

Biggest work mistake was attending a Christmas Party for a crowd I worked for part time when I was in school.

Plonked myself down at an adjoining table where there was a nurse's Christmas party going on.
Proceeded to buy round after round of drinks for them and told the barman to charge it all to our company's table.
Saw some fit young one walk past.
Nudged the boss and said "she'd get it" to which he replied, "that's my daughter".
Saw some bloke dragging a fella from work around the bar in a headlock.
Charged over and tackled yer man to the ground.
At which point the attacker started to go into some sort of asthmatic fit.
Turned out he was he was just another fella from work who was messing about with the fella I "saved".
Got into a taxi with a few big shots from work who were going on to a niteclub.
Got sick all over them on the way into town.
Jumped out of the taxi and ran off.
Ended up getting arrested for being intoxicated in a public place.
I refused to give the Gardaí my name so they found a work number in my pocket and rang the boss around 4am to verify who I was.

When I showed up at work on the Monday morning I was called into the office and told that it'd be best if I quit and concentrated on my schoolwork.
It was probably the best result I could have hoped for, all things considered.

Beanstalk · 20-07-2009 01:00AM

Ive never cringed so much reading a post....when you go to town, you really go to town!

orestes · 20-07-2009 01:02AM

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm fecking dying to see what Biggins posts in this thread

mardybumbum · 20-07-2009 01:08AM

I used to work in a local grocery store.
My first day went perfectly. Did everything right and the boss seemed happy with me.
She called me up to her office just before I was about to leave for the day.
Boss: "Mardybumbum, you worked really well today. Can you come in tomorrow?"
Me: "Yea, of course. What time"
Boss: " 10 to 4 "
Me: "Great. See you then"

So I strolled into work the next day at a quarter to four, big grin on my face.
But then I noticed that all my coworkers were staring at me and then one of them ran up to me quickly and said "The boss is furious at you, your nearly six hours late"
I said "Sure Im five minutes early"

I didnt keep my job there for long.

7mountpleasant · 20-07-2009 01:09AM

Heard a classic of a guy I used to live with, he was working in the logistics section in the huge lidl warehouse in charleville, new retail manager guy starting came into the office to meet his boss, as he was talking to his manager they guy runs in to say his brand new audi tt company car has rolled into a fairly steep trench, forgot to put handbrake up on his lovely new car, classic

j1smithy · 20-07-2009 01:14AM

mikemac wrote: »

And if you don't have a job, hey you probably had one at some stage.

I'll start.
Working in finance, I fcuked up a transaction and lost a client 30,000USD.
My boss saved the day, a true legend.
But I still got called to the boardroom and got a bollicking from my team leader

Working in a cosmetics factory I put the wrong label on 10,000 lipsticks.
My teamates had to peel off 10,000 labels and relabel them all.
My name was dirt for weeks and weeks
Actually, the production line monkeys (like me!) got loads of overtime so I was quite popular at the time but I didn't repeat it.

Any good stories?
Possibly I started this thread last year, hey it's all good fun

Is it groundhog day?

Firetrap · 20-07-2009 01:16AM

Posted out several hundred invitations to an important meeting - with the date wrong on them.

thebossanova · 20-07-2009 01:25AM

Wheeling 3 boxes of Miller into the bar I hit a bump. Top one landed top down with a smash. 24 bottles of beer down the tube... It was only Miller, but it was still beer dammit!

Sharpshooter · 20-07-2009 01:29AM

Did they even ask you what ales you?

oppenheimer1 · 20-07-2009 01:31AM

A couple, When I worked in a deli counter, I accidentally sprayed ammonia on a couple of joints of meat, I didn't notice at the time. Couple of days later a few customers complain about the terrible tasteing beef. A few words were thrown my way, but they couldn't really say much to me as earlier that week a row of shelves collapsed but I caught them before they crushed a toddler.

Other mishaps include the time I almost got crushed when a car backed into me and pinned me between a trolley and a wall in the shopping centre car park. Standing on broken glass (I got to go home early!) I've had rockets and fireworks fired at me too, an attempted mugging (I never carried any valuables when I was working outside). My co worker once took the side off a car while bringing in a row of shopping trollies. He went on his break and didn't come back till that customer had left the shop! He was rather careless and took a number of wing mirrors in his day as well.

I also left my till open and unattended during christmas (we were very very busy at the time and was dealing with six people all with different problems), I was very lucky there was no dishonest people around at the time

Thankfully no money ever went missing on my till, though I do remember I was spot checked a lot. The most I was ever off was a euro.

Birdie086 · 20-07-2009 01:39AM

worked in the family chipper/cafe for 14 years, one day i was stressed and landed a womans lunch on her laps - beans all over the place. but the biggest mistake was taking the job in the first place......

thebossanova · 20-07-2009 01:43AM

Sharpshooter wrote: »

Did they even ask you what ales you?

Aha, nice. But no.:P

Actually another time I went home from work with the days takings from my tables in a restaurant, forgetting to cash out with the manager on duty. She nearly had a heart attack when she realised she was down nearly 1000euro. Que frantic phone calls and shouting!

marko91 · 20-07-2009 01:45AM

Armin_Tamzarian wrote: »

Biggest work mistake was attending a Christmas Party for a crowd I worked for part time when I was in school.
Plonked myself down at an adjoining table where there was a nurse's Christmas party going on.
Proceeded to buy round after round of drinks for them and told the barman to charge it all to our company's table.

Saw some fit young one walk past.
Nudged the boss and said "she'd get it" to which he replied, "that's my daughter".

Saw some bloke dragging a fella from work around the bar in a headlock.
Charged over and tackled yer man to the ground.
At which point the attacker started to go into some sort of asthmatic fit.
Turned out he was he was just another fella from work who was messing about with the fella I "saved".

Got into a taxi with a few big shots from work who were going on to a niteclub.
Got sick all over them on the way into town.
Jumped out of the taxi and ran off.

Ended up getting arrested for being intoxicated in a public place.
I refused to give the Gardaí my name so they found a work number in my pocket and rang the boss around 4am to verify who I was.

When I showed up at work on the Monday morning I was called into the office and told that it'd be best if I quit and concentrated on my schoolwork.
It was probably the best result I could have hoped for, all things considered.

u sound like me on a night out:Dlegend u are!!

Sharpshooter · 20-07-2009 01:46AM

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

A couple, When I worked in a deli counter, I accidentally sprayed ammonia on a couple of joints of meat, I didn't notice at the time. Couple of days later a few customers complain about the terrible tasteing beef.

Why did you have ammonia in a spray bottle while working in the deli??

G_R · 20-07-2009 01:49AM

while working in a small shop part-time,

some lady was getting her shopping...it was €200 and odd and she gave me her Laser and told me to take €250 and give her the change. The laser machine was seperate to the till so i hav to type in the amount. she put in her PIN, then the receipt printed off. I didn't even look at it and cashed off the till and put in receipt and gave her the change of €250.

she comes back in 5 mins later and handed me the receipt. Turns out, the zero button had stuck down and i had charged her €2500:eek:

boss had to write her a cheque for €2250 because he couldnt figure out how ta do a bloody refund on the laser machine.

didnt get in too much trouble but i still felt like an eejit!

Super-Rush · 20-07-2009 01:58AM

Playing some Gary Glitter at a kids party.

soundsham · 20-07-2009 01:58AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onnvYZKSQvs
we made a small mistake........but we video'd it:D:D

irish_goat · 20-07-2009 02:02AM

The pub I work in has a bolt type door with a padlock at the front. One day I left the padlock on one side of the bolt AND at the same time left the safe (with about €3000) lying open. This was before we had any sort of alarm system installed.

In my college pub job, the day of my last exam after having spent a few hours in the pub I though I'd hide my drunkeness by doing work in the cellar. So as I was wheeling stock around I managed to knock 3 boxes of pricey wine over smashing a whole load into pieces and leaving a stink of wine all over the room. Fortunately I was going home for the summer the next day so I hosed the room down "to clean out all the dirt" and didn't mention the wine. If they ever found out about the missing stock I certainly never got the blame.

Adyx · 20-07-2009 03:27AM

First night I started working as floorstaff in a nightclub, I was sent up to our sister nightclub to get boxes of 3L Smirnoff (4 bottles in a box), being the hero I was I tried to carry 2 boxes at a time. Didn't end well obviously. Dropped the top box outside the KFC on the main nightclub/pub street in Waterford. One of the other lads just grabbed the box and I heard no more about it. Still have no idea how many I broke.

Another time in the pub I'm in now, I was down in the keg room changing kegs before we were open when I saw a Heineken tab disconnected. Tapped it back on and went to the bar to check it. Turns out that particular line was being disconnected. there was Heineken spraying all over the bar and the till was destroyed!

oppenheimer1 · 20-07-2009 04:17AM

Sharpshooter wrote: »

Why did you have ammonia in a spray bottle while working in the deli??

Ammonia is particularly good at removing blood stain but It could have been methylated spirits, in any case it was some sort of powerful cleaning agent for cleaning down the sneeze guard/glass displays, without leaving smears. Thinking about it now, that food was totally inedible... oh well

mateo · 20-07-2009 04:36AM

Well it was my first day in a cafe and noone told me which numbers to put on the tables, so I had to guess. Well it turned out they were all completely wrong and orders got mixed up on the till, some peoples orders didn't go through and others got charged for other tables because the other staff who had come later had used the usual table numbers. Luckily I was sent home, can't imagine the headache it must have been sorting out my mess. Also, I hadn't been properly trained on the till so I used my coworker's till number, so he might have got blamed for it!! Needless to say the cafe never needed me again! :-/ I know it's not a huge mistake but I felt pretty mortified and pathetic about it!

Tar.Aldarion · 20-07-2009 04:51AM

Working behind upstairs bar in a nightclub, I left the tap on, running onto the floor! Think it cost a few grand of damage. Whoops

allybhoy · 20-07-2009 06:51AM

This didnt happen to me but my cousin.

He was working in a well known garage with a huge parts department, the manager usually done the ordering of stock off the official vendor :- Ford, but one day he was really busy and asked my cousin to order 40 sensors, think they were Lambda sensors or something and were worth roughly 50cents each. So he checked the existing part # and wrote it down, typed it into the system and ordered them up, Hunky Dory.

5 days later 40 transit Van roof's arrive onsite, the part number differed by 1, he had written down a 7 instead of a 1, and it turned out they cant be returned back as they had to be shipped specially to ensure they didnt bend etc, they cost something like €1,500 each which meant it was roughly 60k! Boss was far far from impressed but somehow he kept his job.

tman · 20-07-2009 07:15AM

Trying to clear up some disk space and I managed to "del *.*" in a totally wrong directory and brought a site down for about 12 hours (thank **** for novell and filer/salvage is all I can say!!!)
All because of a crappy pcanywhere modem connection that missed random keystrokes

Bit of a nerdy one ^_^

laugh · 20-07-2009 08:08AM

tman wrote: »

Trying to clear up some disk space and I managed to "del *.*" in a totally wrong directory and brought a site down for about 12 hours (thank **** for novell and filer/salvage is all I can say!!!)
All because of a crappy pcanywhere modem connection that missed random keystrokes

Bit of a nerdy one ^_^

I deleted an Oracle database instead of Oracle database logfiles one time . . .

I had started working on a disk space related ticket for the customer and all of a sudden the screen filled up with red high priority tickets like they were after being nuked.

IvyTheTerrible · 20-07-2009 09:17AM

Not me, but I reckon one of the most expensive mistake at work was the American in NASA that didn't convert from Imperial measurements to metric and one of the Mars missions was fecked. Billions down the toilet!

SuperTyper · 20-07-2009 09:35AM

I worked in a solicitors office, my boss was lovely but the head honcho was a complete and utter d*&k. I was covering for this monster one day as his secretary was out sick, took a few phone messages, went into his office to give them to him and he physically shoved me out of the door, cursed at me a few times and slammed it in my face (this was standard practice for him with most of the employees). I opened the door and shouted at him to "F*&K RIGHT OFF". Walked back to my desk, packed up my stuff and never went back. Gas thing is, I got a phone call asking me to come back:eek: Every interview I went to after that commented on how long I lasted with that company and how NOBODY wanted to work there. Got a new job the very same week.

homerun_homer · 20-07-2009 10:42AM

I once sent a 2 million GBP deal with an incorrect discount (error in communication between my manager and me) to an account manager. This caused a near panic attack to my manager while I considered walking out. It all worked out grand in the end since no customer saw it in the end but for the 2 hours until we got it recalled... Stress city.

Another time I asked the Wagon of a HR woman at a work party when she was due to have her baby, "2 Weeks ago" she told me. Everyone thought I'd get ousted for that one.

Biggest mistake you've make at work!

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