Your Costliest Errors At Work

monkeyfudge · 21-05-2010 01:01PM

In my capacity as a graphic designer I've done a few bad ones.

A recent bad one would be a typo that went into adverts on 1000 busses across Dublin.

kylith · 21-05-2010 01:02PM

I accepted a dud cheque for €700. We had an address for the person though, and a phone number, turned out those were dud too.

force majeure · 21-05-2010 01:03PM

I think I mentioned this some where before but not too many donkeys years ago I worked in a nice little job so I did. Until on day while back from lunch with 8 pints inside me I hoped on the forklift to shift a pallet off washing powder, demolished said pallet and was promptly sacked.
Lesson, never drink and drive... a forklift.

Biggins · 21-05-2010 01:08PM

A fellow co-worker beside me once managed to lose just over 6 million pounds for a few hours.
They (like me at the time) were working for a multinational company.
We worked in the "logistics" dept and had a huge scope of the money that was at our finger tips to use at leisure.
The co-worked somehow (hangover or something) managed to transfer 6 million pounds to a wrong account for as payment to another company.
When the co-worker quietly whispered to me across a desk "I think I just lost 6 mill..." I though they were joking.
They weren't.
After many hours of panic searching accounts and contacting fellow company offices and their same dept' level of staff there, we eventually traced the lost amount.

We had to inform the boss however at some stage and we knew it. The interest lost on the 6 mill' was considerable alone.
Dreading telling him for hours and finally doing so... he just laughed!
We walked out of work that day on a amazing high. From the depths of depression at losing 6 million to the high of our asses were safe, it turned out to be a hell of a day.

monkeyfudge · 21-05-2010 01:08PM

force majeure wrote: »

I think I mentioned this some where before but not too many donkeys years ago I worked in a nice little job so I did. Until on day while back from lunch with 8 pints inside me I hoped on the forklift to shift a pallet off washing powder, demolished said pallet and was promptly sacked.
Lesson, never drink and drive... a forklift.

Could have been worse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmbxj3352IM

mirwillbeback · 21-05-2010 01:10PM

I've made a few very costly mistakes in my time, but I always seem to get away with it.

HSE Executive

monkeyfudge · 21-05-2010 01:15PM

UPDATE: Just snapped a key off in a lock to a cabinet that contains a few grands worth of equipment. D'oh!

Diabhal Beag · 21-05-2010 01:22PM

monkeyfudge wrote: »

UPDATE: Just snapped a key off in a lock to a cabinet that contains a few grands worth of equipment. D'oh!

My office, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

Chiorino · 21-05-2010 01:22PM

About ten years ago I managed to topple the forklift in the yard of the supermarket I was working in. Turned too fast with the forks only half way down and over she went. The funny part was that the bloke they got to come down and try to lift it back up actually ended up doing more damage than I did.

I'd only broken the windows and thrown the weights out. He buckled the entire cab trying to lift the forlift using a hiace pickup and a length of chain.

Bazzy · 21-05-2010 01:29PM

I used to work for a mobile phone network and at every network theres a NOC (network operations centre) "someone" was training,

Basically they have a training enviorment and a live enviorment mr sombody thought he was on the training enviorment and decided to mess about and delete sites off the list etc

turns out he wasnt and was on the live enviorment the whole network went down for about 40 minutes NOC manager just laughed it off

They reckon a mobile network being down costs a million an hour

analfabets · 21-05-2010 01:42PM

Bazzy wrote: »

I used to work for a mobile phone network and at every network theres a NOC (network operations centre) "someone" was training,

Basically they have a training enviorment and a live enviorment mr sombody thought he was on the training enviorment and decided to mess about and delete sites off the list etc

turns out he wasnt and was on the live enviorment the whole network went down for about 40 minutes NOC manager just laughed it off

They reckon a mobile network being down costs a million an hour

I did same mistake in SAP R3 system (warehousing). Except i removed stock from shelves.
Damage done was tiny though

General Zod · 21-05-2010 01:52PM

many years ago I sold a set of £1200 golf clubs to someone for £299. I lost my job the next week. The guy they hired to replace me stole £3k from the takings.

Needless to say I had the last laugh.

jasonb · 21-05-2010 02:02PM

I've been pretty lucky, took in a dodgy cheque once in Xtravision years ago, only cost them about £100, didn't cost me anything apart from the stern talking to. That feeling of 'oh no, I've done something wrong, no-one knows yet, but they will' is horrible, it's like you're a kid again!

I think I'll steer clear of warehouses from now on with all the maniacs driving fork-lift trucks!

J.

genericguy · 21-05-2010 02:11PM

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Didn't happen to me, but to someone in the same company at one of our manufacturing plants.

Some very expensive components where placed in a huge oven as part of the manufacturing process.
There was a fairly new guy whose job was basically to clean the oven after every run & before the next batch went it. So, he cleaned the oven with some specialised cleaning fluid and it was loaded up with the next batch of components. Turns out he forgot to wash out the cleaning fluid and the batch was destroyed.

Total damage was a little under £100,000. He didn't get sacked though...as the company had just payed a heavy price for his education.

No idea if this is all true...it's just something that has been passed around work many times over the years.

a very similar thing happened to me when i was doing my degree - i pressed the wrong button on a machine and dumped about e20m worth of meds. there was a fancy investigation and all that jazz, but the boss patted me on the back for writing a concise incident report, and sent me for a day's re-training.

i'm positive someone here will ID me now though!

topper75 · 21-05-2010 02:21PM

Orange69 wrote: »

Overwrote a bunch of files in a cvs repository once. Forgot to update before committing. Embarrassing..!

And that, my friend, is why I ****ing hate CVS.

Cookie_Monster · 21-05-2010 02:24PM

posted €65 million to the wrong account once

vangoz · 21-05-2010 02:24PM

Bazzy wrote: »

I used to work for a mobile phone network and at every network theres a NOC (network operations centre) "someone" was training,

Basically they have a training enviorment and a live enviorment mr sombody thought he was on the training enviorment and decided to mess about and delete sites off the list etc

turns out he wasnt and was on the live enviorment the whole network went down for about 40 minutes NOC manager just laughed it off

They reckon a mobile network being down costs a million an hour

Ive come really close to doing that so many times (not on that scale)

The Big Red Button · 21-05-2010 02:24PM

Yet another forklift story - a guy I know was driving a forklift on a building site. He managed to let it fall sideways into a hole. No one saw him doing it, and he wasn't supposed to be driving it in the first place, so he decided to try to get it out on his own ... using another forklift, which ended up falling into the hole on top of the first one!

smallerthanyou · 21-05-2010 02:31PM

In an old job we let the office eijit order the stationary. He ordered 100 boxes of files instead of 100 files. The stationary company wouldn't take them back so we just stored them up. Reckon it'll take about 20 years to use them up at the rate we used them.

In another job I was on a charge-out rate at something like 150e. Some poor company was paying for all my internet and coffee break time.

Lando Griffin · 21-05-2010 02:35PM

Wrapped 95 bales of hay instead of silage in the wrong field at the wrong farm.
On muck spreader duty since.

timmywex · 21-05-2010 02:43PM

Forklifts are the best to be fair!

Had a whole pallet of coal just fly off the side of one after going through the corner too fast...manager looked at me, laughed, and just said have a nice evening! Ended up cleaning the mess for hours, knackered after it!

And then they still wouldnt send me on the training course!

mathie · 21-05-2010 04:16PM

General Zod wrote: »

many years ago I sold a set of £1200 golf clubs to someone for £299. I lost my job the next week. The guy they hired to replace me stole £3k from the takings.

Needless to say I had the last laugh.

Why so Blue Peter?

General Zod · 21-05-2010 04:32PM

mathie wrote: »

Why so Blue Peter?

I bounced back.

Ruu_Old · 21-05-2010 04:45PM

All these forklift episodes reminds me of the below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TC9qaYWAwY

citizen_p · 21-05-2010 04:59PM

a guy i worked with threw out a load of meat with 21st writing on it, it was the 13th
mixed up 12 and 21,

also me brother inlaw works for guiness as a scientist of some sort, after 3 weeks in the job he had to dump half a millions worth of guiness because somthing was wrong with it, he ended up getting a promotion.

Antar Bolaeisk · 21-05-2010 05:22PM

Hyperbullet wrote: »

Have seen this happen. Seriously not cool!!!

Right before my eyes, you don't realise how much film is in a film until it's all over the place

Film was "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" so roughly 3KM of film on the floor. Could have been worse, could have been something like "The Return of the King" :eek:

xcarriex · 21-05-2010 07:07PM

I work in ins, and when i was starting out i thought i had set up a policy for this guy, he owns like half of Dublin, and i just kept doing the same process as nobody checked my work or anything, until he tried to make a claim, i had infact not set ANYTHING up and none of his apts had been insured.... Whoopsy!:o

It caused major trouble at them time, now anytime he is in he just laughs at me

PeakOutput · 21-05-2010 07:36PM

this time last year we got a new pilot (had been in the company years and had flown the cessna(4/5 seater) but not the otter(24?? seater) for us

he had been doing it full time for about two months when he was refuelling in between loads and reversed the fuel truck into the wing

the cost was about 80K to fix the wing but it took 5 weeks during which time the business lost a significant amount of money and he was demoted straight back to his old position so thats about couple hundred grands worth of pilot training wasted out of his pocket. then all our reduced wages as we only get paid if the plane is flying. and then he decided he couldnt take the guilt so he sold his 500K house in bali to pay off the money he had lost the company

needless to say he didnt get fired and we still love him

mick_jt · 21-05-2010 08:23PM

I was working in a furniture factory 2 years ago. I was moving a €1000 leather couch out of the showroom. When I was wheeling it out a corner of a table caught the back of it and tore a 6 inch hole in it.....I said nothing. About five minutes later I was in the workshop and my boss was patching it up luckily he thought it was ripped when it was being transported in the ship from China.

vincenzolorenzo · 22-05-2010 03:03AM

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Wrapped 95 bales of hay instead of silage in the wrong field at the wrong farm.
On muck spreader duty since.

I actually don't know how you managed that! Sure they're completely different bales!

Your Costliest Errors At Work

Comments