Current Events > worst you've ever fucked up at work?

(+) Yeah! (+)

>.>
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Assistant manager of a produce department.

I ordered like 100 crates of grapes instead of 10.

I wasn't even there when they came in. It was my last day and I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. The regional manager was supposedly supposed to go over our orders before they were approved to stop typos like that so he must have missed it as well.

Old coworkers told me my boss was throwing a shit fit and was convinced I did it on purpose since he decided to take his two weeks vacation conveniently on my last two weeks there. I kind of wish I had, but it was genuinely a fuck up.
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Almost fucked up a study completely at my old job. They managed to do some data Jiu-Jitsu and swept it under the rug.

But in my defense the work was in a side room with no ventilation. Must have been like 90 in there, not exaggerating. Because of the water bath kicking off so much heat.

Normally the testing was in the main lab which had proper ventilation so it doesn't get hot as fuck.

Chemist of the lab kinda saved my ass. Pretty sure my supervisor wanted to fire me. If they hadn't been able to salvage it I'm sure they would have.

But fuck that job anyway. Hated it. Stress and anxiety was ridiculous with it. Never work in pharma. Or at least not a CRO.
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Wrote on the white board with permanent marker.
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I ordered a case of watermelons while I was a nursing home manager. it was my first week and this building used a different food company.

one case was 112 watermelons. luckily I stopped the delivery guy before he brought them in.
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Idk if I've ever screwed up super obviously but I've definitely had a bunch of little things happen like not understanding instructions from someone even after they explain it for the 3rd time or procrastinating cleaning when I'm the last to leave until the last 5 minutes and then not having enough time to do it.

These might sound stupid but I make up for it in other areas like rarely ever calling out/being late and being excellent with customers
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removed some storage from a production server causing an outage. not completely my fault, got bad info, but i should have been more thorough.
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Accidentally deposited a bunch of money from the store I was covering to my home store.
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I was in charge of keeping track of and reporting of deaths of members for a professional regulatory body. This was published in a magazine distributed to all members. The CEO's assistant gave me instructions to rush add a person to the obit list, right before the cutoff. I did so on her request.

The man was not dead. The man was understandably a bit upset about being reported as dead and having his wife harassed with condolences (he was a big deal in the field I guess). I almost got disciplined for but I kept track of my e-mails.

They had to print a retraction the next issue... and then he passed away shortly after unexpectedly. That man had his name mentioned in 3 consecutive issues for dying, not dying, then really being dead. An honest error with bad timing.

hope I never fuck up that bad again
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Worst I've done is order something wrong probably. I did see a guy tell his boss to go fuck himself though, that was fun since most people don't like said boss.
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D-Lo_BrownTown posted...

Assistant manager of a produce department.

I ordered like 100 crates of grapes instead of 10.

I wasn't even there when they came in. It was my last day and I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. The regional manager was supposedly supposed to go over our orders before they were approved to stop typos like that so he must have missed it as well.

Old coworkers told me my boss was throwing a shit fit and was convinced I did it on purpose since he decided to take his two weeks vacation conveniently on my last two weeks there. I kind of wish I had, but it was genuinely a fuck up.

40 boxes of green bell peppers. In my defense I was ordering for a one day sale I meant to hit 4 but the power went out so I was ordering in the dark
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I hit on a cute chick.

Who turned out to be the new store manager.
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let's see here...

-The biggest was being half an hour late to my first after school program teaching kids Legos. I of course did not know how to make the Legos and in the process broke the box of Legos and lost some bringing them into the school. to be fair I was convinced against my better judgment to do it by the guy and he was just as poorly organized, but the fact is I was late. They didn't pay me for this but after 15 minutes of arguing I got four dollars in quarters.

-When I worked in a lab I had a process which took several hours. in one part I think I either overused or underused EDT by a factor of 10 can't remember which. I repeated this process for months.

-Took my franchise owner's wallet thinking it was mine while rushing to go on a sales trip for a fitness company

-From my perspective, my biggest fuck ups have involved misplacing thousands of dollars in client funds, but apparently this is very common in the corporate world and usually fixable so it hasn't gotten too blown up.

-canceled a client account when I shouldn't have. This on the other hand was considered a pretty big fuck up.

-I straight up left a customer while selling her a phone. She was fat and obnoxious and I had to leave to go to my therapy appointment.

-Hit an old lady with flying tomato bits while chopping her salad. She was pissed

-Failed to capture a broadcast baseball game for video editing my first time acting as video distributor. This caused my coworkers to have to stay past midnight. I actually managed to turn this one around, but then we all got laid off :(

-side swiped a maintenance truck in a golf cart owned by nuns while acting as a handyman for a catholic school when I was 16. This is a great one looking back.

jfc I've fucked up a lot. This made me smile though.
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started a grease fire that shut down the whole kitchen once, that was fun
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dib153 posted...

started a grease fire that shut down the whole kitchen once, that was fun

Starting fires is fun.
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bump
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I indirectly caused a political incident between India and Pakistan but that wasn't really my fault. Worst actual mistake I made was to send a raw manuscript to the printer instead of the final copy. I saved it in time but it still cost the company money.

I had to fly out to Wisconsin from Louisiana to work.
So we stop in North Carolina to get on a second plane.
I decide to go outside to smoke. Cone back and I miss the plane. Got on another one 4 hours later but I felt like a jack ass.
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Nothing super bad. And technically ive made more costly mistakes but stufd that im sure a lot have done (spill a bunch of food on the floor in a restuarnt for example) but thee dumbest ive done is when I worked construction. Boss asked cut a piece of cement fiber siding and handed it to me in which I immediately threw in the trash pile and it broke. That was thr piece he wanted to keep Idk why I thought he handed me the cut off that was meant for the trash.
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008Zulu posted...

dib153 posted...

started a grease fire that shut down the whole kitchen once, that was fun

Starting fires is fun.

Ive started several firea in a kitchen cleaning the fryers (forgetting to turn them off while cleaning) never caused a problem though id just drop the lid on it and it would smother the flame. Though once the fire statrted after i walked away to grab something and this cashier who usually wasnt in the kitchen started screaming.
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No showed work without calling in.
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potentially sent two wrong sets of teacher evaluations.

like, the professor was teaching two sections of the same class, and at the end of the year, we had to print out evaluations so that they could pass them out to their class.

we get one of the evaluations back, and it turns out that the bottom section was crossed out with a pen and another one was written in.

evaluations are important because if a professor gets enough poor student evaluations, then they have a disciplinary meeting, iirc, and a committee determines future action.

anyway, since I was the new guy, my boss blamed it on me, but it could have also been my co-worker who often made mistakes or the professor in question (I think this is the likeliest case).

to this day, I don't know, but it felt like shit getting blamed for it.
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One time at work, one of my co-workers was up on a ladder trying to replace a light bulb on a very high ceiling. I got the idea to prank him and kicked out the ladder from under him, he was nearly on the top rung!

So he fell on his head, died almost instantly. I was thinking what a pickle I had gotten myself into and had to think fast. We had a new hire, she was only 17, surely someone that age wouldn't serve time over an "accidental death"

So I closed the double doors leading to the back room, propping a heavy 8 foot folding table against the backside of the door. I found the new girl and told her we needed supplies from the back room, she had to give the door a hard shove because the door sticks. So she did, sent the table flying into the ladder, making a tremendous crash and the look of shock on her face.

"OH MY GOD I KILLED HIM!" she screamed in terror. I told her she had better leave fast, he was the owner's favorite employee.

This was 7 years ago. Last I heard after a LONG period of therapy, she moved to Tibet for some religious experience or something. They never suspected anyone but her. I've since had 3 raises at my job, and no one else has died on my watch.
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I'd refer people to speak to someone, and give them his work cell number, for months without knowing that they'd been promoted out of that position and were now one of the senior ranking officials in the organization. This is for a law enforcement agency.

I was driving a forklift at First Energy Stadium for the commissary warehouse. Had a stack of full kegs from the day's delivery that were meant for the concession stands on concourse 5W (5th floor, west side of the stadium). I pulled out of the lift and hopped off to close the lift door. As I turned back around I realized I had taken it out of gear, but hadn't put the brake on. So I ran up to the forklift, jumped on, and slammed the brakes.

It stopped before it ran into anything, which was good. However, the tower of kegs tipped forward and the top palette with 4 kegs slid off and crashed onto the concourse. None of the kegs broke, thankfully, but the palette was smashed and there was actually about a 1-inch chip knocked out of the concrete floor. I stopped on the way back down to the warehouse and tossed the palette into the dumpster. When I got back, my boss asked what took me so long. I had a reputation for being pretty fast with keg dropoffs, which is why I was always the one assigned to it on our long delivery days when we were always crunched for time. I just told him my stomach was bothering me and I had gone to use the restroom.

I don't think anybody ever found out, tbh. This happened about 6 years ago, and when I went to see a game 2 years ago I made a point of going up to 5W and sure enough that little chip in the floor was still there. XD It turned out to be nothing, but if those kegs had broken it was going to be a massive cleanup and a pretty sizeable bill...
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Remoted into a client's computer. The dial-in was taking forever so I started browsing crap on the internet. Found a funny copypasta I wanted to send to someone, so I copied it to clipboard, not really engaging my brain.

At that moment the client tries to copy-paste into a search box on his machine, and the copy pasta appeared. Here's the interesting part: they pasted it into a search box that had a character limit, so it only caught the first sentence. The first sentence was "I fucking hate my job, jesus fucking christ", or something like that. It was that scooby doo copypasta.

They laughed and we all pretended we didnt know where it came from, but I knew.

I've fucked up worse before but that was one I just remember being so ridiculous and I can't believe I got away with it.
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MabusIncarnate posted...

One time at work, one of my co-workers was up on a ladder trying to replace a light bulb on a very high ceiling. I got the idea to prank him and kicked out the ladder from under him, he was nearly on the top rung!

So he fell on his head, died almost instantly. I was thinking what a pickle I had gotten myself into and had to think fast. We had a new hire, she was only 17, surely someone that age wouldn't serve time over an "accidental death"

So I closed the double doors leading to the back room, propping a heavy 8 foot folding table against the backside of the door. I found the new girl and told her we needed supplies from the back room, she had to give the door a hard shove because the door sticks. So she did, sent the table flying into the ladder, making a tremendous crash and the look of shock on her face.

"OH MY GOD I KILLED HIM!" she screamed in terror. I told her she had better leave fast, he was the owner's favorite employee.

This was 7 years ago. Last I heard after a LONG period of therapy, she moved to Tibet for some religious experience or something. They never suspected anyone but her. I've since had 3 raises at my job, and no one else has died on my watch.

Wtf
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Accidentally leaving the mic on and potted up back in my radio days.... and singing along to shania of all things for a solid 30 seconds before I noticed.

Got a few calls.
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I've had a few screw-ups during my time working, none as bad as some of the ones listed here. Bought some items while not on my break, brought a coffee into work for Black Friday(which one of the managers took personal offense to), and left my job site(was working security) to go hang out with my friends. Got caught for the last one, but in my defense, my boss was an asshole who was making me work a ridiculous amount of shifts during that period.

I was working sixteen 12 hour shifts in a row, not given a flashlight, cell phone and not allowed to leave to use the bathroom. I got caught and was about to be fired before my father convinced me to go into therapy for a month. After that month, I found out that boss got fired, a new boss was hired(who was an old friend of the family) and I got not only a raise, but put on as a security guard at a mental institution, which by the way was the greatest 3 years of my life. Dear lord did I love working there.

2 of us on, we worked nights, didn't have to deal with any of the patients, and all we had to do was use a hand scanner to check points during the night-time. It was great. On the days the scanner was broke, we would just hang out and watch tv all night, while one of us would run to McDs to buy food.

All the patients were looked after by the white team(which is a team solely designated to deal with code white patients(those that go nuts and try to break out)).

Besides almost getting caught for stealing the worst I've done is probably crash some power equipment.
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Drinking at work and getting fired for it. Pretty embarrassing.
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Molten sodium hydroxide and water makes a sodium hydroxide volcano that shoots about 10 feet into the air. This was a Friday afternoon and I was able to clean the mess with no one noticing.
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EpicMickeyDrew posted...

MabusIncarnate posted...

One time at work, one of my co-workers was up on a ladder trying to replace a light bulb on a very high ceiling. I got the idea to prank him and kicked out the ladder from under him, he was nearly on the top rung!

So he fell on his head, died almost instantly. I was thinking what a pickle I had gotten myself into and had to think fast. We had a new hire, she was only 17, surely someone that age wouldn't serve time over an "accidental death"

So I closed the double doors leading to the back room, propping a heavy 8 foot folding table against the backside of the door. I found the new girl and told her we needed supplies from the back room, she had to give the door a hard shove because the door sticks. So she did, sent the table flying into the ladder, making a tremendous crash and the look of shock on her face.

"OH MY GOD I KILLED HIM!" she screamed in terror. I told her she had better leave fast, he was the owner's favorite employee.

This was 7 years ago. Last I heard after a LONG period of therapy, she moved to Tibet for some religious experience or something. They never suspected anyone but her. I've since had 3 raises at my job, and no one else has died on my watch.

Wtf

This is a safe place, nobody will be judged lol
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nothing too major, the thing I stress out the most over are media interviews though. I have definitely not done as well in those as I'd have liked
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Two situations come to mind.

1) I accidentally committed the university I work at to an event that costs hundreds of dollars when I didn't have the authority to do so. They had to eat the cost and chewed me out over it. This was within 2 months of when I started the position.

2) At a different job at a different university, I was doing room checks during spring break. I had forgotten to send out the reminder email about the checks like we usually do. As such, during one of my checks, I walked in on a girl just chilling in her room naked (she was in the bathroom when I knocked and announced myself so she didn't respond). Fortunately, she didn't complain about it to my boss.
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Used to work at a paint store.

Accidentally sold someone oil based paint when they requested water based. BONUS: They ran the oil based paint through a paint sprayer which gunked up their machine and cost them a lot of time and money to clean out.

They returned to the store and were really pissed... these two country lookin dudes who were acting like they were going to start swinging on me if I didn't "make it right". Obviously, I replaced the paint with the proper water based mixture... but they wanted more... so I was like "uh... I could buy you a 6 pack?" That seemed to make them happy, but I was like "you'll have to wait until I leave work later".

Thing was, earlier that day at work, I'd also dropped a 5gal bucket of paint on my toe, which was swollen and bleeding.

So I meet them at a gas station later that day after my shift ends, and they get to laugh at me as I literally hop across the parking lot on one foot (that's how badly my toe was hurting me) and then hobble back out to them like "ugh.... here you go...." and they just laughed and drove off. I'll never forget that haha
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Nothing fire worthy but I would imagine it will happen at some point.

Messed up 25K worth of LVT flooring because I had the install direction wrong on the blueprints. Our installers installed it. Had to rip it out and redo it.
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I can't remember which spice I put too much into the beer batter mix at the restraunt I'd used to work at. A little after lunch the GM came into the prep area and told me he's getting complaints the chicken is spicy. I told him it tasted great. Probably the best batter I've ever made. He grabbed something nearby to sample the batter. Upon first impressions he did confirm it was spicy. But also agreed that it was really good.

He warned me to just stick to the book and don't go off script.
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My last job was at a pizza place. After I left, my former boss randomly messaged me on Facebook on Halloween to come in and work because it was really busy. I texted another employee and I was like "I don't mind coming in if you need extra help but fyi I'm already drinking and don't plan to stop so... >_>" so I ended up going in drunk and got even more wasted while I was working. I was blacked out by the end of the shift and had been in charge of the till. I think I gave wrong change to people and made the till short because they said if I was going to come in and help like that again, I wasn't allowed in the till and couldn't drink. I ended up working once more there and while I stayed out of the till, I still drank. I just paced myself better and didn't flaunt it like I did on that halloween. I didn't really care that they said no booze because I wasn't employed there anymore and was being paid under the table.
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Machete posted...

I was blacked out by the end of the shift and had been in charge of the till.

Machete tills!
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HairyThotter posted...

Machete posted...

I was blacked out by the end of the shift and had been in charge of the till.

Machete tills!

lol
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I didn't get alcohol for the gift plan. -_-

Probably the worst thing I ever did was overlook getting someone's annual evaluation written but thankfully it was a pretty simple administrative task because of the timeline so it wasn't that big of a deal.
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When I was new to retail, a guy came and hit me with the quickchange scam. Lost over $200 from the register I think, probably more. Thought I was gonna get fired, but I didn't.

Fast forward two or three months, I'm ringing someone up and I hear it. His voice. It's the same fucking guy. And I'm sure he does that kind of stuff all the time, so he didn't remember me, but I remembered him.

He tries the same thing as last time. Buys some cheap item for like $2, hands me a $100, and I give him his change super fast and close the register. He starts trying to say how he needed change and this whole spiel, but I pretended like I wasn't able to open the drawer again.

I let a manager know, and the police came and arrested him. Apparently they knew him well.
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AttackUp posted...

EpicMickeyDrew posted...

MabusIncarnate posted...

One time at work, one of my co-workers was up on a ladder trying to replace a light bulb on a very high ceiling. I got the idea to prank him and kicked out the ladder from under him, he was nearly on the top rung!

So he fell on his head, died almost instantly. I was thinking what a pickle I had gotten myself into and had to think fast. We had a new hire, she was only 17, surely someone that age wouldn't serve time over an "accidental death"

So I closed the double doors leading to the back room, propping a heavy 8 foot folding table against the backside of the door. I found the new girl and told her we needed supplies from the back room, she had to give the door a hard shove because the door sticks. So she did, sent the table flying into the ladder, making a tremendous crash and the look of shock on her face.

"OH MY GOD I KILLED HIM!" she screamed in terror. I told her she had better leave fast, he was the owner's favorite employee.

This was 7 years ago. Last I heard after a LONG period of therapy, she moved to Tibet for some religious experience or something. They never suspected anyone but her. I've since had 3 raises at my job, and no one else has died on my watch.

Wtf

This is a safe place, nobody will be judged lol

This, whatever the fuck that guy's problem was.
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Dropped two barrels of merlot, the oak barrels were brand new at $2500 each and were filled with $10000 worth of wine that all went down the drain.

It was a good lesson that working 90 hour weeks for three months does not lead to safe forklifting.
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Pinotage posted...

Dropped two barrels of merlot, the oak barrels were brand new at $2500 each and were filled with $10000 worth of wine that all went down the drain.

It was a good lesson that working 90 hour weeks for three months does not lead to safe forklifting.

I just don't understand people that work that much. 60+ hours should be extremely rare and short-term. I understand bills gotta get paid but you've gotta enjoy life a little. Get help from others if you need to. Eventually you'll be so exhausted (and depressed) you'll be the cause of a huge accident putting other people's lives at risk other than your own.
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It's an old school winemaking mentality that health and safety are working to change.
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I cleared an aircraft to land on a runway with a vehicle on it.

Granted, it was a Djiboutian national driving a truck with no lights at night and he wasn't supposed to be out there, but I should have been more effective scanning the runway. Nothing happened because the guy just went around and we kicked the driver off the runway and took his airfield driving license, but it was still a major fuck up.
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