I've made a huge mistake...

[JagSquared]

 

I'm sure there used to be a thread on this so if anyone can find it merge it with the other one.

 

Back to the topic I'm a trifle bored today despite a mountain of work in front of me and I was just chatting to a colleague about work fuck ups. So share your stories of "tiny, huge mistakes" from insignificant moments of cringe to full blown fucks ups that had significant impact.

 

I'll start.

 

 

 

[JagSquared]

FFS, with the next post apparently...

 

Thought I replied to an email from a supplier with "thanks - got approval from XXXX XXXXXX (very senior manager) about some insignificant project stuff.

 

Only I didn't.

 

Instead I had replied all to an email from our CIO, which he sent to everyone, and I mean everyone, informing us of the passing of a colleague.

 

Who had died suddenly that morning, and our auto recall doesn't work.

 

"Shit"

[Paulie Dangerously]

Used to work in a cheque processing place and final job of the day was sending out cheques to the relevant banks for approval.  One day I had a brain fart (possibly caused by a lunchtime pint) and mixed two up.  There were 3 lads, all temps, who worked the job and they didn't know which one of us fucked it up but the manager flipped his lid talking about 4 figure fines due to the error.

 

If it's that important get someone other than temps in to do it eh?

 

For the record if someone was to lose their job over it I would've stepped forward and owned up

[lifetime fan]

Not quite the same as others but in the spirit of the thread.

 

Mate and me are out on the piss, (I should now point out we both worked in a secure hospital, needed police checks for employment and he's currently lecturing psychiatric nursing at Adelaide University).

 

We're staggering home and he's desperate for a lash but can't find anywhere so decided to scale this massive fence into a car park to pee. He gets up the fence 2 or 3 times and keeps falling down.

 

Finally he gets over, stands behind this car and you can hear the sighs a mile away.

 

Next thing you know there's lights on everywhere and a load of blokes shouting at Jer.

 

Turns out the prick had climbed in to Trinity Road Police Station for a piss.

 

Luckily for him they found it hilarious, gave him a pretend bollocking and gave us a lift home without cautioning him or giving him any crap that could fuck up his career.

[skend04]

When working on my year out, was laughing and joking with a colleague about how something or other "would give me a heart attack" all whilst another colleague was taking a phone call informing him that his sister had just died of a massive heart attack...awkward!

[A Red]

I was cleaning a barthroom, spraying wiping etc only to find out that i'd been using Mr Muscle for kitchens

[Oh Buoy]

I was working in a bar a few years back that had a beer garden / sitting area at the front. I was on the close and the bar had finally died down so I took the opportunity to clear up outside and left the bar unattended for about 10 minutes. Unfortunately it was really sunny that day and every quim under the sun had decided to sit outside and with barely any staff, these quickly stacked up with those massive 'combo' plates. Anyway, as I'm stacking these up some bloke in a wheelchair comes out and shouts, "er, is anyone on the bar or what?" to which I told him I'd be a couple of minutes. 

 

Darted to the kitchen with the plates and threw them at the poor lad who'd been cleaning everyone's half eaten ribs all evening and came back to the bar. Served the lad and wasn't really too bothered by his attitude - I mean, the lad wanted a bevy and had to wait. An hour or so goes by and my manager comes down and asks if I'd served the bloke in the wheelchair and then proceeded to tell me he's getting drinks and going to reception (had a hotel at the back). When going this, he'd been trying to chat up the old bird on the desk and not having much luck but really creeping her out to the point she called the manager to stand nearby whilst he was there. 

 

As the night draws to a close; I begin locking the doors and leave the main entrance to allow the regulars to leave. Once the bars empty I locked the main door and notice the guy in the wheelchair has fallen out. And by this, I don't mean fallen out, he was on the other side of the grass and his wheelchair was in no position that matched the direction he'd fallen out. I'm trying to work out whats happened and come to the conclusion he's fell out and crawled to the other side in a drunken state and naturally, I go out and check he's alright. 

 

He's still awake, pissed off his face and starts singing the conga. My manager notices I'm outside and comes out and helps but the lads started to take his shirt off and swinging his top around as we bring the chair back over. He pushes away the chair and then vomits all over my leg and completely covers my pants - I can still see the chunks. As we try and help him up, he screams, "Where's that girl I wanna' fuck" and starts trying to make his way back to the reception. 

 

That's what kindness gets you kids; a drunken quim who vomits up your leg and tries to rape receptionists.

[Hooch]

First day as a van driver delivering bins.

 

On A41 New Chester road, bins fly off back of van, not strapped down properly, shit everywhere, takes me a painful age to sort it out, holding up traffic. My boss drives past on his lunch break.

 

Kept the job somehow.

[Einch]

Coded metrics and imperial distance measurements wrong in a combat system. No one picked it up and we fucked up the demo to the brass. Not good watching shit fall very short on the test range.

[Oh Buoy]

Letting out a casually wet SBD when receiving some great oral. 

 

Heartbreaking when even you have to leave the room because it's so bad. 

[VladimirIlyich]

.....said the Hedgehog dismounting the clothes brush.

[Redder Lurtz]

Whilst working for a major grocery retailer, I offered to help the Pricing Team out after hours one night, helping them create electronic vouchers which are allocated against shoppers' accounts by way of a credit as part of a price match scheme. The software for creating the vouchers was immensely complex and wide open to fuck ups. And sure enough, I managed to apply a free £5 voucher to every online customer they had. It cost them £300k by the time they clocked it and managed to recall the remaining vouchers.

Whoops.
 

[Redder Lurtz]

Letting out a casually wet SBD when receiving some great oral. 

 

Heartbreaking when even you have to leave the room because it's so bad. 

 

You should have told him to hold it in.

[Ranxerox]

Painted houses one summer to pay for university, had many paint related fuck ups. A couple in particular stand out. 
 

Was painting indoors and went to move a fairly nice coffee table out of the way. When I set it down 1 leg ended up straight in the paint can. Lots of intricate carving on the table leg meant a 30 minute job cleaning all the paint off it. 

 

Same job my partner went to move a hutch not realizing it was a two piece where the top was not secured. I was downstairs when I heard a mighty crash. 

 

We used spin tools to clean the brushes and one time I made the mistake of doing it too close to a customers open garage door. A fine mist of paint ended up on his car, luckily it was latex and cleaned up rather easy. 

 

Another indoor job my partner was climbing down from a step ladder and stepped right onto the edge of  a fully loaded roller tray. It acted like a catapult and I can still see the paint tsunami gracefully arcing across the floor (cushion floor luckily) and onto the wall. 

[Anubis]

Whilst working for a major grocery retailer, I offered to help the Pricing Team out after hours one night, helping them create electronic vouchers which are allocated against shoppers' accounts by way of a credit as part of a price match scheme. The software for creating the vouchers was immensely complex and wide open to fuck ups. And sure enough, I managed to apply a free £5 voucher to every online customer they had. It cost them £300k by the time they clocked it and managed to recall the remaining vouchers.

Whoops.

 

 

Redder Lurtz

Redder Lurtz

Riding through the glen

 

Redder Lurtz

Redder Lurtz

With his merry men

 

Feared by the bad

Loved by shopping bargain blerts

 

Redder Lurtz

Redder Lurtz

Redder Lurtz

[Redder Lurtz]

A more expensive one happened to my line manager at the time of working for said grocery retailer. I told her about my fuck up and what it had cost the company.

 

She said "Oh that's nothing. In my fist few weeks working here in Grocery Trading, I released a press ad for Buy One Get One Free Walkers crisps. I'd released it two weeks early though and it cost the company £1.3m in coupons they had to honour"

 

Skills. 

[lifetime fan]

I was 18 working as an order picker for a freight and shipping company called Davies Turner, I was working overtime one evening when the foreman let me unload wagons with a forklift.

 

I'd never driven one in my life and wasn't even given a demonstration. Second pallet I take off I drop off the pier, only it had £50k of computer equipment on it.

 

Luckily the foreman thought it hilarious, knew it was his fuck up and just covered it in shrink wrap and hid it in a bay.

[Oh Buoy]

Old friend of mine was crashing at someone else's house. Midnight comes around said he woke up needing a shit and not just any shit, one of those limited time shits. He got up, grabbed the handle of the room he was crashing in and the thing came off in his hand leaving a clear hole where the lock should be.

 

In sheer panic of shitting himself he tried everything from books, rulers and knocking lightly on the door as the parents were in. The lock wouldn't move and he wasn't about to kick the door down and having to explain next morning it was because he needed a shit.

 

He ended up grabbing his mates sisters PE bag and shit in that. Then to cover himself opened the window and launched it out the house into a neighbours bush.

[Anubis]

Proper Bear Grylls survival stuff that.

[Stu Monty]

"I probably won't bother taking my dissertation to my tutor to check as it'll be boss (like all my other assignments) so there'll be no worries".

 

"Oh God...I've made a huge mistake"

[Josef Svejk]

[jimmycase]

Was working on a project back in the day, office had no canteen so we used to take it in turns going on the butty run. Anyhooo, this day the lad who's turn it was to go get the butties said his car was fucked and had to get the train to work so could someone else go get the butties?

 

No one offered and I was snowed with work so said, borrow my car, a two seater morgan. Told him not to go stupid or anything. Like a cunt he said of course not, i'll take John with me to prove it.

 

Anyway, he comes back 45 minutes later and says to me you'd better come look at your car. Think it was a wind up i said why? Better come and have a look was all he'd say. Told him to fuck off and where's the butties but he kept insisting come and have a look. so i gets my coat and starts off down the stairs half expecting him to say its a wind up but no, get's to the car and the back fucking wheel is bent and the front wheels pointing in opposite directions!!

 

What the fuck you done i said? nothing, it happened when i reversed up a high kerb was all he'd say. Cunt!

 

still he did pay for the repairs so only half a cunt i suppose.

[Nunavut Patrick]

Truck driving had a couple of fuck ups.

 

Took a 40' flat deck load that was mashed together, had some mining equipment and styrofoam on it, the styro was loose so tied it down.

 

All looked alright, left the barge area and got aboot 25km up the mine road and had forgot to lash down one section, so the styro shifted amd then flew off the lorry. Haha, fucking pieces of styro (in sheets like a boogie board) all across the fucking tundra, took me and the lad following me 45 mins to gather it up and re-attached it to the flat deck.

 

A two hour trip turned into a four hour trip as the shit just kept shifting in the wind as well on the way up, had to climb up and lash it down time and time and again.

 

Early on, they sent me up the mine road with 45,000 kg of grinding balls and I missed a gear on a high grade hill and just ended up stopped about 75 yards from the crest of it. Tried to hit in sixth, downshifted and couldn't find five or three and basically just spiked the brakes to stop rolling back down as momentum and gravity (cunt forces) conspired against me.

 

Completely panicked and forgot to shift down from high gear to low gear using the pre-selection so tried to start a rig in fifth gear, with 45000 kg, on an 8% grade... meanwhile, having released the trailer brakes and just using the service brakes, had pretty much managed to bleed down the air to less than 60psi so the warning buzzer was going off; luckily the fellow who had been follwing parked his truck and tromped up the hill and calmed me down, got the air back up and told me my mistake, I bulldogged the last 75 yards in L and never fucking downshifted on that hill again.

 

Three weeks later I had 44500kg of cyanide and basically stopped at the bottom of the hill and went up in two low.

[stringvest]

I did the same as Jagsquared, but even more cringeworthy.  I was working in an office where lunches were often arranged for training courses, board meetings etc.  When lunch was over, any leftover sandwiches etc would be made available for staff.  The facilities manager was a massive and frankly not very nice woman who one day sent a message to all staff (about 200) that there would be a load of food made available in the staff kitchen.  I knocked up a reply, which I meant to send to two or three of my colleagues, which said something like "not if you've got your mitts on it before us you fat fuck".  

 

Of course I pressed the Reply to All button before pressing Send.  

 

10 minutes later, I was called into the MDs office.  He had his head in his hands - all he could say was "Why? Why?"  and all I could say was "because I'm a fuckwit".  Every member of staff (apart from her) had an arsehole that tried to eat itself for the whole day.   I was ordered to buy some flowers and personally apologise.  She made great play of spectacularly launching the flowers into the bin.  I'm cringing as I type this, and it was a long time ago.  Fuck.

[Hooch]

I did the same as Jagsquared, but even more cringeworthy.  I was working in an office where lunches were often arranged for training courses, board meetings etc.  When lunch was over, any leftover sandwiches etc would be made available for staff.  The facilities manager was a massive and frankly not very nice woman who one day sent a message to all staff (about 200) that there would be a load of food made available in the staff kitchen.  I knocked up a reply, which I meant to send to two or three of my colleagues, which said something like "not if you've got your mitts on it before us you fat fuck".  

 

Of course I pressed the Reply to All button before pressing Send.  

 

10 minutes later, I was called into the MDs office.  He had his head in his hands - all he could say was "Why? Why?"  and all I could say was "because I'm a fuckwit".  Every member of staff (apart from her) had an arsehole that tried to eat itself for the whole day.   I was ordered to buy some flowers and personally apologise.  She made great play of spectacularly launching the flowers into the bin.  I'm cringing as I type this, and it was a long time ago.  Fuck.

Ace.