Biggest fuck up you ever made at work?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Let’s see, from back with my shit jobs which I put myself through school, I was working as a janitor in office building after hours. I got an angry call from the boss-man one day. It seems that someone had put an open can of coke in a trashcan and I had dumped in the large plastic garbage bag which I dragged along. A hole had opened and I left a dirty streak all over the office, from one garbage can to the next. The boss made me clean the carpet on my own time.

The biggest mistake I made myself was not checking one of my salesman’s numbers on a quote and approved it. The yen-dollar exchange rate error cost my company about $20k, and since I gave the approval it was my fuck-up. My boss wasn’t happy about that one.

There was a larger error which I didn’t cause, but was involved in having to sort out what the hell happened and how to fix it. I was working in an import company, and purchasing and letters of credit (L/C) were part of my duties. One of the product lines were large recording consoles, which cost several hundred thousand dollars each.

We’d increase the L/C for a purchase and then reduce it after it was paid off. One of the other managers, an absolute idiot who should never have been in a position of responsibility, told me one day that the bank had called the day before and there wasn’t enough money on the L/C for that account, so he had authorized an increase. Without telling me for a whole fucking day! This was for something like $150,000. And he gave me this little shake of his head, like I was a kid trying to play with Monopoly money in a grownup’s poker game.

I raced to the phone, but the money was gone. Transferred from our bank to the manufacture’s bank in the States already. And this was in the 90s when $150k seemed like a lot of money. (Actually still does, but I loved that line.)

The recording console manufacturer had a new accounting manager, only about three months on the job, but she had royally screwed up a number of things already. It took the whole day to go through all the invoices and all to prove the error was hers. I faxed copies to her boss and our bank. She called me the next day, pissed because I had taken it to her boss and said that it was fortunate she came in early in the morning because she was able to take it out of his in basket. Apparently, she thought she could hide this mistake.

It was obvious she was over her head. Organization wasn’t her strong point, which is fatal in a career as an accountant. I called her CEO at home on Sunday and told him I never wanted her to work on my account and she was out on Monday morning. Too many customers had complained, and that was the last straw.

And the other manager in my department couldn’t understand why I was pissed at him. ”You seem to think it’s my fault.” Damn right dumbass. Authorize L/Cs without knowing what the fuck you’re doing.

102

I accidently left a large piece of expensive raw material in a bill of material, and it got ordered. Like thousands of dollars. My ass was saved when we could actually use it to make our part, but it was extremely lucky!

Then the machine shop fucked up the part royally when they were making it, and it had to be scrapped anyway. Then I saved the day by redesigning the assembly to not use it at all! (Which saved money on subsequent assemblies.)

103

Emptied an 80,000 gallon water tower in Delafield, Wi.
We were attempting to burrow under the road with a pneumatic tool and ended up breaking through an 18 inch water main. Lifted the asphalt road up about 6 inches and completely washed out the gravel under the road. Thankfully the road wasn’t in service yet, but that was one expensive repair bill. I try to forget that one. Didn’t get fired either.

104

I was working in the back room in a grocery store, and tried to unclog a floor drainage pipe with bleach…and then ammonia.

They had to evacuate the store for a whole day :slight_smile:

105

None of my own fuck ups are really interesting, but this thread reminded me of my favorite work fuck up story. I’m not sure it’s true, as it just seems too perfect, but I can hope.

Also, if you haven’t seen that site before it’s all pretty great.

106

I am 47 years old, but I feel fairly confident in saying that I belive that is the first time I ever saw the phrase “tumors a-flappin’.”

We still use Roscoe, every day. Works great.

For my workplace foul-up, I managed to hose the master catalog on our mainframe, and it didn’t become evident until the system wouldn’t IPL (that’s boot for you PC people). I don’t remember how I got it fixed, but I do remember sitting at the console thinking, “You know, I could just quit. I’m sure I could get another job eventually.” But I couldn’t do that to my teammates.

RR

107

Speaking of shit jobs…
I was working my way through school with a part time job at a hardware store. Every night after closing we took turns on cleanup duty. Stuff like sweeping the floors, cleaning the break room and bathrooms, hauling out the trash. We didn’t mind because it meant an extra hour of pay.

But one afternoon all the other clerks stopped by my section on their way out to slap me on the shoulder and wish me a nice night. I was immediately suspicious but didn’t have time to check it out before closing. But I found out soon enough. In the men’s room someone had suffered a legendary intestinal problem. The toilet was completely filled and overflowing with steaming shit. There was no floor drain so a 4 ft wide puddle had formed around the epicenter. The scent was enough to blind a dock rat.

I considered quitting, but I needed the job for a few more months. Damn. So I exceeded my authority and pulled a few items from stock. Starting with long rubber gloves. I reached in with a long stick and flushed the toilet about 10 times and thankfully it was not clogged. If it had been I really would have quit. Then I taped another long stick to a snow shovel so I could get the, shall we say, bulk of it from 10 feet away. In between flushes I retreated to gasp for fresh air. Then I taped a brush to the long stick and cleaned the toilet from 10 feet away. Then I taped a mop to the stick and swabbed the floor. After all that I still had to approach the disaster zone to finish cleaning the toilet. Finally I went out in the lumber yard and hosed off all the tools from 20 feet away. I put in three hours that night and my boss wisely paid up without a squeak.

108

We read a story about a Chinese family living in America. I decided to offer my students some fortune cookies. When we started to go around the room to read them aloud, I discovered they were X-Rated.

109

Drew arterial blood on the wrong patient. :eek:

Since it was an invasive procedure (not to mention it hurts like a mommy-fucka), it had to be written up and sent to risk-management.:rolleyes:

Q

110

You got off easy. I would have kicked your ass. That shit hurts.

ETA I meant that as a semi-joke. I never want to have that done again. If it happened to me by mistake I would be mighty pissed.

111

It wasn’t exactly my fault, but it did happen on my watch, and there was a way to prevent it that I should have instituted, but didn’t think of until afterward.

The pubic/public typo is nothing new, but when I ran the copyediting department of a monthly news magazine, we managed to publish a pretty spectacular version of it. The final paragraph of an article said something to the effect of:

112

No offense taken, Loach!:slight_smile:

Even though we now use a very small needle, finding an artery isn’t like finding a vein - you don’t use a tourniquet and you probe for the pulse (as I am sure you know) and yes, that does hurt.

While the mistake was mine. It didn’t originate with me. I was told that a patient (the wrong one in one of the ER rooms needed an ABG (Arterial Bloos Gas), I couldn’t find the chart (doc had it in another room - taking a stack at a time) and because I didn’t check the chart (a BIG no-no), I was the one who took one for the team.

Guess who doesn’t draw blood ** now** without double-checking?:wink:

Q

113

Two stories - one mine, and one that I witnessed on set.

Doing a concert performance of ‘La Boheme’ for Orchestra London (Ontario, not England, thank Og!) I was playing the role of Schaunard - being a concert, it was with books, but at the same time, c’mon, it’s Boheme. I’m the only one onstage who’s doing it for the first time, and I would say it’s three quarters memorized. My contact lenses are acting up, and by the last act, I really can’t see much of anything trying to read. No problem, I think, I pretty much know this…

…until I get to the two lines before the dancing. If I had learned the role based on having to do it from memory, I would have noticed that Schaunard has two lines, both of which begin on a D, both of which begin with the syllable ‘mi/m’i’, but both of which go in totally different directions. I did the second one first, in front of ~1500 people, got to the end of the line wondering why the orchestra hadn’t come in, looked over my shoulder (Who invented the Messiah position, anyway? What good is it to any of the performers to have the conductor behind them?) to see the Maestro completely tied in a knot and looking at me with absolute panic in his eyes. It is at this moment that I realize the error is entirely mine, and entirely because I am singing the work from memory for the first time in public.

None of the above is the worst or most embarrassing, however.

I said, out loud and at full operatic volume, in front of ~1500 people, the word “Whoooops!”, cracking up the entire orchestra and the rest of the cast. I took a breath, did the proper line and struggled to keep going. The stage is bouncing from the orchestra players giggling, the Maestro is getting ready to kill something, Rudolpho and Colline are shaking with laughter, and then Marcello, when I do the second line in its proper place about four bars later, looks at me and says “Aha! That’s where it goes.” just in case there was anyone in the theatre who didn’t realize that I had just fucked up in a colossal way. It was after this second line that I had some time to consider the enormity of my fault and to wish that the earth would swallow me whole… I have sung with the singer who did Marcello that night many times since then, and he has never let me forget it. “Whooops!” is usually the first thing he says when we meet…

Another time, on a film set. I’m just an extra for this one, Silent On Camera, but my friend ‘Joe’ has some lines for the first time. Very exciting. The scene is a gas station/convenience store. I leave, the next guy comes in and robs the place at gun point. The clerk pushes the silent alarm, and a police car screeches to a halt. The driver, played by ‘Joe’, puts the car in park, opens the door, draws his gun and yells “Freeze” or something equally Pulitzer Prize-worthy.

That’s the way it’s supposed to go. I leave the convenience store, the robber comes in. The police car roars around the corner, screeches to a halt, ‘Joe’ slams the gear stick and it stays in drive. He then jumps out of the car, draws his gun and hops awkwardly along while trying to do his line. He realizes what’s wrong, drops the gun and makes a lunge for the brake with his right foot. He slips, hits the gas and drives the car straight into the gas pumps. They are not on, of course, but in one swift motion, the entire shoot is shut down while the emergency personnel on set take over.

The cop on set came over to Joe when things were a little more under control and told him 'You know, it happens to us a lot more often than you’d like to think…" ‘Joe’ didn’t get a lot of work for a while after that story got around.

114

About a year ago, the company I work for (oil and gas) was performing a blast in a river that had taken a few years to get approval from the Fed’s to do. It was a HUGE deal, and we had to make sure everything went perfect. To document it all, they video taped the event.

A week or so later they emailed my group the video. I uploaded it to YouTube so I could show my dad and fiance (it was really cool, tbh!). I forgot to make it private, or didn’t save my preferences or something.

A few days after that we’re in a meeting and someone mentions that ‘somehow the video is on YouTube’. I immediately log on and delete it. However, a few folks were able to pull my username from their internet history and forwarded it to my boss. It was very obvious that it was me.

I was SO embarrassed. I explained it all, got a lecture (and a review of my signed proprietary information contract), but no letter on my file, thank goodness.

115

This reminded me of one I could share!

I used to run a résumé shop, managing one other writer. Our proofreading procedure was: I would write something and proofread it myself, then hand it off to the other writer for a second proof (or vice versa, if he wrote it). Then the customer would proof the materials a third time and sign off before we printed their copies.

Anyway, I got this very smokin’ hot young woman in one day who wanted to apply for a customer-service rep job with a long-distance phone company. The work history she gave me was all “waitress in a bar” type stuff, so when I went to write a summary of her experience, I thought to myself, “well, all these jobs require contact with the public, so I’ll write ‘X years of public-contact experience.’” You guessed it - I left out the “L”. I missed it and so did my writer.

To make the story even more delicious, the customer called me the next day and said, “I don’t want to change anything, but I thought you ought to know that the work history I gave you is bogus – I’m actually a stripper, but I know they’ll never look twice at me if I tell them that.” I refrained from mentioning that if they didn’t look at her as many chances as they got, they were either gay or dead, and told her I’d play it her way.

So she comes in. I know she’s a stripper. She knows that I know. She looks at her résumé and starts laughing; I ask what’s so funny. She says, “Honey, you’ve never been in a titty bar, have you?” I admitted that I hadn’t, and she pointed to the typo and said, “It’s state law - there’s no pubic contact allowed.”

:smack:

I just remembered another one that was worse (at least that one got caught before we printed her stuff!). This big burly guy came in who was a factory worker that wanted to move up to a supervisory position and needed a résumé. The first line under his current position was supposed to read, “Responsible for all shift work.” I’m sure you can guess the typo.

I missed it, my writer missed it, and when the client came in, HE missed it. We printed his stuff and sent him on his way. The first person who noticed it was the person who interviewed him.

:eek:

He came pounding back in, mad enough to spit nails. Even though our contract meant we weren’t liable, we apologized profusely, fixed it, and printed him a new set of stuff. He calmed down and eventually saw the humor in it; he said, “You know, boys, it’s true the way you wrote it - but I didn’t want to phrase it that way.”

116

Mine is also a letter never to go out did story. I wrote up reports from building inspectors of ongoing projects, including suggested corrective action. I was chuffing one of the inspectors for not proofing his long lists of actions by adding “Item #45 - The contractor is directed to dance the hokey pokey, and turn himself around.” He missed the item (proving he hadn’t looked at it) and I lost track of my joke overnight. It went out. I had to write a sincere apology letter to both the contractor and the homeowner.

117

**Le Ministre de l’au-delà **reminded me of another theatrical screw up. It was the premier gala performance of a new semi-professional ballet company at the best theatre in the area–seats about 2300 souls. The place was packed. The highlight of the evening was to be a performance of Stravinsky’s Apollo to Balanchine’s choreography by members of the New York City ballet. The music was a reel to reel tape of a performance by the NYC Ballet Orchestra that was hissy and about to fall apart. I processed the reel to reel to get rid of as much noise as I could and transferred it to cassette with Dolby.

The dancers flew 3000 miles the day of the show and got to the theatre about 4:30 p.m. to do a blocking rehearsal. We went though two movements. I had the third cued and they decided they were good and called dinner.

We are in the show and having a good night. The Stravinsky is in places. The Stage Manager calls: Sound, GO, Curtain, GO". Now the grand drape in this house is hand hauled and weighs a couple of thousand pounds–the mass is double that because it is counter-weighted. When the Stage Manager calls GO, two burly stage hands jump off the rail to the deck with the haul line to get the beast rolling. At that moment one of the dancers on my side of the stage yells “Wrong Music!” I hadn’t re-cued and was in the third movement. I stopped the music, and the Stage Manager hollers "GRAND IN, GRAND IN. The stage hands grab the other rope and get hauled about three feet into the air before they can stop the momentum and get the curtain back in. I had a backup cued, threw that in the deck, we reset and danced the piece.

While we were in black with the curtain bouncing up and down, my son sitting with his mom in the first row of the balcony,with a loud, un-modulated voice, says: “Mom that was Dad, wasn’t it.” The whole theatre tittered.

After the show, I packed up and slunked (slinked?, slanked?) out of the theatre as quietly as possible. The stage hands were friends, or I could have gotten pummeled. The next morning, I couldn’t stand it so I called the promoter so she could fire me and get it over with. She laughed and said “I bet you don’t do that again”.

She was right, I didn’t make that mistake again, and worked for her for another eight years.

118

Root beer hurts when I snort it out my nose.

119

Evidently, according to my current employer, my biggest fuck up was forgetting to ask a man on a loan app if he had a checking account… because I was due a $1700 bonus this week, and they audited that particular call and are withholding my bonus because of it.

I was physically ill for 2 days over it.

Never mind that the call, that I normally do in under 5 minutes took almost 14 minutes because I had to ask him everything 3-4 times to understand him. Never mind that he tried to back out twice and I re-sold him. Never mind that my supervisor CRIED when she told me, because she *knew *it was wrong, but the word came from higher up.

They simply didn’t want to pay that money out.

Yeah… I’m still just a tad bitter.

120

I was working for an investment firm on Wall Street and was testing some changes I made to our system. This involved changing various data and submitting orders in order to check the output. Since I wasn’t making any changes to the user interface, the test version looked exactly the same as the production version. You guessed it, while testing one day I was actually using the production version, and submitted orders that cost the company something like $100,000 dollars. A drop in the bucket really for this firm, but I still looked like an idiot.

In my defense, I will say the real problem was that the permissions of the SQL procedures allowed anyone with access to the system to make changes in production, and I was stunned to find this out. I tried to explain to my non-technical boss that permissions should be set so only traders could make changes in production, but he didn’t really understand the concept and nothing was ever done about the problem.