What’s the worst f*ck up you’ve ever done at work?

[MyQul]

So today I had a proper nightmare day at the office.

I realised some of my forcasts on revenue for our work to year end were wrong. Like really wrong...... like half a million pounds wrong.......

I totally c*cked up and im gonna have to spend the next week trying to work out how I recover the situation.

What’s the worst thing you’ve done wrong at work?

1/2 million quid!!

 

[Clint]

The thing is if the boss says do it....make sure you have it in writing or a witness!
Plus anyone who says they've never made a mistake is a liar.

 

[Bigcol49]

Nailing the boss's wife and making off with the petty cash.

Hi!
Better than nailing the petty cash and making off with the boss's wife

 

[Bigcol49]

Domino factory?

 

[IainM]

Not me, but a buddy forgot to put the stamps on a mail out. The boss had painstakingly assembled a comprehensive list of target potential customers. Each of them was left with a slip saying that they had been left an unstamped letter and could go to the post office and pay to collect it. So they went out their way, had to pay, and it was a leaflet. Basically he pissed off everyone in the list. Boss was livid and he lost his job.

 

[Martybhoy]

When rushed to make an estimate of savings from our new waste disposal contract, I calculated (wrongly) £450,000. The department got that money taken off them (as apparently they didn't need it anymore). Turns out they did need it. Oops!!

That sinking feeling when you realise something isn't right, and it's your own doing, is down right horrible.

I've learned in the past not to try and cover up mistakes, so, hard as it was, I owned up. That was several years ago now and thankfully I've made amends since then and restored my reputation to its hitherto mediocre levels.

 

[ITMA]

This is 25 years ago now, but six months or so into my first job, engineering on a major defence project, we'd invented a new automation tool that we wanted to give a cute name to. There were a few emails sent around (closed email system just for the project in those days) with humorous suggestions, some getting a bit risque, so I went all in and submitted what I thought was a hilarious and contrived acronym.

There was a senior engineer there who was actually a decent bloke but a bit pompous and people used to take the rise out of him behind his back so I wove his name into the acronym. The details are long lost but my hilarious satire spelt out "Martin George is a c*nt".

Pleased with my work, I broadcast the email and sat back chuckling away at my brilliant satire.

I will never forget the noise of the terminals bleeping as the messages were received and the slow, slow silence that began to descend across the office.

I'm still cringing now. Hey I was young.

Also, the time I bent over to pick something up and my a*se hit the emergency stop button which shutdown a production line, costing many tens of thousands of pounds in lost work.


Lots of gauche errors, still making them now. Really feel for the OP and everyone else with similar stories...

 

[MyQul]

I'm rather enjoying reading of forumite dearing do and their attempts through sheer incompetence to take down the company they work for.

Seriously though it does show how given enough responsibility (and possibly malice) how one person can destroy a company from the inside now matter how big. If you dont think that's true, just look at how Nick Leeson single handedly collapsed Barings bank. (although that was because he was a greedy git rather than being a terrorist)

 

[Sandimas]

I asked a woman who looked pregnant but wasn't, "When is the baby due?" I still cringe whenever I recall it.

Haha - exactly the same happened with one of my team this week, comment made by another woman - she was livid!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Nailing the boss's wife and making off with the petty cash.

I didn't know you were a carpenter.

.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Plus anyone who says they've never made a mistake is a liar.

I like the old saying - A man/woman that has never made a mistake has never made anything!

.

 

[MyQul]

I didn't know you were a carpenter.

.

He's kind of like Jesus. But with 20 B&H and a packet of pork scratchings in his pocket

 

[Hoddy]

I am now feeling so much better about my own f*ck up now.

Keep them coming lads.

 

[jceg316]

I've really enjoyed reading these. One of the posts reminded me of something a coworker did when I was at an agency.

I used to work at this small digital marketing agency where we were all quite close and friendly. This guy I sat next to sent a photo round of something he saw on the internet: a guy sitting in a fast food restaurant wearing very thin shorts, and you can see the outline of a huge ****. As various co-workers opened the email there was a chuckle, but I never received it. This guy leaned over and said "hey JCEG316, have you not seen it?"
"No?" I replied.
The guy opposite me goes "That's because you didn't send the email to [email protected], you sent it to a guy with my same name at our second largest client instead."
We were all sitting there in shock for a while until we started laughing, apart from the guy who sent the email, who was horrified. I don't think anything happened. I assume our client didn't see the email or it went to his trash.

 

[Gunge]

I didn't know you were a carpenter.

.

I've always been good with me tool and screws.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I've always been good with me tool and screws.

 

[divrack]

Somehow one of my guys managed to hear the wrong address and cut the wrong persons hedge down by half.. told them to tidy up and do a runner, must have messed with their head a bit when they got home... By no means the worst but quite funny. Got a digger stuck down some steps in a garden and came half a bawhair away from sliding it down through the wall of their living room, only avoiding it by some seat of the pants advanced bucket work that involved demolishing a wall and the Bannister, which all things considered was cheap to fix. All to save about half a day digging by hand...
Set a small forest fire/field burning involving a fire engine call out.. exploded myself a few times through enthusiastic use of petrol in burning waste, forgot to total up a quote so it looked to be 5 grand cheaper than it was... Drove a robotic 4 grand flail thing through a bus shelter, fell through several trees and hedges, electrofried myselfthrough standing in a water feature in the rain while angle grinding a piece of metal. Convinced a skip driver to come round the back way which turned out to be about a half mtr deep mud getting him stuck and ending up with ten tonne of crap to hand schlep out of there...
I could go on

 

[MyQul]

Somehow one of my guys managed to hear the wrong address and cut the wrong persons hedge down by half.. told them to tidy up and do a runner, must have messed with their head a bit when they got home... By no means the worst but quite funny. Got a digger stuck down some steps in a garden and came half a bawhair away from sliding it down through the wall of their living room, only avoiding it by some seat of the pants advanced bucket work that involved demolishing a wall and the Bannister, which all things considered was cheap to fix. All to save about half a day digging by hand...
Set a small forest fire/field burning involving a fire engine call out.. exploded myself a few times through enthusiastic use of petrol in burning waste, forgot to total up a quote so it looked to be 5 grand cheaper than it was... Drove a robotic 4 grand flail thing through a bus shelter, fell through several trees and hedges, electrofried myselfthrough standing in a water feature in the rain while angle grinding a piece of metal. Convinced a skip driver to come round the back way which turned out to be about a half mtr deep mud getting him stuck and ending up with ten tonne of crap to hand schlep out of there...
I could go on

I'm surprised your still alive

 

[dad_of_jon]

I did computer graphic advertising for 8 Leo's stores around the uk. And got the wrong price on something . Colleagues had to drive as far as southampton and manchester from swansea with a new tape with the (by now corrected price on) - I was not popular and they always checked them after that.

 

[Ajhutch]

A few weeks ago I sent just over 200 million euros to Company B in our group instead of Company A. It’s not as bad as it sounds, all reversible and doesn’t lead to a loss, but a bit embarrassing. I’m also a currency dealer for our company and live in eternal fear of getting a trade the wrong way kind and buying a currency when I should sell it.