To ask about your worst mistakes at work to make me feel better about my own?

@Bilsonate my team are the best in the area because they trust me. I believe it's because they can see I'm a simpleton and don't want to be unkind 😂

I love this 😂

I made a mistake yesterday too. Might cost the client a few more thousand pounds but I owed up to it to my boss and it will get sorted. I won’t lie -I was worried but I reason that I won’t lie on my deathbed thinking about it and will have forgotten about it soon enough.

Was a District Nurse thirty years ago, knocked on door of a house I'd not been to before. Bloke let's me in. I go through to the lounge where two young lads in pyjamas watching Breakfast News look at me puzzled. I ask where I can wash my hands and was directed to the kitchen. On returning to the lounge they informed me that no, Mr Smith who was awaiting his insulin injection didn't live there. I was at number 55 instead of 155.

Oh wow 🤣🤣🤣

Aw OP, my heart goes out to you. In just a few days I promise you will feel so much better!

Before Xmas I managed to send the wrong version of a document to some very important external stakeholders, with all our internal comments still in it including things they weren't supposed to see. Rapidly recalled and sent another but I think someone must have opened it! I then followed it up the same day, by leaving some v v bigwig people off a copy list for an important email later, and people in the chain replied adding them in. Cringe!!! It was my first few days in a new team as well so I was convinced they all thought me incompetent and I cried all evening.

But you only have to look at all these examples where people lost the employer money and they still have a job. Mistakes happen, it's ok. Learn from it, think about how you could avoid it next time and that's it.

I once made a typo with the word 'county' when sending an email to the head of the county's council.
So instead of " xxxx shire county council"
I wrote and sent "xxxxshire cunty council"

Still would argue I was probably quite correct in my typo vocab

🙄

I used to be a veterinary nurse and left a thermometer up a cats arse and sent it home.

I got a very irate phone call not long afterwards.

I can see the funny side now it's been about 20 years. Also not the reason I left the profession!

Sent an email (mailmerge) to the parents of 8 of my students to say how hugely impressed I was at their dedication to their studies that half term, how proud I was that they had gone over and above with their work at home and how I was sure if they continued to work as well as they were, they would reap the rewards in their upcoming GCSE exam. I have still no idea how, as I’ve managed it successfully many many times before and since, but it sent to the parent of EVERY STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL, yep, including those I’d emailed previously that week to say their child hadn’t completed their homework again that week for the 3rd week running and I was worried they wouldn’t achieve the grade they deserved if they continued, and hundreds I didn’t even teach! Cue lots of ‘oh how wonderful, thank you for letting us know’, ‘wow, takeaway for X tonight!’ type emails…🙈 I nearly died when I realised what I’d done and had to backpeddle pretty quickly with an apology email. Most saw the funny side, lots shared their own work errors in sympathy, and I still laugh about it now when I see some of them regarding younger siblings etc, but one parent was not understanding at all…😩🙈 It still pains me to think about it now, years on…

I wasn't wearing my glasses at work one day but could vaguely see some people in the office across the road waving at us. Initially waved back (why not?) but when they carried on concluded that they were just pissing about so shut the blind and got on with my work.

About 15 mins later the fire alarm goes off and we get downstairs to find several fire engines. Turns out the building was on fire and they were trying to warn us 🙃

I purchased 1000 of the wrong style shoe..still gives me nightmares

Also don’t forget in Wandsworth prison a prisoner to escape last year. That’s a monumental cock up and I’d imagine someone was in hot water for that one.

Financial mistakes happen and companies expect it.

Ive had lots of jobs and made mistakes. I’ve been a bus driver and damaged other cars , and someone’s garden wall!

In another job I’ve caused a power cut at work, making them call people out at 2am to fix it. Big call out charge there.

People make mistakes all the time just learn from them.

I allocated someone quite junior, a company car that was only really suitable for someone very senior.....realised my error.,,,,no way to get it back, just needed to let the lease run its course etc.

I felt dreadful. Went into my managers office to confess, fully expecting to get sacked....she was so very understanding and pragmatic and lovely.

Whenever one of my team make a massive (one off, out of character) cock up, I remember my managers kindness and try and be equally understanding.

someone in Hastings insurance sent an email today to 1.6m current and previous customers to say we were overcharged and will be getting a refund. maybe someone who isn’t keen on their job anyway?

Oh and other mistake that's not mine but a good friend's...
He got his dream job as assistant head in a very good school. He went in during the holidays to meet staff, get cracking on work, etc. The site supervisor came round at 5pm and told him he was the last one in and the building was being locked up now. Friend gathered his stuff and left via a side door. Only he didn't. He entered a vestibule type thing and the first door shut behind him. The second door, however, would not open as it was locked. He could not re-open the first door as he didn't have his work fob yet.
I will never ever forget this panicked phone call I received. He had 2% battery and didn't know what to do. He got cut off mid conversation. I rang the police who attended the school.... But the wrong campus!
He only ended up being rescued THE NEXT DAY when a residential trip returned the school and he managed to attract their attention.
This happened when he was about 28 - he is now 40 and we (I) still regularly laugh about it!!

Sounds like you were doing fine until
your co worker tried to make you work faster?

Sorry you were let go.

I ordered the wrong car when I worked for a garage. They built it to the incorrect specs I'd provided. I realised my mistake so told the manager but the job was completely wrong for me so they let me go. Massive relief. I hated it there

I’ve let a contract expire. The longer it goes on the worse it gets.

I’m going to try to sort it this week in the spirit of new year new start but I’m so nervous.

I once had a job where I had to compare paper forms with a database at the end of the day. Parts of the forms were pre-filled and other parts had to be filled out by customers when they showed up for their appointments. At the end of the day I had to remove all the records from the database of customers who hadn't shown up. This took quite a while and we could not close up until the records in the database matched the the filled out forms.

One of my coworkers from the database team showed me a way I could do it "faster" so we could close up earlier. This involved matching up the paper forms from several databases at once (for some reasons not all customers were in the same database). So did it his way, but I accidentally ended up deleting the records of over a hundred customers who had shone up that day, making a huge mess of a very rigid system that I could not correct myself, because I had minimal access to the database.

It took the database team half a day to correct my errors the next day and they were not happy. I was put on other duties, that I could not mess up. This involved even more monotonous work than comparing paper forms with an electronic database and I had to do it all day. A few weeks after that I was let go. I wasn't sorry for it, though it was a blow to my ego how it all went down.

Working nights in a care home and doing the write up and there was a fly buzzing around. There was some air freshener and in my super tired state I thought well that's great I'll kill the fly. Said fly was sitting on a smoke detector at the time.
I proceeded to empty about half a can of air freshener onto the fly atop the smoke detector... Which did not in fact kill the fly.
It did however set off the fire alarm which I couldn't turn off. Other colleagues on shift couldn't turn it off.. I thought oh shit and rang 999 to say don't come as no fire because I thought they were automatically connected. They are not and said well you've called 999 we have to come.
It took 4 hours to turn off.., I had to call the manager had to come as only they had authority to get an engineer in, the fire brigade turned up and insisted on checking everything in case there was a fire, (expensive) emergency fire panel person had to come to isolate the detector from the system to be able to turn off the alarm.
4 hours of an alarm that couldn't be silenced in the middle of the night. Lots of disturbed residents and complaints from the neighbours.
They had to buy a new smoke detector in the office as I'd fucked it irreparably.
I was not popular for a few weeks as you can imagine. A lot of money and people's time wasted.
The manager made me one of the homes fire safely officers a few years later...the irony totally not lost on me.

Not my error but hey ho! I had to attend some online training recently and it was run by an older woman with very short hair and thick rimmed glasses.
Fifteen minutes into the training, someone logged in late with their mic unmuted. Cue the awkward silence from all as they settled themself in, unaware, clanking chair, coughing, etc. The trainer waited patiently for the right point to say "welcome, please mute your mic."
Before she could speak though, the newbie said (presumably to a colleague in the same room) "hurry up, they've started and the bloke looks really fucking pissed off!"
It was AWFUL!

My worst mistake had to be when I started driving vans as a student. Hadn't ever driven a big van before, managed to get into and out of London and do all my deliveries OK. Was very proud of myself, especially since at one of the drops an apparently helpful workman had helped me park near to where I needed to unload rather than at the other end of the site as had happened previously in the day. Unfortunately I hadn't spotted that I was unloading right in front of a cement mixer. Styled it out and left the site thinking the worst was over. Oh no. On my way to drop the van back I stopped to fill up with diesel. Managed to successfully use the fuel card and was looking forward to finally clocking off. I unfortunately somehow managed to get a bit of the van stuck on one of the petrol pumps as I pulled away. Being a bit dozy I just carried on driving forward thinking the snag would somehow release as I went.
It didn't.
I pulled off the whole of the front of the petrol pump along with a substantial portion of the vans side. Ooops.
Agency I was driving for happily employed me for years after that! (although I never did THOSE drops again!)

Shouldn't they have been there for inset though if they thought it was inset?!