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

A friend of mine mailed out a highly confidential new prototype to a competitor. He was sacked.

I worked in a science laboratory many years ago, somebody actually set their lab coat on fire, could have been nasty not funny but luckily a quick thinking colleague wrestled them to the ground and I rushed over with a fire blanket. Miraculously person was fine just a bit singed, you can imagine the ribbing they got as their surname was Burnett.

My colleague once booked a Directors flights to Edinburgh, when he was supposed to be in Ayr, resulting in a rather frantic journey cross country for a client meeting.

Another colleague used £ in a settlement letter rather than euros, the exchange rate meant we were overpaying by about £10k and the company had to swallow it.

I once booked a Director an offsite meeting with his senior managers and forgot to invite the senior managers.

I booked a senior managers flight to Columbia from the UK and didn't realise changing planes in the US on route meant they needed an ESTA- they weren't allowed on the plane.

And in my first job, clearing tables at a very fancy wedding venue, I lost control of the cutlery and the gravy ledden fork left a very noticeable dark brown stain in the lap of a guest in a light coloured dress for the remainder of the evening...

One mistake rarely defines you at work or means a firing. I think everyone has a thing or two, we are only human. You'll certainly not make the same mistake again!

@CheekyAquaBeaker I probably shouldn’t be laughing as much as I am at that😂

Someone I knew at an audit firm sent a company's payroll info to the printer at a client for printing (back in the day when people used to go in person to clients, and work with things on paper not online only). The printer was broken so they walked away and forgot about it. Soon after when it was fixed everyone at the client knew everyone's salary and bonus info and needless to say there was quite the ruckus.

When I was a trainee doctor I was asked to confirm a patients death. I said “So sorry for your loss” to the family and they said “thanks” as I entered the room. As I was listening for a heartbeat the patient sat up. Wrong room. I still wonder what they thought when I gave my condolences???

I had a recent one where I was dealing with a patient who was quite unwell and spoke to her relative outside. I said 'oh ill let you back in to sit with your partner'...it was his mum. When I looked properly she was clearly at least 25 years his senior.

Thankfully I picked it up before it was credited so managed to retrieve it from the bank but neither the bank nor us where sure the recall had worked until payday.

I wish I’d not lasted long enough for the other.

Yes, for teaching staff. This was someone from the kitchen.

Great thread OP. Some of these are hilarious and just go to show that we are all only human!
My work mistake was when I worked a summer job as a student. It was for the library service. I knocked down a bit of the low wall in one of the local libraries car parks with a council transit van. No one about so I drove off in a panic and got back to the van depot. I was scared to death because the van had a noticeable dent in it. I went to the old boy who looked after the depot and told him. He looked all round the van and he said ‘that dent has been there for years’. I could have kissed him! I really needed that job at the time.

My exH, first day in a new job, arrived home with his shiny new company laptop (in the days when shiny new laptops were really new and eye-wateringly expensive) in the boot of the car. Parked outside our house, brought his stuff into the house, leaving the boot open as he intended to go back outside to fetch shiny new company laptop.

Immediately on entering the house he forgot all about the open-car-boot/shiny new laptop situation and didn't remember until the following morning. Car boot was still open, shiny new laptop nowhere to be seen.

In the late '90s I was emailed a full length video of Aqua's Barbie Girl by email. I was so amazed that I forwarded it to 10 friends in my workplace. The file was not virus-laden but was very, very large and very, very uncompressed. My workplace was a large, household name multi-media company and email was the backbone of communication between all global sites.
Within minutes, no-one on site could access that email. 1700 people unable to do their jobs properly. IT started delving in the servers and declared there was something very big slowing everything up. By this point I knew damned well what it was and fessed up with a red face. I was not popular with IT but they, very sportingly, didn't hang me out to dry.
I still cringe when I recall trotting to IT and saying, "Err, I think I might know why everything's gone wrong".

Years ago I worked somewhere where the brand new payroll manager paid several employees their entire annual salary in a month. She didn't last long enough in the job to get the opportunity to fuck the MD though.

Forgetting to turn a hose pipe off at the wall after watering indoor plants, causing the pressure to build and it exploding overnight, flooding the entire indoor area at a garden centre

Oh god… where do I start?

first job out of high school as a waitress. Wasn’t given much training. Was given a drinks tray loaded with about 12 glasses of port. Proceeded to tip the tray full of drinks over the guest of honour at a dinner for one of their best customers. Did get fired a few months later because I hated the job and was terrible at it (not helped by lack of training when I was on a traineeship).

next job, was being dumb and speeding in a work car. Proceeded to lose control, slammed on the brakes. Left huge skid marks on the only road off the work site. Tyres were wrecked and car was wobbly. Did not tell anyone. Was called into the office managers office the next day to explain. Made up a bullshit story about an animal running in front of me and cried. Did not lose that job.

Parked my boyfriend’s car right outside the demountable office (so 2 metres from the door). Bosses car was parked not directly behind me but slightly off to the side. Inevitably reversed boyfriend’s car into bosses car. Walked back into the office to tell my boss. Said “you’ll never guess what I did”. His response was I think I can take a guess. He clearly heard it. I was in charge of getting both cars repaired. He did admit that he had a seconds pause when parking there whether it was a bad idea but didn’t move. Did not get fired.

Ran a project to replace the system for submitting credit card claims. Tested, all seemed good. Had a moments pause and thought I should get someone else to check. Then thought, no it’s fine. Instructed someone to send company wide email saying project was live and everyone could log into new system, also sent a self-congratulatory style email to management about successful go-live. Turns out the vendor did something wrong and only the specified users named for testing could log into new system, not everyone. Had to get emails sent to all 3000+ staff members and comms on intranet saying it was not working, madly work with vendor to get fixed then send comms again the next day that it was working. Did not get fired, but was completely mortified.

Ran another project for the same employer and almost needed a rollback. Caused multiple people, including heads of department to work all weekend to fix it. Vendors managed to fix the issue. Ironically, I think I gained a lot of respect from that one for how I handled getting it resolved.

Anyway… can I retire yet?

First day at a new job some women in the office were chatting about Marti Pellow. I chimed in about him having had an addiction to heroin but overcoming it in later life. They looked at me in disbelief and I said confidently it was in the papers. The conversation moved on. Found out later they were talking about a senior colleague whose name is similar to, but not the same as, Marti Pellow. What a wally I am.

Back in the days of floppy disks, I worked in the finance dept of a local authority. I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to backup my disk while the payroll and payment system was doing its weekly run. Oops. The system crashed and we ended up manually typing hundreds of cheques. They never knew it was me 😇

I have some of my own, but too identifiable based on my industry, so here's two from acquaintances:

I know someone who designs book covers for a publisher. One of the covers that he signed off had the word 'grammar' spelled as 'grammer'. By the time the error was noticed, it had already been printed. They had to scrap the whole first batch and print them again.

A colleague once used a mail merge to notify recipients that they had been successful in achieving an important award (including a financial component), but accidentally sent it to all applicants, not only winners. She spent the next few hours contacting those who did not actually win, with a correction and apology. Everyone was remarkably understanding!

The first time I worked behind the bar at a local social club, and no one had thought to explain that some of the spirits were already measured into singles and others into doubles.

I'm not much of a drinker so didn't notice the difference. I ended up giving one regular customer about 18 shots of Napoleon Brandy with Coca Cola, completely unaware that the measurement attached to that particular bottle decanted doubles. Needless to say he fell through a fire exit and passed out, and had to be carried home. We didn't see him for several nights after that!

Also, fucking the MD.

Paid someone their entire annual salary in a month.

😳

Have you ever read The Secrets Sisters Keep by Sinead Moriarty? Wendy makes a major work mistake in that, emailing the wrong person.

I was a cashier for a Bank a long time ago and was the queen of cash errors - it was in the customers favour as I always gave them more money than I should so my till was short. Once was £500 - I knew exactly which customer it was and my manager rung him and he denied all knowledge - he was a regular who didn’t come back in after that! I left that job as I just wasn’t very good at it.

Not me but it was at my workplace.
They hired a young temp for the summer. Asked her to drive the brand new SUV over to their other site a few miles away to drop off something. She crashed the car, it was a write off. Turns out she didn't have a valid drivers license so insurance was invalidated. $40,000 down the drain...hard to stomach for a small business. She did not keep her job..

Not me, a reverse in fact. A client emailed and asked me for to quote for some work that we didn't actually do. I explained we didn't do that but she wasn't very happy, about three minutes later, into my inbox pops an email from her which she had meant to send to her business partner absolutely slagging me off. I took great pleasure in emailing her back with "don't think this was meant for me