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

This is absolute gold 😂😂😂😂

I sent a message about someone who was shagging our MD who was about 40 years her senior saying she was a disgusting slut and the whole thing made my skin crawl direct to her

I think youll be fine. Not me but colleagues I’ve worked with have a) crashed a work car by going wrong way down a one way street and not breaking in time b) filled work car with wrong fuel then drove it and had to be recovered…..car was a week old c) set fire to kitchen twice. Same person. On 2nd occasion fire brigade turned up. Massive fine incredibly awks. None of them were fired

Used to regularly fax blank pages to court when working as a paralegal

Scratched all down the side of the work car on a gate post. A few weeks later, set fire to the kitchen. Still employed 🙈

I worked at a Sainsburys once, a small once with those high tills you have to stand at? Well I dropped a 6pt bottle of milk off the side, it exploded like a bomb went off completely drenching the customer (businessman, smart suit.)

I will never forget the stare he gave me as I tried to spit out an apology while there was milk literally dripping from his chin.

Issued a payment of £4200 to a customer instead of £1200 - luckily he was very honest and paid it back!

Set off all the alarms in the building by arriving too early one day (I was new and no one told me we were closed until later that day). Security, my boss and the buildings manager all got a call to arrive in 2 hours earlier than they needed to and I had to fill out a load of incident reports in front of them

Slipped while carrying a heavy box and fell against a glass door, I wasn't hurt but it shattered. That boss absolutely went through me over it, he was an arsehole.

A friend of mine broke a piece of kit worth £35K in work before and kept his job!

I dropped £50,000 ,in brand new £10 notes all over the floor of the banking hall on my way out to refill the ATM. It was literally raining down like something out of a cartoon. Luckily we were closed to the public at the time.

I confidently sent an email to someone important and external, directing them to ‘cunty hall’ instead of county hall. Marvellous.

Went on an online date, got drunk, overslept by a mile and missed an extremely important meeting I was due to chair. Still feel it now!

A colleague (Eastern European, so English wasn't first language) was asked to send an email with Seasons Greetings to clients and staff. Unfortunately she realised her typo after sending it
"Mary Christmas" 🤣

I work in tech at director level (information systems).

I was having some trouble with a DMARC change in relation to a system integration, so took some advice from Microsoft.

BIG MISTAKE: all of our remote servers were out for about 12 hours while the amended change reconfigured.

I still get cold sweats thinking about it and fuck you, Microsoft.

Oh and one of my favorites. I was updating a database table and forgot to add my ‘where’ clause. So after executing it I realized what happened, I inadvertently tried to update all of the millions of records in the table.

Normally not the worst thing as the database will store all the changes in memory until it runs out of space then will rollback.

In my case I was in a dodgy warehouse where my cords were snaked down a rickety staircase and it was not uncommon to lose my connection if someone went up or down the stairs. If this happens the system would commit my changes automatically.

I then forced everyone to remain where they were until I could contact an admin to kill the update. Took about an hour. That was embarrassing.

Buggered up parking a work pool car and bashed two of the doors in the process. It cost £4k for them to be fixed. My secret Santa gift that year included ‘L’ plates and a copy of the Highway Code 🤣

I locked a customer in a station by accident. I did get them out after it was discovered what I'd done. And that's all I'm willing to say about that.

I misgendered a teenage boy once. I honestly thought he was a girl. His mum saw reason to complain about me. It was an honest mistake!

I got a massive promotion. Accidentally wrote 'senior managagagager' in my email signature. Didn't notice for 6 months.
Fuck it, it was incredibly funny.

I threw out a box of computer chips worth thousands of💲when I was 19 cleaning offices. In fairness the box was placed on top of the bin and I presumed it was to go out (should have checked but it was light as a feather) Luckily they searched through the bins and found it 😳

https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how-not-to-excel-at-economics-13646

Not my own but these guys are worth reading about... Top economists, info relied upon to usher in austerity by governments, fucked up the excel in the most basic of ways which meant outcomes of research were reported as completely opposite to what they were

Went to the wrong court recently. I wondered where the other advocates were before realising and making a mad dash for the correct court 40 mins away. I was aggrieved I'd paid for a whole day of parking too.

Not the costliest mistake, but the messiest. Worked at Maccies when I was young. The bags of milk for the milk shake machine were very large & very heavy. I dropped one as I neared the counter & it split. Milk everywhere, in front of all the customers!
Tipped a few bags of frozen fries straight into the oil, like a chip shop, instead of the baskets, again the place was packed with customers.
Needless to say, I left after a few months without any stars 🤣

lots always have that horrendous sinking feeling. Also ruminate for weeks afterwards. Be kind to yourself, everyone makes mistakes. I’ve not been fired yet

I think I know which company you’re referring too haha! I worked there at the time!!

Aren’t inset days for staff training though?

Many years ago I used my work email to send a politically opinionated letter to the Guardian, which published it (yay) but under my name they also put the name of my organisation as if the organisation endorsed my view (ohhhhh noooo)!

I confessed and was forgiven, got the paper to print a clarification (but oh my goodness, the heat of that mortified realisation could have melted plastic).