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Original poster

Raaaarrrrrr I’ve messed up at work, come and tell me your minor shit moments today.

54 replies

AlohaMolly · 18/02/2021 19:28

Just that really. In the grand scheme of things it’s not a big fuck up but I’m part furloughed, small company, boss having a rough time. I was asked to deal with something, dealt with half and passed the other half with queries on in an email to my boss and didn’t bother chasing it up. Boss has messaged asking why I haven’t dealt with it, I said I passed it on to you and he’s said he’s now dealing... but really it is my fault.

I even turned notifications off for WhatsApp so I didn’t have to face it but then I remembered I’m 33 so just apologised. I feel a bit hot and sweaty and have that horrible slightly sick feeling. Am now knee jerk reaction searching for new jobs!

DISCLAIMER: first world problems, lucky to have a job, lucky to be on part time furlough, yes there are worse things going on.

OP posts:
Jhusbusyman · 18/02/2021 20:52

@SpudsandGravy

I'm sure it'll be fine, OP!

I've done some pretty stupid things over the last few months. Twice I've copied the wrong person into a sensitive email (Outlook picked up more than one person with the same surname when I began to type it in, and I didn't notice), and only this week I replied to somebody via something in my outbox, only to discover afterwards that the cursor had not been at the top of the list and so I'd actually added my reply to a completely unrelated and confidential email. Aagghh... Reading this back I sound like a careless idiot! Really I'm not... we all do daft things Thanks

Just had to reply to you on this!

Feel your pain on the bloody outlook auto filling!!! I sent the couple of things to the wrong person of same first name due to this - luckily nothing too serious but it worried me for sensitive emails etc.

TOP TIP - you can remove the auto fill option in your outlook settings (assuming you have outlook).

This does great for me - for external emails I copy and paste the relevant e-mail addresses I need which is a much more conscious thing than autofill!

It’s not as time consuming as it sounds either as for internal e-mails you can type your colleagues full name and it then actually replaces that with their e-Mail only AFTER you’ve typed the whole name!

BeakyWinder · 18/02/2021 20:56

I think everyone is frazzled. I've been copied in more emails by mistake during lockdown than my whole career. I just ignore, delete or reply to notify them depending on the content, I wouldn't try and get anyone in trouble for it.

Catforaheadrest · 18/02/2021 21:05

I breached a Non Disclosure Agreement today, thinking I wasn’t doing any harm.

It’s got back to me that other NDA’d people have found out about the breach and hit the roof. They don’t yet know I’m the source. I have a tedious wait now to find out if/when my own team will find out about it and I have to own up 😰

sarahC40 · 18/02/2021 21:22

Got everyone’s pay wrong (under) when a very green 20 year old, thrown into the deep end with payroll. Phoned the company accounts manager whilst drafting my resignation...he gave me the solution and told me just keep repeating I’m sorry until they give in and say it’s ok. I’ve never forgotten the fact that the workers I underpaid were coming to check that I was ok by the end of the same day.

Reinventinganna · 18/02/2021 21:32

Working as a waitress in a posh restaurant as a teenager. On my first day I tripped and tipped a soup starter all over a very well dressed gentleman. He had beautiful curly hair with soup ringlets.
He was lovely but I couldn’t stop crying! I lasted a grand total of four hours in the job.

Rainbowandscarlett · 18/02/2021 21:39

First day on the job
Dead nervous (had been out of the workplace a while)
15 minutes in I threw a tray of red hot,fresh out of the fryer chicken nuggets at my boss (I pushed it into the cabinet a bit too hard)
I almost quit there and then
Thankfully he was lovely about it and I worked there for another year until I left the area

MySocalledLoaf · 18/02/2021 21:45

In my first full-time job I arranged a royal visit for the wrong day.

FossilisedFanny · 18/02/2021 21:46

I lost $46,000 once on a foreign exchange deal , I literally nearly fainted when I realised, came over all dizzy and sweaty. My boss was fine with it !

Harrykanesrightsock · 18/02/2021 21:51

I’ve been awake since 3.30 this morning sweating about a mistake I knew I did yesterday. Dreaded today. But it was mentioned in passing with an eye roll. Bloody knackered for nothing

LivingMyBestLife2020 · 18/02/2021 21:51

This wasn’t strictly my fault but I took the bollocking.

I was the School Business Manager. A teacher came to see me with a document that had been left in the print room (where students could go)It was a few pages long but had lots of personal info of a few students. I put it in an envelope with the date and wrote ‘data breach to look into’ on the front. It disappeared under my mountains of work and I completely forgot all about it.

A couple of weeks later there was a lot of noise coming form the Heads office. He was telling a teacher their trip couldn’t go ahead as he hadn’t seen and signed the paperwork. The teacher was adamant they’d passed it over but eventually another teacher said that I had the document. I denied all knowledge until the penny dropped.
The Head tore me a new one as I should have seen what it was and passed it over (fair enough) but he made me tell the 40 odd kids their trip was cancelled.
I still to this day think the teacher who’s trip it was, was at fault? They left it to the day of the trip to chase Hmm

Original poster
AlohaMolly · 18/02/2021 22:26

@MySocalledLoaf

In my first full-time job I arranged a royal visit for the wrong day.
I definitely need to know more about this!
OP posts:
petitdonkey · 18/02/2021 22:30

I’ve been on MN since 2006 and I think this is my favourite!!

petitdonkey · 18/02/2021 22:31

Oh and then I failed!! That was supposed to be in response to the setting fire of the pub!! @DoctorHildegardLanstrom

VienneseWhirligig · 18/02/2021 22:38

I was a completely useless PA. I was given the responsibility of converting the role for a new director who was starting - I had to get his tech ordered and set up, arrange for his rail season ticket, and book train tickets until the season ticket had been sorted (took a couple of weeks internally to get approved). I had never been a PA before. On at least 2 occasions I forgot to book train tickets, he turned up at the station and had to buy his own. (Despite this we got on like a house on fire and he helped me loads in my career)

VienneseWhirligig · 18/02/2021 22:39

Covering the role, not converting Grin

DoctorHildegardLanstrom · 18/02/2021 22:41

@petitdonkey

I shall take a bow ;)

One of my others, was when I lost a safe key, I had just moved house, and it got lost in one of the boxes, I knew it had to be there, but there was a procedure, because we couldn't get in and there was no spare.

I lost my job over it, I found it 3 weeks after I was fired and sent it back to them, with the words, told you I had it somewhere massive long boring backstory behind this

champagneplanet · 19/02/2021 00:02

I booked flights for a colleague and his family to return from holiday a month after they intended to. It was only when they got to the airport for the return journey that they found out.

I think I must have scrolled down once i'd chosen the option online and then not checked. I was mortified. Colleague took it all in good humour though luckily, he got to stay at our boss's vila for an extra two nights and he said neither him, his wife or adult son had noticed the wrong date on the tickets either Blush

grassisjeweled · 19/02/2021 02:14

Me too, rach GrinShock

GwendolineWindowlene · 19/02/2021 02:34

I’m awake right now worrying about something I haven’t even got fully wrong yet. I’m delivering a project next week and I’m starting to panic I’ve conceived it wrongly from the beginning. Someone else on the project is waiting for me to fail, so there’s extra pressure.

Ugh, I hate night time worries.

DramaAlpaca · 19/02/2021 02:48

@MySocalledLoaf

In my first full-time job I arranged a royal visit for the wrong day.
On the royal visit I organised, I forgot to get our building's temperamental lift serviced to make sure it was working properly. Turned out it wasn't and our royal guest had to climb four flights of stairs. Good job it didn't break down when they were in it, I'm going pale at the thought and it was 30 years ago!
orlaquiver · 19/02/2021 08:25

I took a whole television station off air with a single button click. During an exclusive interview. With my boss standing behind me.
Still think about that one when awake in the early hours.

Wrongsideofhistorymyarse · 19/02/2021 08:27

I once ordered a million too many envelopes by accident.

DustyDoorframes · 19/02/2021 21:25

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse your envelopes have finished me off, tears of mirth! So many questions... I'm imagining a huge great lorry pulling up, and you with a wee book of stamps...
Very ticked by @orlaquiver's telly channel too. That button click... that sinking feeling of panic all round...
I've had a tense week. Thank you all for making crummy mistakes and telling strangers in the internet about them. I actually genuinely feel lighter. Off to muck something up now...

amusedbush · 19/02/2021 21:35

In a previous job, the finance manager got fired and before he was led off site by security (fuck knows what he’d done!), he sent a sweary email to everyone in the company talking shit about his boss. It was quickly recalled but not quite quickly enough!

I hope he didn’t need a reference for his next role Grin

Blyatiful · 19/02/2021 22:51

First job in defence ministry and I agreed to sign a defence co-operation agreement with a distinctly dodgy country. I was very green and under pressure from a much more senior man. I found out after it had been signed that it should have been agreed by the defence minister. I didn’t say anything to anyone, just stuck that we had this agreement in any briefing, and said it must have been signed under my predecessor’s time when someone queried it. I still go a bit cold when I think about it and it will probably come to light when old documents are made public.