Share with me your big f%#ck ups at work to make me feel better!

[Hotankles]

Absolutely ballsed up at work today. It was a big one. Totally my fault and had an upset client. I was mortified and apologied profusely. I can’t say what it is as it’s really outing.

It’s really knocked my confidence and can’t stop obsessing about it

What dingers have you done ?

Oh god it still makes me cringe.
I was a very young 16yo working in a pub in a job my dad had insisted on. One day (in the late 80s) my dad insisted I took a £20 note into work to change into smaller notes to same value in the till. I protested but dad insisted. Anyway I was too embarrassed to ask and tried to do it covertly. I cant bear to think of it even over 30 years later. They of course thought I was stealing from the till. I explained in tears, they checked and realised I hadn't, and was kept on, but couldn't bear it and quitted after another week. Just realised that I have never again worked in a cash handling job, by choice.
Quite therapeutic writing this down actually.

Not an important one, but many years ago, I worked for charity which sponsored a sports award. At the last minute I was asked by the CEO to make the presentation on his behalf that evening at a special dinner.

I arrived at the venue and discovered that I was sitting at a top table with some of the award winners (who I didn't know). At the end of the meal the presentations started, and I discovered to my horror that I would be expected to negotiate tables then steps, before walking across the stage to a plinth at which would be my spot for a short presentation on behalf of the charity and then the opening of the envelope in which the winner was to be revealed.........all to be filmed for the local TV.

So eventually I was called up to move to the stage, which I did with some style.......I took the tablecloth, and all the table's contents with me........all filmed for TV!

I don't need to describe my presentation, everyone was lovely, very understanding and friendly, but all I could think of was how I was going to describe the presentation to the boss!

My friend went for her first day as a new teacher, in a new school. She ran over a year 8 pupil as she arrived outside the building. The pupil was ok once the bones healed.

Working at a stables that had a strict 'no dogs' policy I took my puppy in covertly because she was so young I did want to leave her home alone. Had a few jobs to do in one of the far fields so snuck her into the work pick up and off we went. Got out to shut a gate and the dog managed to put her paw on the door lock and lock herself in. No windows open, no spare key. Shit.
Tried encouraging her back to the door to stand on the switch again and unlock but no luck. After about half an hour had to admit defeat and tell big boss who DID NOT see the funny side. A real 'disappointed not angry' sort of person. Agreed that we would have to smash the window. By this point the whole team and maintenence guys were sniggering at me.
Went back with a brick and very red cheeks to find the little bugger had stood on the electric window button and it had opened enough to get my hand in. But if course she couldn't have done that 10 mins earlier. The whole thing was such a cringe but no major harm done, just a stern talking to about how the rules applied to EVERYONE 😂

Years ago, I was working on a huge event. We had loads of speakers and I wasn't massively familiar with them to be honest. The day before the event, I was setting up our little office for the organisers in a hotel in Park Lane. This guy walked in and said something about the event and I didn't quite catch what he said but he asked if he could help and for some reason I thought he worked at the hotel or was there to help us set up computer equipment. I asked if he would help me shift some tables about which he gladly did. We chatted a as we did it and I thought he was super helpful. He then randomly mentioned something about his speech and asked when he would be speaking. It transpired he was a keynote speaker and was the Canadian Prime Minister. I was utterly mortified. I then told him he obviously had come to the wrong room and should be in the green room and not helping me but he was lovely! It still makes me cringe!

A colleague was showing a new member of staff around our NHS dept.
Pointed out fire exits and the fire alarm and nonchalantly tapped the glass. Unfortunately tapped harder than she meant to. Fire alarm went off and as it’s a hospital building 3 fire engines arrived to put out the non existent fire!

@Cantbebothered2 that reminds me of a time I was volunteering at an event that Steve Cram the runner was involved with, I was paired with this lovely guy called Steve did certain bits of organising etc and whilst we were having a break I asked him if he thought we would actually get to meet Steve Cram, yes readers my lovely fellow 'volunteer' was Steve Cram and I hadn't got a clue.

This isn't mine and I have shared it on MN before.

I used to work in a management agency for artists (being deliberately vague).

My good friend and colleague, who was an Assistant Agent like me, got a phone call from a VIP Vfamous client, to make an appointment to come down to London to see his Agent. Client lived in Edinburgh, agency was in London. Anyway, so my friend agreed a date with the client for a couple of month's hence ... but then forgot to put it in his boss's diary! Boss went on holiday. Client travelled all the way down from Edinburgh, had a hotel booked, turned up on the office doorstep, Agent wasn't there, was actually out of the country, my friend had to explain it all to the client.

I always sweated over that one!

@BetterKateThanNever

I had been designing my friend's hen do invites on my work laptop during my lunch break and downloaded a penis border to put on the invite. Then got back to work and sent 3 emails to the CEO, an important client and my manager, all with a penis border. Thankfully they all saw the funny side and the CEO sent back a reply with the same border.

This is hilarious!

I've dropped a few patients when carrying them 😕

I think plenty of people have done similar to this, but I once sent out a mail merged letter to over 300 people making reference to the Cunty Council. Freudian slip, I think.

I was struggling to finish my nursing diploma. I'd been given my last chance or I would be asked to leave. (Lots of problems completing assignments and practical assessments due to personal issues). Anyway, I was once looking after a toddler in a side room and left a bottle of Calpol within reach of his cot. Needless to say, my tutor said enough was enough and I was kicked out.

Another time I sent an email to my union rep but somehow copied all staff on my Area in. It wasn't a flattering one of my line manager, put it that way. I kept my job (still have it).

I thought I had fucked up and missed hundreds of thousands of pounds of work being claimed for which I hadn’t reported. My boss and the client were going mental and asked me to let them know what the fuck was going on. Started to look at it and the very first thing I found was a small amount that I’d missed. Set it aside and spent days thinking I was going to lose my job. Tried again when I couldn’t leave it any longer and discovered that was the only item I’d missed and the person claiming for the work was trying to claim for stuff they had fucked up. I was so relieved, but the feeling that I’d fucked up was pretty bad. I also know I dodged a bullet as I hadn’t been keeping as close an eye on the project as I should have. It taught me a lesson but thankfully I haven’t had to face any consequence.

I asked him if he thought we would actually get to meet Steve Cram, yes readers my lovely fellow 'volunteer' was Steve Cram and I hadn't got a clue.

What was his response?

Did a presentation to senior staff arguing for extra resources for the department and as I was doing it realised that that I had a slide indicating new demand and additional resources we had received in the recent past were matched. The real point was our original base line resources were way, way too low but I hadn't prepared sufficient data to support this. I had been struggling to manage my job following a diagnosis of ME and I was mortified to come face to face with how bad my brain fog really was. I kept going in the position for a while but eventually asked to be redeployed to a job with less responsibility when it was obvious I had a long term condition that wouldn't improve further. My illness was outside my control but it's still a unpleasant memory 20 years later.

Ok.. So this mistake utterly makes me feel ill when I think of it but it was years ago.. Will try not to give too many outing details..
Basically, a copy and paste error in emails that were sent to candidates attending panel interviews..
I ended up sending the whole shortlist of candidates to an entirely different location.... 200 miles away 😭😭😭😭 I think I cried and cried and cried when I found out what happened...
The client were fortunately very understanding! But still, felt so awful.

I worked as a summer student at a medical research facility. One lunchtime I failed to shut the door properly, and when I came back I discovered that thirty armadillos with leprosy has escaped and were roaming the nearby countryside. They posed no threat to human health, but given how this news might go down if it spread, it was quickly escalated to the Head of Institute, and then to National security forces. Within the hour the army were tracking them, including with helicopters and heat-seeking equipment.

They were all recaptured, but what an afternoon.

This kind of grand scale cock-ups clearly run in the family as my sister-in-law once accidentally ended up having Whitehall shut down in a security incident when she failed to warn her office about a suitcase being dropped off. The traffic gridlocked London for the afternoon and made the 6 o’clock news.

I worked in a bank and had to add the cheques manually which I did however.... I then lost the cheques and the branch manager had to contact each customer for them to ask for new ones. Over £75,000 worth 😬

Wowzel
I vaccinated someone with the wrong vaccine... I then had to call her back and ask her to come back for the right one. On the upside, it meant her tetanus was up to date....

We were off somewhere exotic on holiday and went to get our jabs - I was chatting away to the nurse, as I knew her from school, and she gave my daughter (who was around 6 at the time) two typhoid jabs instead of a typhoid and a hepatitis.

I once ran a software update on the wrong system and managed to bring down a High Street Banks payment system so no customers could transfer money in or out of their account.

I was very tired that day.

I work as a jeweller. When I was fairly junior, I chipped a 2 carat diamond I was working with .i have burnt a few diamonds (small ones) but even someone quite senior did that last week which made me feel a bit better. (Those we can usually replace at fairly modest cost)

It is always very nerve wracking working in an very urban setting, where there are a lot of buried services in the ground.

Could be worse. You could work for the company that dug up the Blue Peter Time capsule when they were doing up the gardens!

Worked as a courier for a photo lab that did film processing for major studios (in Hollywood, CA).

It was an after school job in High School (as I was 16 years old, was able to drive a car). Had to deliver the film for approval to a major Hollywood studio, but came straight from school and was starving, so stopped at a fast food place after picking up the film.

By the time I got to the studio, I was expected, and gave my details at the security gate. Drove in and parked where several PAs were there to greet me and that the film I had possession of, was, 'top top priority...'

Yup, it wasn't in the back seat, and I had no idea where it was.

The head of the film company was furious and spoke to me on the phone saying, 'you life will not be worth living if you don't find the film in next 10 minutes...'

I burst into tears, and the head of the film studio saw I was upset and she asked me where it could be. I explained that I came from school and stopped for food. She laughed and said, 'if you worked for me, there is food on the set...'

Found the film, got an after school job with brilliant boss and worked in their film lab on set until I went to uni.

I will never forget the utter bowel loosening horror as I realised I had massively over predicted my profit margin on a construction job.

For 20 horrible minutes I was convinced I had not balanced the forecast properly. I thought I had missed out the costs for an entire property, but had included the value we would be paid for it. I had basically predicted we would get paid to build a house and would somehow build it for nothing.

After frantically checking and double checking whilst taking huge gulps of air, I had indeed got the costs and values out of sync. However I'd actually done it the other way round so I had been under reporting the profit.

Somehow I managed to regain my composure but did not fess up and kept the additional value in hand to offset the usual construction disasters that occur and always cost. In the end my boss was delighted to have a higher than expected margin. But I will never ever forget those 20 minutes of absolute blind panic.