Mistakes you've made (in your job)

[horah]

What's some mistakes you've made in your job? Or outside of your job?

I just need reassurance. I've started a small business and I keep making mistakes. Today I've forgotten to lock a customer's door after working in their house. I'm so stressed about it.

I need some stories that show me I'm not alone!

Most of my biggest mistakes were accepting crappy jobs in the first place 🤣

Of course I’ve made errors and I’m reluctant to confess them on MN! My funniest mistake recently was completely forgetting a client - I had met her for an hour six months previously and we had a great chat and I had absolutely NO recollection of it. She looked far more mortified than I felt tbh (I’m peri menopausal so forgetful anyway).

Everyone makes mistakes - most jobs where the mistakes matter have double-checking processes so you have someone effectively watching your back, or you have checklists or something to help you control the risk of something Important going wrong.

I sent out a school newsletter with the wrong return to school date in. This was in the days before the Internet so the SLT had to phone all 350 parents personally.

I crashed an entire local authority payroll (back in the days of floppy disks). I tried to back something else forgetting it was strictly forbidden when payroll was
running.

A lot of manual cheques had to be issued instead.

I did not confess.

Urgh back UP my work using the disk!

Taking a job with friends

@IncognitoUsername this one made me feel better

I forgot to sign off the payroll!

My lovely finance officer managed to fix the problem so that people still got paid on time. I will be forever grateful!

I have left a door unlocked before and went back at midnight after the shift to lock it!

More recently I let a contractor take the only key to the electric cupboard as they needed it the next day, the alarm system failed before I was leaving and so I had to stay on site overnight unpaid as if they came to mend it they couldn't get into electric room.

I have dropped a 6 pinter of milk on the floor at work and it exploded like a fountain!
I have also entered a netting and tipped my large tea over the tables onto people's laptops.

I am clumsy!

Not me but someone I worked with locked a customer in a branch of a bank and went home with no idea they were still in bank.

I sent out the whole departments home addresses, phone numbers, emergency contacts etc to the whole department instead of the department head.

I took notes in a full department calibration session, password protected the document (due to the sensitive information) but couldn’t ever get back into the document. I must have spelt the password wrong or something. No amount of tries got us back into it.

Flooded someone's garden, it was a remote irrigation system so noone noticed until the client came home from work.

Not me, but mum once sent a ranting email about her boss to her boss instead of a colleague

Spiked a 'small earthquake in Turkey' story coming in late one evening.
Unfortunately it was rather large...

Would you like an example from today? I was supposed to be at a meeting with lots of external people where I was going to present. Except I misremembered the location and went to the wrong place. A place which was an hour's drive from where I should be. I realised that 10 mins before the meeting was due to start.

I opened a catheter leg bag all over my leg. Piss everywhere!

Within my first month of a new job I sent £30k to a scammer as I got caught out by a very convincing email scam.
They did eventually get it back but I know they are likely still telling the story to every other person who starts in that department. I am "the lesson".

Not me but a family member.... 'lost' some 2 billion pounds of government bonds overnight by putting the paperwork in a drawer in stead of processing it correctly. Government books unbalanced, money markets uproar the next day....
(pre-digital era, obvs)

Not me, but someone I know left a patient’s bath running and flooded the newly refurbished reception area downstairs and shorted the lights.

I gave away a fridge.

In my defence… I didn’t know they had two in that office (the broken one was hidden away under a large tablecloth) and the working one was absolutely grubby, smelly and rather disgusting.

They told me ‘let the man into the room to take away the old fridge’.

Some of the more memorable

• in my first job spent 2 hours unsuccessfully faxing a document - i totally forgot i needed to press 9 for an outside line 😅 i then spent 30 mins in the toilet crying 🤣🤣🤣

• Forgot to book a £500k advertising campaign and only "remembered" when the client said they hadn't seen many ads for it... had to pull in some BIG favours as it was in December. That was a proper mess...

• sent a clients (quite secret) deal pricing to their competitor by accident.

in my defence the people in question had crazy similar names Eg Sarah Greenam and Sarah Greene

• Called a new client Craig for about 6 months. I must have misheard him when we met...His name was actually Chris!!!!

but he never at any point corrected me 🤷🏻‍♀️ someone in the office heard me saying goodbye and was was like "er.....?!"

I'm an exec level leader and I've made mistakes in every job I've had.

Mistakes are essential. They are how we learn. Know that you will continue to make them. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Just be sure to own them and learn from them.

These have definitely made me feel a little better. Thanks everyone!

Still kicking myself

I"ve had quite a few :)

I was working one Sunday at a local restaurant and took an order from a whole table full of about 20 farmers who had come for Sunday lunch. I somehow forgot to hand the order in at the kitchen, and didn't realise what had happened until about 45 minutes later they politely enquired about when their food would be out. By that time all the Sunday lunch stuff had already been sold. Nightmare... They were all Methodists, and I think they had quite a struggle not to tell me what they were really thinking :)

Another time when working as a barrister I drove to the wrong court for the case. Yet another time I drove to Manchester for a case and left the papers in Liverpool. Thank goodness my sister drove them up the motorway for me before the case was called on 😁

I love this one 😁

Forgot to put night service on the switchboard in a nursing gone meaning no medical people could ring in. Had an hours drive back on a Friday night to fix it.

Sent an email to my boss instead of a company I'd applied to accepting an interview for another role explaining I would have to say it was a doctors appointment.

Signed off an email to the chairman of the Board saying "big hugs"

I once had a temp who was a right pain in the backside - seriously irritating. She spent most of her time on the phone to her mum (I couldn’t fire her as she was connected somehow to our Director).

I got her to insert invitations into 500 envelopes to be sent out to a HNW client list. She was so irritating that I got her to sit in the board room and do the task.

She somehow managed to send out 500 empty envelopes (she just put the ‘spares’ back in the stockroom).

We only realised when we started to get calls asking why we’d send empty envelopes.