What's the worst mistake you've made at work?

[Againstthegrainn]

Mine isn't the worst mistake but enough for an email to be sent to my manager along the lines of "please speak to againsthegrain and sort it out! This is getting very annoying now".

I kept sending forms out with wrong dates/details. How this happened was I was editing a word document and when i'd go to attach it, it would send an old version rather than the one I edited. My fault for not opening and checking once attached.

Only happened ocassionally before but I kept doing it this morning. So embarrassed now. Make me feel better? Share your stories 🤣

Brilliant - used to love those sketches.

I sent a hardcase back to the warehouse for repair - forgot to put the guitar in it.

Not a mistake but you've reminded me of when faxes were new and ours had rolls of thermal paper and someone sent us so many pages, the received fax stretched all the way down the stairwell like an Andrex ad.

Anyway, my mistake was sending an email which was highly critical of a client... to the client.

It was 20 years ago and I still shudder at the memory.

Worked in online customer service, meant to give a customer a 20% off code and accidentally gave everyone 20% off the entire website which wasn’t discovered until the next day.

In my defence it was stupid for the default option to be site wide and you had to click a checkbox to make it a one off! Which is why I didn’t get fired haha

I got an almighty bollocking for someone else's mistake. Twice.
UK company , sending literature to NI and ROI. Person using the machine didnt understand the difference, franking machine did and the company got charged extra.
Finance queries it so my LM.........decided that as I am Irish I must have been sending letters to my family in Ireland.
I got hauled in to my managers office and shouted at. Luckily the person responsible rescued me .
2nd time - for one particular part of my job I had been given a company mobile. That part.of the job ended and the mobile was sent back. 6 months later calls to France were charged to the mobile so yet again I was hauled in by the same incompetent arsehole manager.
This time HER manager and HR were there. Id got wind of what was happening so had brought hard copies of the emails stating that - the number and phone had been reassigned to a different division and that MY MANAGER would have to contact finance to change the cost centre. Which she had replied to, but not done.

Never have 2 lines made me laugh so much
😂🤣🤣

Not quite work related but I’d just passed my test and parked next to my bosses brand new, very expensive car. I’d worked there a few months and my car was an old banger. Another car wedged me in and I thought I could reverse safely… yes you’ve guessed it, I didn’t. Then I had to go back in and tell him - to be fair he took it fairly well and did promote me several times over the years. The guy at my insurance laughed his socks off but I was mortified for months afterwards/nightmares the lot.

Oh my god what happened on the second one? I hope she got her arse handed to
Her!

My first day working in an auction house, it was a sale day so busy, I got shooed out to go and look at the sale room as I was too new to be useful.

I was about 20, wandering about with a lot of posh, mostly older people looking at beautiful pieces of furniture, art work, jewellery etc. I thought I'd do what they were doing, so opened the top drawer of a chest of drawers...

Only for both the handles to come off in my hands!
I quickly shoved them back in and walked off!

Name changed as could be outing if any ex colleagues are on here!

In my twenties I used to create promo material like poster, flyers etc. In those days we would take images off Google to use (ignoring copyright!)

I made a flyer, it got printed and batches were sent to hundreds of sites... Someone noticed that one of the images I'd used in the background had racist slang on it 😳

I honestly hadn't noticed, it was watermarked so pale, but someone could read it obviously. All were recalled and I got a talking to but nothing formal.

I was devastated, so upset. Looking back now with experience, I know it should have been properly proofed by someone senior!

Locked me & two other members of staff inside the bank. Had my keys for the branch in my hand bag in the secure area. It was after hours but we were getting ready to go out after work. Got changed, took off my uniform including my security pass, walked out into the customer area and let the secure door close behind me. After a long time and many security checks the security team were able to release the security doors remotely.

Sent out the entire departments full names, DOBs, addresses, phone numbers and emergency contact details to the entire department instead of to the management team.

Took minutes at an 8 hour performance calibration session, recorded all the final comments and ratings for about 200 people on a spreadsheet. Password protected the spreadsheet and was never able to get back into it. So it all had to be redone / ‘fudged’.

My name is Allison. I was running a massive recruitment campaign about 25 years ago for van drivers. Wrote to 62 people inviting them to interview. Spellcheck changed my name from Allison to Allusion in every letter. 62 people calling up, asking to speak to Allusion. Having to start every interview with an explanation.

Fortunately my boss thought it was hilarious. My leaving cake said "We'll miss you Allusion".

@rampy HR were not impressed and I was given some extra days A/L as compensation.

I doubt I’m the first one to do this, but I sent out a mail merged letter to over 300 people referring to the Cunty Council. Freudian slip.

I forgot to order the food for a summer party.

It was fine in the end but confessing to my boss was not good. They found some beige freezer food and we put a few grand behind the bar.

Sent an "I love you" message to my boss meant for my partner.

She came in 30 seconds later in tears of laughter after my apology email.

I worked in a country park and loaded some fence posts into the land-rover, slammed the back door and it pushed them straight through the windscreen.
Then opened the door and as I pulled them out I caught the back lights and broke them all off.

Not me but someone I was note taking for a hearing. Forgot they had a customer in a meeting room, went in the back office, got distracted then locked the bank up and went home. After about an hour (of hoping someone would remember and come back) he used the staff phone in the meeting room to call the call centre and say I’m locked in one of your branches, they thought it was a hoax until security checked the cameras.

WhatsApp’d my male boss that a few times!

Paid someone for 12 months that never actually started. Had to get the fraud team to reclaim. Sent out mail merge letter to 500 clients back in the day to Dear Cuntermer.

Not my mistake but a colleagues (and BF at the time).
Ordered the wrong colour fabric from Thailand to the UK. Only realised by the time it was needed for a customised order.
Had to reorder and basically fly it business class that cost £000s. He never told anyone, I never told anyone.

I was a new and very junior civil servant. I was bullied by someone senior at MOD to agree to a defence co-operation agreement between us and a Middle Eastern country. I hadn’t realised that something like this had to be agreed by Ministers, so I said OK.

Several months later we were doing a similar agreement with another country and I was asked to prepare the submission, which was when I realised that I should have done this for the other country. I was too scared to say anything at this point, and just slipped a line into background briefing that we had this agreement. My head of department queried this one day, and I shrugged and said it had always been in the briefing and must have been agreed before either of us started in the department. Fortunately he didn’t ask for the background papers.

The papers will probably be released into the public domain soon, under the 30 year rule. Just to be clear, it’s not a benign and fluffy country, either.

Someone made a complaint about me last week. They misinterpreted what I meant and I also made a mistake very publically when booking some travel. Now I'm on the radar.

Probably not the worst mistake but definitely one of the stupidest.

In my 20s, I worked in a very stuffy, formal corporate place. Had to give my first ever presentation to a room full of older men many of whom wouldn't get away with their behaviours today.

I practised that speech for days with my housemate who also worked there until it was perfect. Somewhere along the way, we joked I should start with Ladies & Perverts instead of Ladies & Gentlemen.

Anyway due to nerves, I did actually start with Ladies & Perverts...

Working in recruitment many years ago I forwarded a CV to my colleague working on a particular brief and said 'mmm I don't think so' yep- hit reply to the poor bugger who sent it me. Realised immediately and was mortified .