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 🤣

Conversely, I had a massive argument with a doctor that I didn't have jaundice and this is, in fact, my normal colour.

In the end I gave up and had a blood test anyway. I didn't have jaundice...

You win 😂

I paid £1.4 million to a company who should not have received it. Not entirely my fault. But i was the one who pressed the button.

dont get paid enough to worry. Hey ho! Im still in my job.

I cost my firm £50k. Not an astronomical sum, but I felt awful.

When I first realised, I avoided my manager, then mann-ed up to face the music; and he couldn't have been more lovely to me.

I thought I was going to get a formal bollocking, but he (rightly, as it turns out) said that i didn't know that I was doing it incorrectly. So, he wasn't blaming me at all.

Asking out/dating one of the lads in IT 🙄

While working data input in a medical lab, not only did I somehow managed to attach details of a medical sample to the wrong person, the person I attached them to happened to be, well, dead. Still no idea how I managed it but it took a fair bit of sorting out. Not my proudest moment!

Was asked by my dickhead director to proof-read a document he’d prepared. He’d described clients as suffering from depravation … he meant deprivation. One letter can make all the difference! I didn’t notice it until he’d pressed send … my bad!

I had 5000 books printed without the authors name on the cover. That was an interesting conversation with the managing director 😬 I really wasn't cut out for publishing!!!

Not me, my colleague. We were student nurses, very new, she was asked to go and chat to a patient who was having surgery the next day, go through it with them, recovery etc.
She introduced herself, sat with him, and proceeded to explain how to manage his upcoming colostomy bag, how it might affect his life, his sexuality and marriage. I’ll never forget the look on the poor man’s face. Needless to say, he was in for an appendectomy. I disappeared into the sluice, laughed my bloody head off.

working as a receptionist in a hospital, a lady asked me to book her a cab to a town about 10 miles away. I did, she left.

Few mins later her daughter came looking for her… she was a dementia patient and the other receptionist had been told to keep an eye on her 😱

i was told to write a letter, to hand deliver, to a doctor in the hospital, but i put it in the post room, and it was delivered to the line on the address line! ie the patient, who hadnt been copied in intentionally.
there shouldnt have been secret letters imo, but i did this by mistake

I’ve lost a few company mobiles, iPads and laptops in my time at work. But did manage to avoid a fraud conviction by simply being honest 😂😂

On the train and snorting at this. So wrong but so funny

One of my team sending an email headed "World Cum tickets" instead of "World Cup tickets" to 300 partners in the law firm.

Not a mistake as such, but the supermarket I worked for eons ago used to have a habit of new products not being put on the system. The item used to come up ‘unknown item’. Often than not you’d have to wait ages for a manager to come along with a key to tap in the product. If the manager took too long I’d give it to the customer.

And me! (Bank)

Listening to buffoons around me when I should have gone with 'gut feel'.

Actually, thinking about it, that was exactly what I DID do!!!

So, really the problem was with my 'Advisors' - what a bunch of tomatoes they were...

OMG 😲😱🤣.

Outlook has some horrible autocorrects when it changes an actual word for a different one (ill to I'll, I'm looking at you). I once sent an message to a teacher suggesting the children brought their willies with them on a school trip.

I now proof read very carefully...

Put a customer on hold (unsuccessfully) so I could call him some very colourful names. Went back to continue our conversation and realised the line was very much open 🙊

Someone who is quite senior to me but I am friendly with in a professional only sort of way sent me a WhatsApp ehoto of herself wrapped in a towel lying on her bed and then deleted it and said 'omg so sorry that was meant to go to my husband'. She was mortified but I died laughing, so funny.

Inadvertently told the manager's mistress that he'd been sniffing round my best friend, who said he was an old fogey that should know better.

Trusting colleagues!

Worked at a bar. Knew absolutely nothing. Kept choosing the most expensive wine (I thought that’s what the house wine was!!!) and filled it right up to the very brim of the glass (not just the line). Also did large glasses instead of small. Mixed up the beers. Not my forte at all but the customers loved me.

Kissing a junior work colleague at the Christmas party
I also once sent out a letter to my class with sorry for the incontinence rather than inconvenience which was a tad embarrassing.