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 🤣

Omg this sounds horrendous 😩😂. That’s made my palms sweat. hope it went ok in the end 😭

I bet they did!

Working for a major supermarket, first job, trainee manager in the 70s. Shelves were filled after closing, we closed at 5.30, and one if the first roles with responsibility was managing the evening shift of shelf fillers, then lock up. First shop had a side door, and somehow I managed not to lock it. Then a few months later, I left the front door of a different store open, only discovered the next morning when the bakery delivery turned up, and the delivery man opened the door and set the alarms off. Got away without anything being saud to me both times.

Mine gives me shudders just thinking about it. I once accidentally told a group of 600 infant school kids that the Easter bunny doesn't exist. Genuine accident

Probably outing. Accidentally burnt the office down 😱

Working as a groom, I took my puppy to work because I had no one to watch her. Strict no dog policy but I thought I could let her out sneakily throughout the day and no one would know.

Went up to one of the fields and put her in the pick up truck with me. Got out to shut a gate and came back to find she had put her paw on the central locking button and locked herself in. Window open a crack but not enough to get my arm in. Spent 5 minutes trying to persuade her over to stand on the button again...nope, not happening, just looked at me.

Went back to the yard to see if there was a spare key...nope.

Had to come clean. Big boss was not angry but DISAPPOINTED....so much worse. Called maintenance team over and had to admit what I'd done. They said they'd have to break the window and it would come out of my pay (fair enough).

By this point i was more worried that it was a warm day and she'd been in there nearly half an hour.

Luckily, when we walked back over, she had stood on the electric window button and I could get my hand in to unlock. God I'm still cringing.

I went to Kuwait and forgot essential papers for the boss. They had to be sent by hand of BA pilot and then driven many miles over land. Still cringe when I think of it.

Dropped the AA hotel inspector’s dinner in his lap.

This made me howl!

Mid 2000s, I was coming up to 4 months into a new role managing the company’s Global Corporate Insurance Programmes, which had renewal dates of 31st December. Insurance Team only consisted of me and my manager, with external support from our insurance brokers, a small claims handling firm and a one man band plus secretary who we paid a not insignificant fee to produce our renewal packs, consisting of a booklet providing an overview of the company, financials, strategy etc and a supporting CD rom with raw data for the actuaries at the various insurers to use to decide the premium.

My manager had a 2 week holiday booked at the same time as the deadline for getting the renewal data to the insurers (early to mid December) so I was left to oversee the renewal and make sure all the information was correct, complete and provided on time so we could agree renewal terms by end of the year.

Whilst I’d worked for a part of the business for 5 years by that point, it was a huge multinational energy company with lots of different divisions that I had little to no level of knowledge about, especially to the level of detail about assets etc required for our insurance purposes.

Somehow, between me, our broker team, the man in charge of producing the renewal documents and the Group Tax, Treasury, Risk & Insurance Director, we managed to entirely omit the details of our £300m+ Gas storage facility from the renewal booklet and CD - the only Gas storage asset we owned! It was our main insurer who eventually spotted the oversight.

It was quickly fixed and didn’t stop the renewal happening on time and thankfully, I didn’t get the blame given I was so new in role. However, upon returning from his holiday, my boss was very unimpressed with our brokers for not spotting it and even fired the company who produced the renewals information as he felt they knew enough about our business from the previous packs to have noticed the error.

For every renewal after that first time, I was sure to double and triple check information provided and thankfully there was never a repeat!

As they should!

😂oops!

I bet they did!

At least it wasn't Father Christmas!! What happened?

Please elaborate! My husband melted his keyboard by leaving it on his mug warmer over night 🤣

Many years ago as a teenager I used to work in a call centre for a home appliances company and would offer 'washing machine first aid' (cheap labour apprentice).

Anyway one call I still remember is a poor woman who I'd gone through the steps with for opening the filter and draining her machine, except I forgot to tell her to get a bucket or bowl. Suddenly she started panicking on the phone saying water was going everywhere and flooding her kitchen! To my shame I said 'oh I thought I did tell you to get a bucket' and hung up. Still feel guilty!

Marrying my boss!!!

I worked for a high street bank in the 80s. Whoever was responsible for locking up had to put a big bag by the front door which contained all the cheques and credits to be taken to London for clearing and the two day processing.

For some reason I forgot! The courier came but there was nothing there so he couldn;t collect it. In the morning the manager called me in and was furious - it was really quite major and we had to go through and sort out anything over £1000 to expedite it.

The manager asked me to promise never to forget again. I was mid twenties maybe - but said I couldn't promise that as it was a mistake and I hadn't done it on purpose. He barely spoke to me again and I was so relieved when he was transferred months later.

Years later my Dad (Navy) was at a dinner for something like the rotary club miles away - and sat next to this man. He obviously recognised our surname and was very complimentary about me! Lying slimeball.......😄

One of my patients, good-looking young man, in traction for a broken leg. Saturday afternoon visiting time, wife, kids and parents all sitting around his bed. Ward phone rings and I answer it to a woman with a message for him. She asked me to tell him she would be in that evening to visit him. I asked who should I say called and she said his cousin Penny. So I stroll up the ward to his bed to relay the message from Penny to be instantly met with all their conversation ceasing and sudden frosty atmosphere. Of course, she wasn’t his cousin but his bit on the side. Well I never knew the silly sausage was playing away! Not my mistake but it was a bit awkward.

@rampy I kind of got away with it. I was newly qualified and no one really said anything apart from a few confused parents. I thought it was a great assembly topic...where the origin of the Easter bunny came from. Evidently not. But I was very young and am also autistic - no excuse but I know it does cause me to make some weird decisions sometimes

If I miss a tiny detail in my job, potentially someone dies.

I have made such a mistake.
It's a big stressor.

I hope you resolve your issues around documents, I also had that type of trouble and found renaming the document I wanted to send helped.

Maybe you should be ashamed of leaving your mum in a care home? Ignoring her calls when it was an emergency?
Please go on to tell me how work/your kids/life/your own health, is more important than caring for your mum. Like the OP doesn’t have these things going on too.
OR MAYBE you could consider that everyone is human and makes mistakes.
The fact OP remembers the incident means it affected her!
No need to be so harsh to someone that had obv reflected. How about you reflect on what YOU could have done instead?

Later versions did ask “are you sure”, for this very reason 🤣

Hahahahaha 😆😆😆 I LOVE this

And maybe you should read my post properly and get your facts right?
My Mum was briefly in a care home after an op BY CHOICE, she could have stayed with me and I would have been able to look after her and would have happily done so. Also, I don't take my phone upstairs to bed so there was no "ignoring" of calls and messages and I was at the home 20 minutes after I saw my phone next morning. I also pushed for an inverstigation and got one
So no, I won't be reflecting on anything

To be honest though @IveGotToGoToMeDads I have thought about this thread A LOT and I apologise to you for being a bit harsh, I appreciate that mistakes can be made and for obvious reasons I found your post incredibly triggering. You do seem to care about what you did, unlike the staff dealing with my Mum, who were only interested in trying to cover it up.
I also apologise if I put a dampner on what has mostly been a very funny thread.