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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask for positive stories after a massive cock up at work?

111 replies

PoppinsMoppins · 08/05/2017 20:48

Just that.

I've really fucked up. Sitting here stressing and can't think of anything else.

Have you got any experience of cocking up and it all being ok?

OP posts:
RaingodsWithZippos · 08/05/2017 22:23

I once landed a client in court with a disability discrimination claim. I was working as a contractor and subcontracted an aspect of the work, to cut a long story short someone with a disability that would have meant they could not perform the job had signed up to work without disclosing their disability. I had to break it to them that there were no possible reasonable adjustments (as they didn't give sufficient notice of their disability to see if there was an alternative) and they went to a tribunal. As I was a contractor it was the client who copped for the fallout and settled out of court. I feel that I was actually set up but it taught me a valuable lesson about knowing your workers.

TheFlyingFauxPas · 08/05/2017 22:24

Re your brochure Judy, not me but where I used to work. The marketing department bodged up the descriptions to go with items, including prices. They had to hire casual labour in to fix it by sticking labels over errors. This was arranged by original bodger-up. The casual sticker-onners were half way through when it was noticed that the error-correcting labels had errors 😃

Madmotherintheattic · 08/05/2017 22:25

Keeping a room of 200+ people waiting for me to give a 30 minute presentation while I lived it up in the club room upstairs having a leisurely brekkie. Text came in from just about the most senior person in my field "Hi Madmother, there's about 15 minutes left to go in your slot, are you going to show up or shall we move onto the next person?" I'd written down the time wrong. I shot down there and faced my major cock-up and out of somewhere, I managed to crack a joke and everybody laughed. I still have the shudders. But it had no lasting effect because *about half the audience told me about some major cock-up they'd had in their professional lives" So... on and up.

TheSnowFairy · 08/05/2017 22:26

I worked at a local newspaper and had one client who booked a whole page, and one who booked an 1/8th of a page.

I put the copy for the smaller one into the bigger ad space and it was printed.

And I wrote off a company car weeks after passing my test.

Same company! Blush

Judydreamsofhorses · 08/05/2017 22:26

faux pas I was also in the marketing department. A veritable haven of errors!

Albadross · 08/05/2017 22:29

Over the weekend I accidentally did a personal tweet from my employer's account. It's a massive corporate and it was a funny link - nothing rude - but still a total fuck up. I'm sure it'll be ok and you'll look back on it and laugh in the not too distant future OP.

I can't understand why DF thinks human drivers are more reliable than self-driving cars considering the amount of fucking up going on all around us 24/7!

ellesbellesxxx · 08/05/2017 22:31

I will be vague so as to not out myself. School event on a weekend.. told all the children and parents it was 11am on the Sunday. Got a call at 10.45am on the Saturday (answered breezily from my lovely lie in) from a friend who was stewarding wondering where we were.. Blush
Luckily he managed to organise it so we could do the Sunday instead 😂 Just a slightly different time. i called my head teacher mortified to let him know I had messed up and he laughed.. no harm done so he didn't mind x

chewbaccathehooker · 08/05/2017 22:39

I am a total liability (in my job I've just left anyway). Fucking up excel spread sheets is my party piece, resulting in ENORMOUS office panic.

Everyone makes mistakes, and think of it this way - will you ever make the same mistake again? Highly unlikely. Who are your managers likely to trust more? Someone new who could easily make the mistake, or someone like you who will never make it again?

It will get better, and at the end of it all what's the worst thing that could happen?

3boys3dogshelp · 08/05/2017 22:54

I lost £60k in a spreadsheet this week!

TreeTop7 · 08/05/2017 22:58

It could be worse. You could be the person who famously turned down the Beatles, or the one who rejected JK Rowling's Harry Potter manuscript. Or you could be the club football manager who said that the young Gareth Bale wouldn't amount to anything.

At least most of our mistakes aren't a matter of public record!

Original poster
PoppinsMoppins · 08/05/2017 23:01

Thanks everyone, all of your cock ups are making me feel a bit better.

I actually have an idea to stop the same thing happening again, so hopefully that will help.

I also think it has highlighted a training need, another member of staff said he knew the right bit of advice, but the look on his face said he didn't (it was like a, thank fuck that wasn't me face)

OP posts:
Mermaidinthesea123 · 08/05/2017 23:10

I once sent a personal email that was meant for a friend slagging off all my managers becasue we all had to reapply for our jobs and it was incredibly stressul but for some insane reason sent it to the chief executive of the hospital instead.
I still work here Smile
Someone else in the nhs sent an emial by mistake to every single person in the nhs royally screwing nhsmail for day.

biggles50 · 09/05/2017 08:19

Started training as a nurse 30 plus years ago, wheeling man with a broken leg back to his bed. His plastered leg stuck out in front of the wheel chair (like a character from a Carry On film) As I wheeled him down the ward, very fast because I was nervous, I stumbled, let go of the wheel chair with one hand to steady, the chair twisted and he went leg first into the bed. His howls of pain rang in my ears for many weeks after.

Krispiesquare · 09/05/2017 09:05

OP

how are you feeling at work today?

Thank you for starting this thread. I was actually tempted to start a similar one a few days ago due to the anxiety of my cock up.

It's reassuring to see that everyone makes mistakes (especially reassuring for me from the accountant saying they've lost count GrinWink)

I think the lesson is that as long as we own up and learn from our mistakes we can use them to learn and improve.

I've been looking into certain courses to ensure I never make the same mistake again and I'm sure you're looking for training or similar

Blimey01 · 09/05/2017 09:09

I really feel for you Op Flowers
Making a big mistake feels bloody awful but putting into perspective should help. As someone else said it's money and no one was hurt. I work in the health service where I know colleagues that have had their practice investigated due to people's dying. All cleared but the answers rightly had to be found but imagine how stressful that was.
Brush yourself off, don't play the blame game and face it head on. People will respect you for managing it that way and taking full responsibility. Hold your head up high Op. EVERYONE has made some kind of mistake at some point. It's how you handle it that counts.

Blimey01 · 09/05/2017 09:11

Mermaid I think I got that email 😂

Bride123 · 09/05/2017 09:13

I'm 53 and you'd be here all day if I recounted my screw-ups. 🌹

TiredMumToTwo · 09/05/2017 09:15

I remember fucking up royally at work in a very public way that had implications for people's pay checks to be down - I.e. Lots of unhappy people. I worked with my boss to fix it & he said " it's not the mistakes you make but what you do to fix them". This has stayed with me & I tell it to myself whenever I'm worried I've done something wrong. Own it, offer help to rectify, learn from your mistake = job done & move on. Good luck for today.

Cakescakescakes · 09/05/2017 09:16

I ordered 10,000 brochures promoting our organisation where I had mistyped 'pubic sector' instead of 'public sector'. They had to be scrapped at cost of few thousand pounds.

In another job I accidentally deleted the company's entire marketing contact databasebof hundreds of clients. I had to manually retupe it by going through old contracts and paperwork.

ADisappearingDreamOfYesterday · 09/05/2017 09:27

OP have you seen the thread in classics, something like "less professional moments of my career?" (Can't link as on app sorry).

If you haven't already seen it, it will cheer you up. I would wager that 99% of us here have fucked up at work. I had a lovely boss once who always told me the important part wasn't making a mistake, it was making the same mistake twice which would be a problem.

As one of my less professional moments in that job was setting fire to the office, he was very understanding Grin

ADisappearingDreamOfYesterday · 09/05/2017 09:29

One of my colleagues once sent an email which instead of signing of "Kind Regards" had either mistyped or auto corrected to "King Of Retards" followed by her name - and ironically, professional qualifications Grin

chocatoo · 09/05/2017 09:33

Years ago I cost my company thousands because I kept thinking I would deal with something I wasn't sure quite what to do with, 'tomorrow/later'....the letter I had was essentially saying the product was to be discontinued but the factory made a big batch whilst i faffed around. Bosses were understanding. It was a big learning curve.

ADisappearingDreamOfYesterday · 09/05/2017 09:33

PS I know retard is a very offensive word, and I would never normally laugh at it's usage, but the horror of seeing it like that on an email to VIP client was so great we had to snigger nervously ShockGrin It amazed me at the time that it would be an auto correct option!

welovepancakes · 09/05/2017 09:41

One of the senior managers in my old company accidentally sent an email to all staff, slagging off one of the other senior managers

OctopusesGarden · 09/05/2017 09:50

OP thinking of you today and hope it goes well.

My first week as an apprentice solicitor was doing a purchase transaction for a partner. There was meant to be a bank cheque for 100k on the file. There wasn't. I never found what happened to it but had a horrible phone call with the client where i was shouted at. A lot.

Personal favourite was a senior partner who emailed his earning details to his private banking. Except he accidentally emailed the entire private client department.

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