Tell me your hideous workplace errors

[BordelDeMerde]

Today I was bitching about a colleague and accidentally sent him the messages I meant to send to the colleague I was bitching with. I referred to him as a 'mofo' in the messages.
Yes, it was incredibly childish and unprofessional and I'm mortified. I know, there's no need to tell me. I'm also very worried about the consequences.

I can't sleep because of it, so please cheer me up with your embarrassing work stories.
I promise I'm not the daily fail in poor disguise.

As a junior auditor I was at the HO of a very well known dry cleaners doing the annual audit.

FD had just printed off a brand new schedule of figures abs I went to discuss. As I arrived at his desk and said help, a massive gob of phlegm flew out of my throat and plopped onto the fresh paper.

I was mortified and scraped it up with my fingers and put it in my pocket 😱😱😱 as I didn't have a tissue.

For the last decade, I've held company directorships, and growing bored of the dubious practices within the industry I decided to write a book detailing how to avoid all the pitfuls, inside secrets, how bribery works in the real world etc. THis was meant to be my retirement package as I knew it would be a massive seller in the contraction industry and with customers alike.

In any case. After leaving a company I ran because the owner wanted to take ''activities'' to a new high I gave all my tech back after wiping all the data, not as well as I should have because it transpires that some smart alec managed to recover my documents and found the said book, not that it should have been there in the first place, but it obviously went to cloud somehow then back to my laptop.

Suffice to say what I had written WAS a massive hit, but not in the way I wanted. So I went from a high flyer >200kpa to being an outcast. I haven't actually finished the book but I'm going to, and now I have a perfect ending for it.

Invited friends round to boss's house whilst she was away, great time etc

What?! How were you able to go into their house in the first place? Was it a domestic position?

Was at industry do. Got rat arsed as boss being nasty. Saw old boss who asked for a dance. Slipped and fell (new leather soled shoes). Old boss picked me up, lovely but still concerned if new boss saw. He had gone home apparently. Hoping no photos as not long ago. New boss a complete shit but I don't want him to have anything on me.

Imagine a "news" paper copying a whole thread from a forum and not realising the very first post in the thread insulted your newspaper. FFS!

When I worked in computing I was once asked, at about ten minutes after work hours to do a complex transaction, involving payroll, and to phone back the manager when I had finished. A couple of hours later I finished and rang the number. No reply, I rang again a few minutes later (this was in the days when there were no automatic messages). I assumed he'd gone home, so I did the same.
He had been there apparently, and was incandescent. I was sacked.

@Notusuallydown

When I worked in computing I was once asked, at about ten minutes after work hours to do a complex transaction, involving payroll, and to phone back the manager when I had finished. A couple of hours later I finished and rang the number. No reply, I rang again a few minutes later (this was in the days when there were no automatic messages). I assumed he'd gone home, so I did the same. He had been there apparently, and was incandescent. I was sacked.

He should have answered the bloody phone then shouldn't he. I can't see how this is your fault!

Not me, thank goodness, but a colleague. About 5 of us on a Teams call, each giving individual updates. Colleague decided to nip to the loo before their turn but took laptop with her to keep up with the call. Took the laptop in the cubicle with her but forgot the camera was still on. Colleagues got the full display of her going to the loo! Fortunately I was multi-tasking and was not watching the video feed at that time. Colleague never realised what they'd done, and none of us dared tell her. I was a bit horrified afterwards that those colleagues who were watching didn't shout out to get her attention as soon as she entered the toilet, but instead let it all unfold.

@SturminsterNewton

It must have been jet propelled mustard to have reached the ceiling.

An excellent wrong threadism! 🤣

The zoom/ team calls aside, a lot of these things happened due to no fail safe or preventative methods.

I do hate using IT systems though, I live in fear of the one click away from disaster.

@Carandi that's actually quite awful in so many ways 😕 why didn't they say anything before it was "too late" but also more fool her for taking it in, was always going to be a risk! At least, as a minimum, you would face the webcam away from yourself, just in case!

@cricketmum84

So one of my new team members accidentally revealed the board of directors salaries to someone who really shouldn't have seen them. Not my mistake but also I have to swallow responsibility for it as it's my department.

This one was my fault but I forgot that a colleague was a relative of another very difficult colleague and told first colleague that her cousin was a fucking nightmare. I don't know if that has got back to her yet. (She really is a difficult fucking nightmare though)

But salaries for the board of directors can usually be found in their accounts, which get sent to Companies House and are in the public domain.

I used to work in MOD. I remember when Peter Kay did the spoof of Tony Christie's Amarillo song. Some Army chaps in Iraq or Afghanistan, that region anyway, decided to video their own spoof of the spoof. The video was emailed to other MOD personnel, who forwarded it on, and on and so on, until the MOD mail servers collapsed and we had no email function that day. Was a few hours at least until it all got cleared up. It crashed pretty much the whole MOD.

It was decided that the video would be put onto our MOD wide intranet for anyone to view, so that it didn't crash the servers again. I ended up digging out the old fax machine and sending information that way, stuff that had a tight deadline.

When I worked in retail I put a fan heater next to me at the till : it was freezing snowy January weather and the tills were by the big automatic doors that were basically constantly open. I only wanted to warm myself but sadly the fan heater melted the side of the till and basically buggered it and they had to shut the shop until a new one was sent from head office.

@Angrywife

Working for a very small company, there was couple of blokes and me. Manager called over to me that he and colleague were nipping out and would be back in about an hour. "OK, love you" was my distracted response 😐 I never did find out if he heard me.

Working for a husband and wife team, one afternoon the wife had gone out so it was just me and husband. As I leant over to pick a box up, a button popped off my skirt. The husband picked it up and handing it back to me said how lucky it was that it hadn't been a crucial button and my skirt hadn't fallen down. Flustered, I got all mixed up and replied "yeah that's a shame isn't it". We both looked awkwardly at each other as he mumbled "erm, my wife would kill me" while I wanted the earth to swallow me 😖

That skirt one is BRILLIANT. Thanks for a good laugh.

@TurquoiseDragon

I used to work in MOD. I remember when Peter Kay did the spoof of Tony Christie's Amarillo song. Some Army chaps in Iraq or Afghanistan, that region anyway, decided to video their own spoof of the spoof. The video was emailed to other MOD personnel, who forwarded it on, and on and so on, until the MOD mail servers collapsed and we had no email function that day. Was a few hours at least until it all got cleared up. It crashed pretty much the whole MOD.

It was decided that the video would be put onto our MOD wide intranet for anyone to view, so that it didn't crash the servers again. I ended up digging out the old fax machine and sending information that way, stuff that had a tight deadline.

This one

@Treesandsheepeverywhere

I once took my passport to a corner shop to photocopy it, forgot it in the copier and when I went back, it had been taken.

Left work very early once when my boss was out, first time ever leaving early as paid by the hour, bumped into my boss as she'd arrived back early. Just waved at her and never spoke about it.

Blocked and flooded the guest loo as I was lazy to go downstairs to the staff loos. Joined in with everyone blaming an imaginary guest.

Invited friends round to boss's house whilst she was away, great time etc. After we'd left and boss due back, one friend mentions they left a thank you card for my boss to find at the house, for allowing us to use her house whilst she was away (which she hadn't) I was sweating! Neither of us ever spoke about it.

You sound like the worst employee ever.

Accidentally told grandparent boss to take taxi from Geneva Airport to Luzern rather than Lausanne. Very expensive long taxi ride!

Not as bad as PA who booked train ticket to Flint in Wales rather than plane ticket to Flint in Michigan. I think she helpfully got the boss Canadian dollars rather than US dollars for his business trip!

@PaulaTrilloe

Accidentally told grandparent boss to take taxi from Geneva Airport to Luzern rather than Lausanne. Very expensive long taxi ride!

Not as bad as PA who booked train ticket to Flint in Wales rather than plane ticket to Flint in Michigan. I think she helpfully got the boss Canadian dollars rather than US dollars for his business trip!

As a PA, stuff like this is always my fear! Luckily have not yet cocked up, I did once book some local flights for the wrong day but I realised straight away and phoned up within minutes so they just changed it without charging me so no issue.

At one of my old jobs the EA booked the MD’s hotel for a trip but did it for the year after, and he pitched up after office hours so couldn’t ring her to sort it, his wife sorted it for him. Altho not sure why it needed to be his wife rather than him! Being generous I think this may have been when smartphones were still fairly new so might have been easier for his wife to sort on a computer.

Telephone banking, on a call with a client. Not a quick process particularly- he asks if I'm still there. I say would you like me to do heavy breathing for you.

Called into bosses office the next day who told me what I'd said which made me laugh. I have no recollection of saying it.

My LM didn't like me from Day 1 and she listened to all my taped calls and this really gave her all the ammunition she needed to manage me out. Shame really as I loved the job unlike anyone else.

LM a totally mental mess though impossible to feel anything bit pity for her.

I was helping with a large meeting and an attendee who was partially sighted and quite neutrally dressed with a guide dog arrived. They introduced themself as 'Joe' and shortly afterwarss asked if I could show them to the toilet.

The office toilet was out of order so I showed them outside to the building toilets outside the office door. I walked them over to the door of the male toilets, and just as I did I noticed they were wearing a bright pink beaded bracelet and nail varnish. They squinted at the sign (they were able to see large signs) and said "why would I need a male toilet?" . Turns out 'Joe' was actually Jo and was a very manly looking female. I apologised profusely and said something about being half asleep.

Did the place you work with begin with a "T" @Thesandmanishere ? If so it was me who fixed that error, and the customer wouldn't have known if I hadn't phoned her to explain what happened - she was thankful for the credit interest to be fixed and a nice bouquet of flowers as an apology...and if not it happens more often than people think 😂

A couple of things come to mind, but probably loads I my career!
When on a work placement in France I forgot to pass on a message that an important client had arrived at the airport. My boss who was meant to pick him up was furious. Client was very good natured about it! The next student to do my job crashed the company van into a too-low tunnel in her first week, so I don't think my misdemeanour seems too bad in comparison...
Years later in my proper job, I accidentally shredded an SD card with some therapy sessions on it for a big health research project...had to admit it as they were all carefully tracked for confidentiality reasons.

My DH complained to me about his boss via email... he attached a copy of an email she'd sent to him...

I replied to DH saying something probably not very nice. As soon as I hit send I realised I'd accidentally emailed her 🤦🏻‍♀️

Had to call DH straight away and tell him what I'd done

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

Nhs podiatry, I called a patients name in the waiting room. And he got up and came into my room. Sat down and took his shoes and socks off as I asked. A very confusing conversation followed during which time I cut all his nails. Eventually he asked if it was normal for nails to be cut before a hip xray. It was the wrong patient. I always check now.

😂