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.

mailmerge to 150 people all visible in the 'to' field of the email...

I'm a veterinary nurse and a very long time ago (during my training), I left a thermometer up a dog's bum. The owner was not impressed when she discovered it at home later that day. It was in the days of the glass mercury thermometers too so I got in a lot of trouble for that!

Staying nineteen years when I knew I needed to leave after three weeks. I needed the money.

@SturminsterNewton I had a really important prestigious well paid role representing my country at the highest level but instead spent my time belting squirty mustard at my grandchildren

@WhatWouldKalindaDo

I'm a veterinary nurse and a very long time ago (during my training), I left a thermometer up a dog's bum. The owner was not impressed when she discovered it at home later that day. It was in the days of the glass mercury thermometers too so I got in a lot of trouble for that!

Sorry but that's hilarious

I was a travel agent in a country that required a visa to visit Spain. I sold a client a multi stop ticket and he had so many stops he needed to pay a surcharge for the Spain stop. But I forgot to tell him he needed a visa. So he paid extra on his ticket to go there and was refused entry.

He was so laid back he forgave me and continued booking with me for the next 20 years!

Same as @PermanentTemporary..so many, so very very many......

Popped a customer on what I thought was mute, to do (an excellent may I say) impression of his extremely strong Brummie accent to my telesales colleagues. Went to unpress mute to realise I was actually talking to him on my mobile not the desk phone. Omigod please kill me.

Did something similar recently (20 years later, so I clearly never learn) doing an evening teams call with New Zealand, thought I was on mute, DH comes in to say "god are you still on that dull call?" I reply in my Kiwi accent that I was, how little I had actually heard of it, etc....Not on mute....nearly died. Loyal colleague promised hand on heart no-one heard but I think he was being kind....

One of my first jobs, slagged the Office Manager off mercilessly (she deserved it but still) to my friend via email (quite a novelty then), not knowing she could access everyone's accounts and read all my emails after I'd gone home. Got fired for that. Bitch.

Sent an extremely hyper sensitive confidential (think under NDA) email to the wrong person - same first name. Think I managed to handle that but it was still absolutely awful at the time.

I am still gainfully employed and I think quite well respected. I KNOW!!!!!!

Signed a drawing correct. It wasn't. Steel frame for a new school building arrived on site and some of the bits didn't fit. Like meccano with some of the bits the wrong length, cost about £10k to fix.

Everyone was lovely about it, I was 6 months pregnant, waddling around site in my high vis and hard hat trying not to cry when the bits wouldn't go together...

I was a very junior worker and I worked in corporate banking.

I was making high value transfers and managed to invest half a million pounds into the wrong person's account by transposing the account number.

Luckily the bank were able to recall the amount.

I think everyone in my line of work has at some point emailed a journalist with press releases accidentally including the phrase 'pubic relations'

Oh, and a 5 year stint working for the county council had the odd hilarious Cunty Council typo, but I think every employee has done that at some point!

Iamblossom

I can laugh about it 20 years later!

[quote oopswrongthread]@SturminsterNewton I had a really important prestigious well paid role representing my country at the highest level but instead spent my time belting squirty mustard at my grandchildren [/quote]
Haha, yes, wrong thread, it's a hideous workplace error!

Working in a doctors surgery as a secretary, typed up a medical report that one of the GP's did on a private basis, insurance claims etc. Posted the report off to the insurance people. A few days later the practice manager called me in the office to say that included in the envelope to the insurance firm was an NHS referral letter I'd typed for a patient to have an abortion. I got a severe telling off and was made to phone the patient to apologise and obviously inform her of the breach of confidential info. Now I triple check anything before posting

There will be a billion of these post Covid WFH with the reliance on Teams

I managed to install a software update to the wrong system and bring down one of the major UK banks CHAPS payment systems for a day.

I do hope no one was moving house but I expect they were...

I did the same as you! Texting to a work colleague about my boss who was attending an event with me, and accidentally sent it to him. He was away getting coffee at the time. Wasn't too horrendous a message but along the lines of 'I'll kill him if he says xxxx again!' He had a catch phrase he used a lot, and I had just come back off a longhaul flight to three days of meetings with him. I put my hands up and just told him that i had sent it (he hadn't seen it). He was very gracious and accepted my apology and we continued to work together well for the next 9 years.

@youvegottenminuteslynn

I think everyone in my line of work has at some point emailed a journalist with press releases accidentally including the phrase 'pubic relations'

I do editorial work in books and I ALWAYS do a search for 'pubic'

I remember years ago in my first week or so of a new job in a new building, being asked to go and get some visitors up from reception to my boss's office.
I didn't have a handle on the security pass thing or the passcodes/knacks needed to open all the doors. It was a long time ago but I have vague sense memories of sweating, and scrabbling at doors and keypads, while trying to keep up some cheery chat that no doubt was actually inane gabbling.
The visitors were from some meditation/yoga community and genuinely clad in all fresh serene white. They just followed me patiently/stood quietly and zen-like as I sweated.

I always think of the person at the nhs who managed to email 840,000 people in one go. Server was struggling, but then compounded by 'reply all' idiots.

I don't work for the NHS!

Rang up whoever was in control of the building air conditioning and asked them to please switch off the vent above my desk.
Gave them my desk number.
Strolled into work the next day to find all the older ladies fanning themselves as the air con for the entire floor had been switched off.

I acted just as surprised as everyone else.

Not me, but someone I know in her first week as a newly qualified nurse left a bath she was running for a patient unattended - and then promptly forgot about it. First thing she knew were a couple of hugely irate property services blokes storming into the ward - it had flooded the newly refurbished reception area downstairs and shorted the IT system. She got a bit of a row for that.

I worked in PR. Was having one of those typically busy days with emails whizzing around. One of the email chats was with a friend or colleague (can't remember) about non-work related things. Another was with a very senior reporter at the Wall Street Journal about Important Technical Banking things. The friend chat involved us swapping hilarious embarrassing dating stories....

.... so I was pretty mortified to receive an email from very important WSJ reporter commiserating re my worst ever date.

IN a similar but different vein, a few years before I was working late due to sheer volume of work and emailed my flatmate to say that by the time I finally got home I wanted scallops and should we go out? Only to receive a message from a banker I was setting up an interview for who said, "thank you for the invite, I'd love to but can't do it tonight. Perhaps another night?" So not only did I invite the guy on a date, to which he responded positively, I then had to tell him that in fact I DID not want to go on a date with him. Awkward.

Immediately before I went on maternity leave, I worked with a male colleague (Dave) who I'd know for years- he got married at around the same time as me and his wife was expecting at around the same time as me. There was a woman (Pam) in the team that worked next to us who was very loud, never seemed to actually do any work and was constantly sending 'amusing' e-mails/pictures to the whole office. She also kept giving me unwanted style and beauty tips which I found quite offensive. Dave and I often complained to each other about her as her screeching etc was really off-putting.

Whilst I was off, Dave was promoted and was my new boss. I met the whole team for lunch and they told me about loads of other changes- including Pam being promoted to boss of her team. I said some choice things about her, culminating in 'who the hell did she have to sleep with to get that job'. Cue tumble-weed moment. The answer was Dave.

@dementedma

GDPR data breach by cc'ing loads of people rather than bcc'ing. I was mortified...these things are incredibly strict in my line of work. After a weekend of sweating myself into a state, Boss settled for a ticking off as he could see I was really upset about it. I was very grateful.

I received one of these yesterday - from a government body, no less! Seems to happen fairly frequently. My son's driving instructor did it too, everyone on cc when he emailed to say when he was restarting lessons after lockdown.

@TiredButDancing

I worked in PR. Was having one of those typically busy days with emails whizzing around. One of the email chats was with a friend or colleague (can't remember) about non-work related things. Another was with a very senior reporter at the Wall Street Journal about Important Technical Banking things. The friend chat involved us swapping hilarious embarrassing dating stories....

.... so I was pretty mortified to receive an email from very important WSJ reporter commiserating re my worst ever date.

IN a similar but different vein, a few years before I was working late due to sheer volume of work and emailed my flatmate to say that by the time I finally got home I wanted scallops and should we go out? Only to receive a message from a banker I was setting up an interview for who said, "thank you for the invite, I'd love to but can't do it tonight. Perhaps another night?" So not only did I invite the guy on a date, to which he responded positively, I then had to tell him that in fact I DID not want to go on a date with him. Awkward.

I had a similar mix up when I was a junior in Big Finance Company. My e-mail address was the same as Very Important Boss except that I had a number after my name and he did not. He received invitations meant for me to hen nights and other nights out (sometimes including 'hilarious' references to previous antics) and would copy me in to his replies turning down the invitation and suggesting using a personal e-mail address. It kept happening and I started to think I might get a talking to for using work e-mail for personal reasons.

He eventually changed his work e-mail address after Even Bigger Boss accidentally sent me a list of people in another office who were being considered for redundancy with some less than professional comments in the cover e-mail about who should be chosen.