To think I'm fucked

[mysonphillip]

I've made a huge fuck up at work. Big, likely to cost the company around £60k.
Not to mention a load of work.

A genuine mistake made with the best of intentions and while trying to do a good job. I'm generally very good at my job and highly valued I think, so hopefully not a sackable offence, but still shitting myself. I do have treated anxiety too, which isn't helping as you can imagine.

I just work so, so hard and try my best, and this project has been really stressful - perhaps part of the reason the mistake happened. Also married, kids, mortgage etc, and all the day to day stress that goes with that.

AIBU to ask for stories where you made similarly big cock ups and what happened, and how you dealt with it? Just looking for a bit of support and a handhold before I go to my boss on Monday.

Another favourite.

My team once overpaid a public body - we paid them tens of millions instead of tens of thousands. Luckily as they were a public body they bounced it back to the bank. Had it gone to a company they'd have shut up shop and gone to the Bahamas!

We found out when the treasury rang us and asked why we'd buggered the daily cash forecast.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4233511-Share-with-me-your-big-f-ck-ups-at-work-to-make-me-feel-better?

Fucked up badly at work last year. Missed a trade request made in Dec 2020, only found it in June 21. Markets had risen substantially in the meantime, so £50k+ redress required. I felt so sick.

Fortunately I have an amazing director. I phoned her immediately, so upset. Her response was 'that's why we have insurance. You're fantastic but nobody's infallible.' Kind of earned my undying loyalty after that!

Crossing fingers and toes for you that your boss is similarly understanding.

So strange - I thought I had read this too. Must happen more than we think

Don't worry OP, I think you're making this out to worse in your mind than what it is.

Mistakes happen. Don’t beat yourself up. Companies need people who are willing to take the risk of making a mistake with a responsibility of a job, and people that can own up and handle it professionally when they do. You’re not the first and won’t be the last. You’ll be fine! X

Jack Welch - who took pride in firing 10% of his workforce every year - had an employee lose an eye-watering sum. It was assumed that the person would immediately be fired, but Welch retorted "I can't afford to, after what I've just spent on his tuition".
Own it, don't try to hide it - people will know about it soon enough and your reputation will be marked by how you handle it. Good luck and remember that if money can put it right, it's not that big a problem.

Me too. Even the part about shitting themselves til they see their boss on Monday

Can PP's stop saying "I'm sure I've read this exact same thread before" Things can happen more than once you know! And accusing her of being a journalist? You all need to get a grip. She's in a tough and stressful situation and just wanted a bit of comfort by realising she's not alone. Try gathering some actual evidence before you throw around accusations.

MN is truly a cold hearted place.

Op regardless of your boss isn’t back until Monday, email him NOW. It shows that you took immediate action.

Why would you leave it until Monday?

If you tell your boss asap, there could be tons of work done to potentially solve it, mitigate the losses or at least be prepared for the shitstorm, rather than leave it until 9.20am.

I work in IT and a 60k fuck up is small fry in a global tech company. I did live support and if our live system went down we could piss 60k up the wall in fines in a morning.

A colleague wiped the live system with a rm-

Someone else took out every windows server with a fucked up patch. For an entire day. It happens in IT. It’s nothing in a carer or even a year to see an almighty fuck up even into the millions. No one got sacked as never malicious or even due to incompetence. Just human error

Well, just take a look at the UK gov track record during the pandemic, 60k in comparison is nothing. Everyone makes mistakes, you're human, own it and apologise and offer to help fix it (if you can)

I'm a solicitor. We are all a bit paranoid. If we make a mistake it really affects us because most of us pride ourselves on our professional skills and care. My minor mistake hit the newspapers. It was dreadful and it went on for days. A government minister had to make a statement.

This was decades ago and I suspect I am the only one who still remembers this happened. You will get through this. Tell your boss as soon as possible - call them at home if you have to to let them know. If it's applicable in the situation try to have an action plan to minimise the damage.

Just keep telling yourself that you will get through this and you will. You havent killed anybody or paralysed somebody or appeared topless by mistake on zoom in front of thousands of your professional peers.

I once deleted all versions of a webpage on launch day, which was covered on all the news channels, National papers, breakfast telly. Replaced it with a old web page. I had to rebuild the page (but couldn’t as I was losing it.) they forgave me.

I think it's fair that the OP isn't giving details. That would just compound things. I've posted about my mistake because I'm confident that it's not identifiable. Making an expensive mistake and having to tell your boss is unlikely to have happened just once, is it?

If you think somebody is a troll or a DM "journalist" then report it. But abusing what is potentially a real live person who's in a terrible state is not kind.

I used to work for Carphone Warehouse (many, many years ago) and once broke a customer's iPhone whilst trying to solve a problem they had. Of course, as is always the case with iPhones it was irreparable.

Nobody has abused the OP.

I once made an error on a ticket price in our brochure, that cost my company 12k. My boss later said she loved that when I took her the problem, I also took her the solution ( I'd worked out all the figures to show it was cheaper to reprint than lose revenue and already been in touch with printers and booked earliest print slot). My boss just had to say 'Go ahead'

Someone I worked with many years ago didn’t check the formula and sent a document to the client with a few million missing.

she’s now a senior manager, smashing it out of the park all over the place.

All I can say is that I have had a few of these moments where I thought I am genuinely fucked and done for. The world fell apart, my stomach clenched, then the worst thing that I imagined didn’t happen. Or, at least where it did, it was not the making of breaking of me that I imagined.

shit happens, don’t feel overly bad, don’t catastrophise. Listen to the book ‘black box theory’ tomorrow if you can on speed read and chill.

It could have been worse OP:
NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because they mixed up metric and imperial

Big, likely to cost the company around £60k.

rookie numbers. Without trying to go into detail and thus out myself - I was once handling an expensive piece of new equipment at work, whilst having to step up onto something, and it slipped out of my hands. The tinkle as it hit the ground was an "oh no" moment. Worth quite a bit more than 60k

And asking others to disclose their career cock ups, all the while saying

I don't want to give any more details for fear of outing myself

lol, so we give you identifiable information while you want to protect yours. Not a good look.

Troll hunting is banned on Mumsnet people! If you don’t think it’s a genuine thread just report and move along.

OP hope you’re ok, you will be ok!

Yes YABU to ask.

1. People don’t like seeing their posts in the DM
2. this will likely to be used in some capacity, somewhere as a stick to beat women with
3. go look on Reddit