What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

[shehardlysleeps]

I’m in a reflective mood, and it’s got me thinking about something I did a few years ago which is probably the thing I’m most deeply ashamed of.

There was a coworker who really rubbed me up the wrong way. I was very unhappy at the time, and going through an awful time personally. She would make snide comments about me, do things with my family members (who were colleagues too) which really got my back up, I felt like she judged me harshly and was pretty rude. Along with another colleague they made three or four very nasty comments which still stick with me.

Instead of raising a grievance, which I should have done, I took to posting about her on another website (along the lines of Mumsnet), not realising she used it too. She saw the posts and reported me, and I ended up facing a meeting with HR and a senior partner of the firm I was working in. It damaged my reputation within the firm forever and I ended up leaving after not being offered a promotion. I still feel ashamed of it now, nearly half a decade on, and feel like it’s tarred me forever.

Whats the worst thing you’ve ever done?

It was probably due to 18 years of Catholicism being shoved down my throat including 7 years in a Convent school. So after that I was up for anything!

In uni I had a friend who was absolutely besotted with an on-again-off again girlfriend. I spent months listening to details of their relationship, was a shoulder to cry on when things weren’t going well, a person to celebrate with when things took a turn for the better. I offered advice and encouragement on how to progress the relationship. I was sleeping with her the whole time.

I’ve been in about 10 physical fights in my life (as an child/teen) and in one it 100% wasn’t a fair fight and I didn’t stop when she was on the floor. Battered her. I still feel bad. It’s also the only time I’ve ever thrown the first punch, every other time I was defending myself. I was 19 as well so I definitely should have known better. It’s the only time I’ve ever really really lost my temper and been out of control.

She did antagonise me about several very personal things I had said in confidence, and she said something about my dad that in the end was the last straw. It was really scary actually you don’t know your own strength.

Just out of curiosity how did you justify this to yourself at the time ?

Why morally not good?

They are posting because one person said ‘slept with two blokes in one day’. Many others have since come on and said ‘I have done that too, and no regrets’, so they’re trying to reassure the first poster that this is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

A former boss who failed my probation period out of nowhere, I was devastated at the time.

I found a racist Facebook post she had made and complained anonymously to head of the company. It caused her to go through an investigation. No regrets. She was a horrible woman.

A company that offered me a management job, then used me as a skivvy to do cleaning and demeaning things, I wrote them bad reviews on Google. They were true though, so I don’t regret it.

Reported a horrible colleague to an awarding body we both work for because he mentored his own girlfriend and didn’t declare it as a conflict of interest. No regrets.

Sent a joke Halloween card to someone at work. They didn’t see funny side and didn’t think it was me. I wish I could just apologise.

Reported a bully to Inland Revenue for not paying taxes. No idea if there was any fall out.

Nothing to boast about either!

Completely agree with this.

I wish nepotism was a sackable offence.

My upbringing was quite fraught - my mum had extreme trauma from her upbringing and her first abusive marriage. She used to describe her husband beating her whilst I was being driven to school. She also liked old fashioned things and wanted us to like them too - and brought us up very rurally, so was able to limit what we had access to. We couldn't get jobs because we were dependent on them for transport.

Our entire social lives were dictated by whether we could get there, and we were weird enough as it was. So fitting in and being "normal" was impossible for us.

So I stole cash from my mum's purse.

A tenner here and there. So I could buy a teen mag, buy snacks from the shop to share with my friends, so I didn't have to eat the quite odd and unappetising packed lunches she made and could buy the odd school dinner, so I could buy a cheap and trendy top instead of something approved, or buy a friend a birthday gift.

I've never shown any such habits since.

It may sound trivial to some, but I remember reading a book about a girl being brought up in a cult when I was ten, and empathising SO HARD with how much of an outcast she was being made to be by her mum's beliefs and paranoia.

And I have a little boy now and I'm hugely conscious that although he's not going to be given free rein and be completely spoiled, I'm not going to withhold a normal childhood from him because I don't like him choosing a particular rucksack etc.

With a long career in local government behind me, including a period of time in Personnel, this reads like pure fantasy.
Managers don't just sit and bash out jd's on their own. All new posts go through HR processes. All approved jd's are assessed to determine the grade. All vacancies have to be advertised internally and fairly appointed. Managers are responsible for the development of their staff, it's all linked to performance management and to their own pm. Nobody would be allowed on an interview panel when their own child was a candidate to be seen... So many holes in the story but the big one is - LA staff are very aware of their rights - someone would have been raising grievances and involving the union. As they will in the future if Op somehow starts to try to pass her job on to her daughter. 😂

Mine is quite serious. Changed me as a person forever. I kissed and cuddled etc with my really good friends partner just after she had given birth.

I was extremely drunk (no excuse) had terribly low self esteem and a history of promiscuity after being abused as a child. I just had no morals really. I had stolen regularly as a teenager and young adult too.

I was so traumatised by what I had done I completely pulled away from the friendship and moved away. Not only did I betray her but she must have been so hurt that I pretty much avoided her as much as possible from then on.

I still have nightmares she will contact me one day on social media to say she knows. This was 18 years ago. Maybe I should get some therapy.

I really hope you're right. It's a horrendous indictment of local government (which I assume is the area this poster is referring to) if it's true.

Obviously none of these were actual justifications, and it remains the worst thing I’ve done (to someone else at least), but:

1. I, too, was besotted
2. My uni friend group had a lot of ‘on & off’ or casual relationships going on so I think I justified it to myself as just not that serious. Deep down I knew it was though - this friend wasn’t in the same group, and did take it seriously.
3. There was a definite thrill in the jeopardy of it, although I genuinely didn’t think we’d get caught
4. She and I both thought it would fizzle out after the initial rush, which still would have been bad, but we thought it would end. It didn’t, so it ended up just being months of being deceitful
5. My friend had started talking to me about her for a few weeks before we started sleeping together, so I thought it was too late to change my tune from supportive to warning off, so just went along with it.

My mum was dying and I'd been at her bedside all day. I went to my DS's school play that evening instead of being with her and she died whilst I was at the play. I rationalised my decision by thinking that she was past the point of knowing anyone was there and that my son (who was around 7) would remember me not being there. But the truth is that I didn't want to go back into the hospital. The nurse told me she'd had someone with her as she passed, but I don't believe that. I think she died alone and I'll never forgive myself.

I've done other things such as cheating on partners and been a bit of a bully at various times of my life. However, I've worked on myself and moved on from these episodes (and apologised to those affected). But I don't think I can move on from my mum.

I told a new group of friends I knew someone who’d had their arm broken by a swan (I don’t). 36 years later we’re still friends and I live in constant terror one of them will ask me about it.

Raise a grievance on what grounds?

Nepotism is not illegal according to UK employment law.

This isn't an amusing anecdote about youthful indiscretions or people getting revenge on horrible people who really deserve it. It's sheer nepotism and corruption and I can't believe that staff who would have deserved the promotion have just accepted what you have done.

Where on the other hand, the woman
who bullied OP did a lot wrong and got away with it. Can you not understand that?

I'm so sorry. I know how these things can haunt a person.

These are entirely matters of chance. No one can be there 24/7. Eventually we have to use the bathroom, shower, change, eat. Having spent day in, day out, in a hot, airless hospital room with the cloying presence of mortal illness, I know just how precious a breath of fresh air and a 5-minute break in the garden can be. It's the only place I wanted to be, there in that room with my mum, yet conversely, it was also the place I wanted to run screaming from. DB and I alternated so that somebody was there with our mother as often as possible. We did it in shifts. And still neither of us was there when she died.

One of my mum's most strongly stated wishes was that, contrary to most people's wishes to die at home, she wanted to be in hospital. She'd been staying at my home or her own place with my brother, and I don't think she wanted to leave us with those memories. I also believe she didn't want us to see her die. When it happened I'd left an hour or so ago to spend that night at home and my brother had just gone to sleep in an adjoining room. The kind nurse looking after her said that whether or not a dying patient is still aware no one can tell, but this often happens as soon as they are alone. It's something she had seen a lot.

This will sound trite, but we all ultimately die alone. Your mother will have known what you meant to each other in life, and this is what matters.

Please be kinder to yourself. You wouldn't do this to a friend: please don't do it to yourself. It could have happened at any moment; none of us have control over this.

Condolences on the loss of your mum. It's a pain like no other. ❤

Sorry @TheIceBear I meant to quote your post in my reply above - must have mis-clicked

I betrayed a good friend’s confidence in my late teens, all because of a dispute over a man.

It was appalling behaviour which I still cannot forgive myself for. My friend, amazingly, did forgive me and I don’t know how I can ever repay her. All I know is that I will never ever do anything like that again.

half asleep, declined by boyfriends request to get in bed with me the night he died of an overdose. been some years now but still feel lost and not sure how I can ever come back from that one.

I think that keeping the job description from others, tailoring it to her daughters skills, and allowing her access to training she shouldn't have had would be sackable offences. It's a shame we don't know where she works.

What on earth are you doing or saying that makes 9 different people want to fight you? It's all very well saying you were defending yourself, but regardless of who threw the first punch, the fact you have been in that many fights at all sort of suggests you are a bit of a fucking nightmare.

You say the only person you threw the first punch at was really antagonising you. So did you really antagonise all those other people?

As someone who has managed to get to 60 years of age without ever punching anyone or having anyone punch me, I find it staggering that some people live like this.

Edited to say: just realised these were all when you were a teenager, so perhaps not as bad as I first thought, but even so...

A more light hearted one that I don’t feel bad about was when I worked at an undisclosed location the boss was pretty horrible. He owned the building we worked in. Over the last few weeks I worked there I shoved so much blue roll and other crap down the loo it caused a massive flood and cost £1000s in stock and damages. It was silly and probably not the best idea, but I definitely don’t lose sleep over it. I also think he probably knows it was me because of my face when it happened but I can’t really be sure. I quit the next day anyway and went away to uni.