To ask you about the worst mistake you've made at work?

[800caloriesofwine]

Terrible, terrible day.
Please tell me the worst mistakes you've made in the workplace.
Mine were sending £6,000 of dental implants to the wrong dentist, two days before they were due to be placed in someone's mouth.
Also writing the wrong patient down as dead.

I sold a huge display pork pie which was actually filled with paper.

I actually have a proper serious job now where I've made much worse mistakes but this is the funniest one.

As a teenage waitress, I was told to cut the cheesecake into 16 pieces, So I cut up lots of little cheesecakes into ridiculously small pieces (that were meant for a function) and left the real cheesecake untouched, all ruined as cut so small. Someone complained they’d only got a teaspoonful of cheesecake. Didn’t get any tips that day!

Didn’t know what a doggy bag was, nervously laughed when asked and scraped all the waste into the bin. Chef had to give them fresh meat when I asked what a doggy bag was after they’d asked for a third time! That got brought up a lot!

As a receptionist, a client rang for a colleague who’d left. Poor choice of words on my part “she’s no longer with us” cue crying on the phone from the client whilst I was trying to explain she wasn’t dead, just didn’t work there anymore.

Invoiced the wrong company. Wouldn’t have normally mattered, only the work had been subcontracted to us and I cut out the middle company, billing the big contractor. Didn’t even get told off?!

Asked to move my car during an interview. Mistook the VP (Vice President) for visitor parking. Actually got the job aswell!

I worked at a letting agency, and was hungover one morning (many years ago!). A lady telephoned to say that her boiler had broken, and she was crying quite hard. In my hungover state I thought it sounded as though she was laughing. I thought this was quite strange, but decided to laugh along with her.
My boss called me into the office to say that the lady had complained about me laughing about her crying.
I explained to my boss, and he proceeded to sing 'crying' by Roy Orbison..I think I was quite lucky with that boss!

Accidentally not closing a door behind me and letting in a bailiff

@UrgentDoughnut I had completely forgotten about life before electronic credit card machines! What a throwback!

I worked in high end clothes shop at a major airport. Unfortunately we suffered a lot of shoplifting and I thought I was pretty aware until one day after glancing over at our new full rack of £100 each dresses, suddenly noticed the entire rack was empty, every single dress had been pinched in a short snatch. I was mortified having to tell my boss by phone that night.

Somehow deleted an entire database that I'd been working on for months, no idea what happened I obviously pressed something and then it was just gone. I was only about 18 at the time and I'm certain everyone thought I'd just been messing about doing no work for months., was moved to another department shortly after.

Very young, very inexperienced army chef cooking in the field for the first time. Troops had been sent out on training nearby all day. It was hot.
My gas cylinder ran out so I very noisily changed it, being very enthusiastic with the spanner.
12 hours later troops returned in full NBC kit. Apparently someone had done the 'metal against metal' warning.
Whoops!

PMSL at the leprous armadillos

Worked as a silver service waitress at a major sporting event, and was collecting plates when a dinner knife covered in food/gravy fell off and slipped quietly into the jacket pocket of a VIP - it was hanging on the back of his chair so he didn't notice. I didn't mention it as I was too scared!

A 1 year relationship

Back in the 80s I was wardrobe mistress at quite a prestigious theatre in a smallish country town.
One evening, the cast arrive as usual 35 minutes before curtain up at 5 to 7, and a few minutes later the (rather famous) leading man's dresser comes into the wardrobe asking where his costume is. My blood runs cold as I realise that I've forgotten to pick up most of the costumes from the dry cleaner's, which is of course closed now. I ring the police and beg for help; they are lovely and say they'll try and contact the keyholder and ask them to come out and open up for me. Panic for ten minutes, wondering if he's gone out for the evening (no mobiles in those days) until they ring back and tell me he's on his way. Get in the car and drive to the shop; it's only a quarter of a mile, but there are a lot of costumes. Wait for the keyholder, leave the engine running, grab the huge pile of costumes, thank him profusely.... and realise that I've locked the keys in the car. Stagger back into the shop, tell him what I've done, beg him to wait, and leg it back to the theatre to find my friend on the stage crew who indulged in a bit of TDA in his misspent youth. Grab him and a wire coathanger and leg it back to the shop. He breaks into the car, I thank the keyholder even more profusely, and we speed back to the theatre to be greeted at the stage door by the very unhappy production manager. Miraculously, the curtain was only a few minutes late going up and everyone was very nice to me when I burst into tears.

A few months later I locked the keys in the car with the engine running again when I went to see the West End show my boyfriend was working on. That time I just left it there until the interval, begged a coathanger from the wardrobe, and broke into it myself.

I eventually lost that car when I lost the keys completely, abandoned it in a pub car park for weeks, and it was towed away never to be seen again.

Recorded the wrong patient as died, I didn't realise until I went home and got a call from my colleague telling me the doctor called the patients wife to pass on condolences. I cried and rang the assistant manager who was fine and sorted it out.

Another time I was emailing my close colleague about another twatty colleague but I didn't check and emailed to the twatty colleague. I never panicked so much in my life when she rang me and asked said she received a email that wasn't for her.

This is outing but anyway..

I once crashed the company car on my very first day at a new job. Like literally, I’d been working there for like 2 hours.

I was mortified. Actually considered just leaving the car on the road and running and never going back.

My boss was very nice about it but I could tell she was pissed.

Didn't check the backups then wrecked the office server. Wiped out a year worth of emails, never got them recovered.

These are amazing. My DHs secretary at the time forgot to tell him the court had changed the date and time for the trial he was doing. 3 days early he turns up ready to go, no one around. No harm don't but she was shit. She kept sending confidential letters to the wrong people but my favourite was when I rang her to ask her something about his diary as I needed to know if he was in court or not (my dad died and I needed him ASAP) and she said i don't know, and I don't know the extension number for him hang on..

And passed the phone over the desk they shared!!!

I work in museums. Long ago when I first started I worked mainly in the archive and storage areas and I started dating a guy who also worked there. We were young and horny and made rather foo frequent use of one of the sick rooms which were also in the basement. Makes me cringe now but at the time I was much more reckless.

Anyway one afternoon, boyfriend texts me to meet him in the room. As they were basement rooms there was no natural light and we often used to leave them without the lights on so nobody would know we were there.

I got to the room which was dark and quiet, proceeded to completely undress thinking I’d surprise the boyfriend. Suddenly there was a noise, the light switched on and there in the bed lay a senior colleague with a migraine. I was totally naked.

He was speechless, I mumbled some rubbish about being hot and having come down too cool off (the rooms were stifling so that was stupid). Grabbed my clothes, backed out of the room into the corridor trying to cover myself up just as two maintenance men came along the corridor. I darted into the sick room next door and slammed the door. They were there for some time so after I was dressed again and waited a bit, I had to attempt to walk with dignity past them to the lift.

The weirdest part was that the colleague who saw me in full, minge and all, never ONCE talked to me about it and I worked there for another few years.

@TheLittleDogLaughed I think in terms of how absolutely mortified you would be, that's probably up there!
But yes in terms of who's mistake had the biggest repercussions, the armadillos win hands down!

@SquidwardTortellini95 no! That’s not me...! But clearly it’s a thing which happens! My client pointed out that I’d sent it to her. But she cane back to me a couple of days later and said she’d made it 😀

I asked him what his occupation was, he said farmer but I mistyped and entered "Farter". He said, "that is not my occupation"

I wanted to start the day with a laugh, and this thread did not disappoint!

I also liked @motherofadog’s forgotten costumes/dry cleaner/locked car travails.

F

I worked in HR in the days before you could apply for jobs electronically. Potential candidates would phone to request an application form and I would post them out.

One day a woman contacted us to say that someone else's fully completed job application had been mailed out to her. Turned out it belonged to an internal candidate who had put his completed application on my desk without my knowledge while I was on my lunch break ... in my out tray!

I was swamped with application requests and it was a genuine mistake but nonetheless one which mortified me. I apologised profusely to them both but unfortunately, the internal colleague was (even way before this incident) the most objectionable man I have ever encountered at work – he kicked up a huge stink which led me to lose my job.

The armadillos win the thread! 😀

And another one, which happened to my dad when he was Head Teacher at a junior school.

At the time the school was running an appeal to help victims of a recent earthquake. Members of the community had been dropping off household and clothing donations all week to be sent to India.

First thing in the morning, a woman arrived with a trolley full of boxes. My dad was in the middle of something else so didn't pay much attention other than quickly thanking her and asking her to leave them in the hall. Shortly afterward, someone came to collect all the donations, including the boxes.

A while later, a panicked school cook approached him and asked whether the food had been delivered. Apparently, due to the fridge breaking down they had a shortage of supplies so the cook at the infant school had made up some extra dinners to be warmed up and had them sent over ....

... it was only then that the penny dropped what was really in the boxes. I'm not entirely sure whether the school dinners made it all the way to India and what state they would have been in if they did, but I do know that half the children at the junior school did not get the lunch they had expected that day.

I see I’m not the only one to have done this, but I sent a mail merged letter out to over 400 recipients referring to the Cunty Council. Freudian slip.

I also clearly remember one telephone call. I was duty officer on a legal advice line type thing, and a business owner phoned me for advice. I got the giggles - I don’t know why - but I just couldn’t stop. Then he started to giggle too. Turned into absolute gales of laughter. Both of us just laughing at each other hysterically for about five minutes. I managed to stutter out an apology and hung up, composing myself.

Twenty minutes later he called back and he started giggling this time, and the exact same scenario happened again.

Still have no idea what caused it in the first place 😂