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.

It was December. A major supplier emailed to say our delivery was going to be late. I emailed back and said ‘I’m going to tell Santa!’ It’s not a good idea to have two email conversations on the go at the same time, I thought I was replying to my sister. We all had a good laugh about it.

Years ago I worked in a library, this was long before the days of self service so I was behind a desk and the customers came to the desk to return their books. Sometimes they returned books which they had borrowed from other library branches nearby and if that we the case I had to write the branch name on a post it, stock it to the book and put those books on a pile to be returned to their original library.
Some of the books had to be returned to the Public Records Office rather than to other library branches and we had to write ‘public’ on the post it. On my first day, I got flustered with the customers standing in front of my desk and absent mindedly wrote ‘PUBIC’ on the post it. I realised once the customer had left but was mortified, thinking that I might be mistaken for a pervert! I got a bit of a complex about it and a weird mental blank, and write pubic quite a number of times after that! The more I tried not to, the more I did it! I often wonder what the customers would have thought pubic was some sort of library code for?

Aged 15, on work experience at a solicitors, I had to send two letters, out in the post In a difficult divorce case. . One was to the wife (client) advising her what steps to take and the another to her husband. I got the letters mixed up so they got each other’s.... 😳 Oops...

Zoom call (standard workplace set up currently!) toddler next to me watching TV and having a snack and being pretty mellow, all of a sudden goes wild and shouts “BOOBIE” and pulls down my top. Course it was one of the few meetings I was on camera for.

@mcscotty was it PG?

Teaching a Y11 class and had an acronym on the board. We were going through each letter and I asked a different student to tell me what what each letter stood for...got to D and, without thinking, I said 'Joe (not real name) can you give me the D?'

Cue a class of 25 Y11 students collapsing in hysterics and the poor boy going bright red 🤦🏽‍♀️

I was so focused on the work I didn't even think about what I was saying! Poor boy.

Put a radiohead video on a PowerPoint for the music on entry to school assembly. The tech showed the video which was bondage porn - albeit drawings

I replied to a email off a work colleague telling him to p**s off, didnt realise id also send it to everyone else he had on the email, stores all over got my email 🙈 x

When at school (year 11) i had a part time job after school cleaning in a big bank head quarters. We were always told to bend and pull our mop buckets on wheels by the handle and NEVER push them with the mop handle whilst the mop was in the bucket.
One evening i found out why. I was in a rush as i had a date after work so i pushed the bucket with the mop in, by the mop handle across the office floor from the kitchen area to the cleaning cupboard. Half way across the office the bucket tipped and gallons of water poured out all over the floor.
Not only did it go all over wires and expensive equipment on that floor (mortgages) and blow the computers but it seeped through the floor down onto computers in banking and even dripped through onto the ground floor!
i got a massive bollocking but luckily my boss at the agency was my mums friend so i didnt get the sack. God knows what she said to the bank and luckily nobody was there working as it was late so they didnt know it was me. The next day big yellow stickers were on the sides of the buckets and in all cleaning cupboards about idiots and pushing mop buckets.

Wow

One of my TAs, who had not worked for the school long and who was frequently absent for all manner of trivial reasons, sent me an email (on one of her absent days but from her school email account) to tell me that she was sorry but she had decided she didn't like her job and would not be returning to work.
I forwarded it to my boss who was the headteacher, with a few choice words of the WTAF type.

The next morning as I passed through reception he charged out of his office saying, "Rose, Rose, have you read your emails this morning?" He pulled me into his office and told me that he had responded to my email of the previous day along the lines of, well she's no great loss - saves us having to sack her etc.
"But Rose, I pressed Reply to All instead of just Reply."

Thank goodness he realised his mistake and was able to get IT to cancel her school email account before she had read it.

I work in share dealing, luckily this wasn't something I made the mistake on but the share holder requested a bank transfer over a cheque, this was done but the cheque wasn't cancelled so ended up going to the share holder who cashed it in, leaving a shortfall in that account.

Luckily the share holder when advised about this gave the money back

I let a kid borrow my master key to get into my tutor room to collect their bag: they stole everyone’s money and mobile phone...!!!!!

@Mary1935

When in was 17 I was working full time in a cafe - it was Sat and I thought it best to freeze all the iceberg lettuce!!! Didn’t go down well - I was assistant manageress!! I didn’t become manageress!! Opps. We didn’t own a freezer at home.

Hilarious 🤣

I occasionally stood in in the staff canteen in a store I worked in. I was in my 20's and had to supervise the Saturday girl. For some reason, I saw fit to switch off all the plug sockets, including the large chest freezer full of food at the end of lunch. Nothing opened on Sundays back then, so Monday morning held a soggy greeting for the usual canteen staff.

They decided to put a 'DO NOT TURN OFF' sticker on the plug after that.

First ever job was as a cashier in a garden centre. On my first day someone brought some £1.50 pansies to the till and I somehow charged them £6.5k. Thankfully we noticed before they put their card in and everyone saw the funny side 🙈

A few years later, I waitressed for 3 shifts before I was told I wasn't fit for the job.
I couldn't carry the trays of drinks (I have really weak wrists) and spilled a tray of beer over a table of people, wine all over a woman wearing white and a tray of lemonades over a bunch of kids 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

@SecretSpAD

As an apprentice In an office my mother was once sent to the butchers to ask for half a pound of elbow grease.

She went.

Reminds me of my Dh, he always sends the new starters to the managers office for buckets of fog, tins of striped paint etc etc they fall for it every time 😂 he is wicked! and immature

Reminds me of my Dh, he always sends the new starters to the managers office for buckets of fog, tins of striped paint etc etc they fall for it every time 😂 he is wicked! and immature

And pretty horrible. It's not funny, it's crappy to do this to someone new at work for his own puerile amusement 😡

That's really nasty @danni0509 .

He works with lads lads they all do it.

They call it banter.

Whatever anyway! Not me is it. I said he was wicked and immature. !

@danni0509

He works with lads lads they all do it.

They call it banter.

Whatever anyway! Not me is it. I said he was wicked and immature. !

I know it's not you - but do you call him out on it?

Banter is just the last refuge of bullies imo

@danni0509

That's just horrible.
He should be ashamed of himself.

"Banter" my arse

@ItsCokeFFS every job I’ve ever worked at this is how the men have been. Twats. But in all seriousness if someone asked you to go and ask for a tin of striped paint would you really go and ask for it? Cos I wouldn’t be as gullible. They would get told to fuck off.

@EarringsandLipstick yes I told him he was a nob. They are all as bad as each other.

But in all seriousness if someone asked you to go and ask for a tin of striped paint would you really go and ask for it? Cos I wouldn’t be as gullible. They would get told to fuck off.

Sadly I probably would! Maybe not at this stage in my life, but earlier, when young & shy, I might have done. And died of mortification ever after.

Fair play that you've told him what you think of him.

[quote danni0509]@ItsCokeFFS every job I’ve ever worked at this is how the men have been. Twats. But in all seriousness if someone asked you to go and ask for a tin of striped paint would you really go and ask for it? Cos I wouldn’t be as gullible. They would get told to fuck off.

@EarringsandLipstick yes I told him he was a nob. They are all as bad as each other.[/quote]
I knew someone whose colleagues tried this on him - think it was to get a bubble for a spirit level - so he just went and had a nice long break.

When he came back they asked why he'd been gone so long, so he told them he couldn't get the bubble so decided to get a "long weight" instead.