@nogoodwithnames Yeah, I selected the second one, but I think my biggest mistakes have all been found (usually because I had to add them to a discrepancy report); I’ve just never been fired for any of them.
@Ziggie I regularly tested the adage “If you never make a mistake, then you’re not taking enough risk.” It’s an interesting way of finding out how risk tolerant your bosses are.
One time I deleted all the files, you guys. All I could do was hide under the table. My significant other(who kind of worked at the same place) called another employee. And just like that, she restored all the files. It was a miracle! Apparently, this other guy who worked there deleted all the files so much that she created her own secret backup. I’m not sure what his name was.
Once in college I accidentally shut down a whole ISP for a few hours but it was cool, the customers needed a break and really appreciated it. (Or, maybe that’s just what I told myself.) Boss at the time was surprisingly relaxed about it. Thanks, Boss at the time!
@Dweezle I broke a toe once. Left that job not long after, but apparently it was the last straw for workplace injuries that led to a review of their standards. Now employees have to wear steel-toe shoes and the bright yellow vests.
I got lucky: it was fixable and no one noticed. Let’s say I wouldn’t just have been fired, but removed from premises with likely legal action. I didn’t like handling large quantities of cash even before that mess. I doubled down on my hunt for a new job after that.
I was working on a huge property
Brought my parents along to show what a big deal I was. Showed them the other building and we discovered I was flooding the place. About an inch of water on the floor. Self employed - only myself working. Took an entire weekend to clean up.
The property is now a day care.
At work (making custom window treatments) I came to the conclusion that I can measure the severity of my mistakes by how many people know about it. If I can fix it without telling anyone, it’s minor. If I need to tell the cutter, it’s more serious. If I have to tell the boss and cutter, it’s really bad. If the mistake is discovered at the customers house, the boss and all of my coworkers will know, that’s a disaster.
One of my favorite quotes: “The only people who don’t make mistakes are the people who don’t do anything.” Joyce Brothers
Yes, I’ve made many mistakes.
Oh yeahhhh, almost forgot about this one:
Once, I lost about four weeks of coding due to my limited understand of how the version/revision software worked. I did all my primary editing in Wordpad after that. At least I got away with a “You dumbass, now get back to work!”
My first job as a kid I worked at the local McDonald’s working the drive thru window. One day we were all standing around chatting just before close and I was leaning against the fry machine. I was holding onto some ring and I leaned forward and accidentally pulled the ring. It was the emergency fire extinguisher. The whole thing filled with foam. All the managers had to come in and they spent the whole night cleaning it. I didn’t get fired, but I took a lot of shit for it.
I work on very expensive and critical machinery, multi-million dollar aircraft, that carry armament and people to far away places. So, mistakes are human but, multiple redundancies in quality assurance inspections, close adherence to technical orders, and constant intensive training and recertification, prevent mistakes from becoming catastrophes. Some things are like horse shoes and hand grenades, others are very exacting. In the aircraft maintenance and repair world, every action is exacting. Close enough is never a word uttered in my profession.
Yes, I was to lead a police operation and I was late to my own briefing! (Overslept) very embarrassing, I think my boss felt sorry for me because the whole unit gave me a rassing the whole day. I wasn’t fired.
The father of a person I know was an orthopedic surgeon. (He is now deceased.) He was performing a leg amputation and the nurse prepped the wrong leg. It wasn’t discovered until after the surgery.
@SSteve My brother received a hip replacement. The doctor cut off his old damaged hip ball, and drilled a hole in his femur for the new implant to be tapped into place. Only problem; he drilled the hole in the femur at an angle and punched through the femur farther down. He then went on to drive the implant into the femur until it came out the hole he had drilled through. My brother was left with a piece of titanium sticking out of his femur about 1-1/2" They went ahead and put him back together and sent him home. The implant never grew into the femur and instead constantly moved and jiggled around as he tried to walk. Needless to say, it was very painful. They initially told him that the pain was normal and he had to push through it. This was never discovered until the six month follow-up X-ray. They saw the implant sticking through his femur and decided they would open him up and cut that part off. There, problem fixed! Of course it didn’t fix anything and they finally had to go back in, remove the implant, re-drill the hole and bang another one in. Now he has a hole in his femur that will probably never close and a gimp that will never go away.
@accelerator did he sue? That’s what malpractice insurance is for. He should sue the hospital too, not doing a post-operation x-ray to verify immediately following is questionable at best. Hell, I watched a veterinary show on Netflix where they were doing as much with implants in dogs, never mind doing it with human beings!!! Talk about a cut rate medical outfit.
@accelerator I don’t know how anyone can be a surgeon. I do a little woodworking and I know how often I drill a hole wrong or cut something too short. I can just get pissed off and throw it against a wall. I’m sorry about your brother. That seems a lot worse than accidental malpractice.
Yep, I was asked to train this new employee. I put my heart and soul into teaching her all about my and her new job. I loved my job so much that I wanted her to be able to do it without too many difficulties and it was very hard to learn everything about it as quickly as she was required to learn them. Anyway, she screwed up really really bad (almost a life and death kind of screw up). But she blamed me for not telling her about what she should have done and I was the one who got fired.
@jbartus There were a lot of “politics” going on behind the scenes (this was a NPO with a lot of powerful people on their board). I wouldn’t have stood a chance of winning.
Okay, so this is going to be hard to believe, but it really happened.
At 18 I was working for a pizza place that had company trucks. I was driving the truck to a normal pizza delivery location, our towns very own asylum. As I was looking for the unit number, I stopped for a moment to get out a map. Just then, a patient jumped on top of the truck and began barking at me. I freaked out and had no idea what to do. An employee came out, got the patient and told me to deliver my pizza. I was so freaked out, I quickly delivered the pizza and drove back into town. I parked somewhere to get something to drink and collect my thoughts. As I left the store, I took a turn too wide and hooked a pole with the fender. The pole basically pulled a good portion of the front of the truck to it leaving a nasty dent. I went back to work and told everyone what had happened and not a single person believed me. Even the owner thought I was making it up. He was a nice guy and did not make me pay for the damage.
A few weeks later, I was driving another truck and broke the key off in the ignition. The owner was not as nice about that issue, and tore me a new one. I was benched from delivery pizzas for about a month.
@ConAndLibrarian Just after high school I had a job filling vending machines. One of our customers was an asylum. At the time I had long hair. Once when I got into the elevator a patient jumped in just as the doors were closing. He stared intently at me as the elevator was heading up and finally asked, “Are you Jesus?”
The time I wrote a database cleanup script for a client and used a “>” symbol to compare dates when it should’ve been a “<”. I deleted all the latest data in that table with no backup.
Haha nice try. My boss might read this
@capguncowboy mine definitely will.
@Thumperchick What he reads all the threads? Hmm… you need to make an alias account.
@Thumperchick Hi @dave!
@Kidsandliz if I haven’t been run off by now, I’m pretty sure they’re okay with most of what I say.
Yes, getting caught.
@nogoodwithnames Yeah, I selected the second one, but I think my biggest mistakes have all been found (usually because I had to add them to a discrepancy report); I’ve just never been fired for any of them.
Needed: “Yes, but I fixed it, learned my lesson, was upfront and honest and my boss understood.”
what, just me?
@Ziggie I regularly tested the adage “If you never make a mistake, then you’re not taking enough risk.” It’s an interesting way of finding out how risk tolerant your bosses are.
@mehcuda67 I did try the “Just testing our Disaster Recovery plan” before fessing up and fixing the issue.
Boooo, where’s the mars poll?
And I got to vote for intentional work pregnancy anyway!
One time I deleted all the files, you guys. All I could do was hide under the table. My significant other(who kind of worked at the same place) called another employee. And just like that, she restored all the files. It was a miracle! Apparently, this other guy who worked there deleted all the files so much that she created her own secret backup. I’m not sure what his name was.
Jerry, Larry, Terry, Garry, something like that.
@sixstringslim good fairy?
@sixstringslim April? Is that you?
@JoetatoChip
Winner winner, Neutral Milk Hotel dinner.
Once in college I accidentally shut down a whole ISP for a few hours but it was cool, the customers needed a break and really appreciated it. (Or, maybe that’s just what I told myself.) Boss at the time was surprisingly relaxed about it. Thanks, Boss at the time!
Yes, I might even volunteer to go to Mars.
I put a >1 inch gash in my hand with a utility knife once. Does that count?
@Dweezle Depends, did you cost anybody clients or money? If not, please wipe up that mess and get back to work.
@Dweezle I broke a toe once. Left that job not long after, but apparently it was the last straw for workplace injuries that led to a review of their standards. Now employees have to wear steel-toe shoes and the bright yellow vests.
I made a mistake once…I thought I was wrong but I was right.
@kc5rbq what’s his name?
I lost a just completed manual once. But I had backups a few rev levels earlier so I kinda fudged it.
I often tell my young coworkers, “I’m no better than you, I just have more experience in doing it wrong” .
I got lucky: it was fixable and no one noticed. Let’s say I wouldn’t just have been fired, but removed from premises with likely legal action. I didn’t like handling large quantities of cash even before that mess. I doubled down on my hunt for a new job after that.
I was working on a huge property
Brought my parents along to show what a big deal I was. Showed them the other building and we discovered I was flooding the place. About an inch of water on the floor. Self employed - only myself working. Took an entire weekend to clean up.
The property is now a day care.
Always double check the mute indicator on conference calls.
@thismyusername this is my favorite response thus far
@thismyusername
Made a huge mistake so I didn’t land on that job.
I haven’t set anything on fire yet, so… touch wood.
At work (making custom window treatments) I came to the conclusion that I can measure the severity of my mistakes by how many people know about it. If I can fix it without telling anyone, it’s minor. If I need to tell the cutter, it’s more serious. If I have to tell the boss and cutter, it’s really bad. If the mistake is discovered at the customers house, the boss and all of my coworkers will know, that’s a disaster.
One of my favorite quotes: “The only people who don’t make mistakes are the people who don’t do anything.” Joyce Brothers
Yes, I’ve made many mistakes.
I made a few huge mistakes but I did a lot more great things for the company !
Oh yeahhhh, almost forgot about this one:
Once, I lost about four weeks of coding due to my limited understand of how the version/revision software worked. I did all my primary editing in Wordpad after that. At least I got away with a “You dumbass, now get back to work!”
Check in, check out, check in, check out…
@PocketBrain … understanding …
My first job as a kid I worked at the local McDonald’s working the drive thru window. One day we were all standing around chatting just before close and I was leaning against the fry machine. I was holding onto some ring and I leaned forward and accidentally pulled the ring. It was the emergency fire extinguisher. The whole thing filled with foam. All the managers had to come in and they spent the whole night cleaning it. I didn’t get fired, but I took a lot of shit for it.
@Fuzzalini So that’s the, Two all beef patties “Special Sauce” lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun!
I work on very expensive and critical machinery, multi-million dollar aircraft, that carry armament and people to far away places. So, mistakes are human but, multiple redundancies in quality assurance inspections, close adherence to technical orders, and constant intensive training and recertification, prevent mistakes from becoming catastrophes. Some things are like horse shoes and hand grenades, others are very exacting. In the aircraft maintenance and repair world, every action is exacting. Close enough is never a word uttered in my profession.
Yes, I was to lead a police operation and I was late to my own briefing! (Overslept) very embarrassing, I think my boss felt sorry for me because the whole unit gave me a rassing the whole day. I wasn’t fired.
The father of a person I know was an orthopedic surgeon. (He is now deceased.) He was performing a leg amputation and the nurse prepped the wrong leg. It wasn’t discovered until after the surgery.
@SSteve My brother received a hip replacement. The doctor cut off his old damaged hip ball, and drilled a hole in his femur for the new implant to be tapped into place. Only problem; he drilled the hole in the femur at an angle and punched through the femur farther down. He then went on to drive the implant into the femur until it came out the hole he had drilled through. My brother was left with a piece of titanium sticking out of his femur about 1-1/2" They went ahead and put him back together and sent him home. The implant never grew into the femur and instead constantly moved and jiggled around as he tried to walk. Needless to say, it was very painful. They initially told him that the pain was normal and he had to push through it. This was never discovered until the six month follow-up X-ray. They saw the implant sticking through his femur and decided they would open him up and cut that part off. There, problem fixed! Of course it didn’t fix anything and they finally had to go back in, remove the implant, re-drill the hole and bang another one in. Now he has a hole in his femur that will probably never close and a gimp that will never go away.
@accelerator did he sue? That’s what malpractice insurance is for. He should sue the hospital too, not doing a post-operation x-ray to verify immediately following is questionable at best. Hell, I watched a veterinary show on Netflix where they were doing as much with implants in dogs, never mind doing it with human beings!!! Talk about a cut rate medical outfit.
@accelerator I don’t know how anyone can be a surgeon. I do a little woodworking and I know how often I drill a hole wrong or cut something too short. I can just get pissed off and throw it against a wall. I’m sorry about your brother. That seems a lot worse than accidental malpractice.
Yep, I was asked to train this new employee. I put my heart and soul into teaching her all about my and her new job. I loved my job so much that I wanted her to be able to do it without too many difficulties and it was very hard to learn everything about it as quickly as she was required to learn them. Anyway, she screwed up really really bad (almost a life and death kind of screw up). But she blamed me for not telling her about what she should have done and I was the one who got fired.
@Barney Seems like a good case for wrongful termination… at best they had your word against hers.
@jbartus There were a lot of “politics” going on behind the scenes (this was a NPO with a lot of powerful people on their board). I wouldn’t have stood a chance of winning.
Okay, so this is going to be hard to believe, but it really happened.
At 18 I was working for a pizza place that had company trucks. I was driving the truck to a normal pizza delivery location, our towns very own asylum. As I was looking for the unit number, I stopped for a moment to get out a map. Just then, a patient jumped on top of the truck and began barking at me. I freaked out and had no idea what to do. An employee came out, got the patient and told me to deliver my pizza. I was so freaked out, I quickly delivered the pizza and drove back into town. I parked somewhere to get something to drink and collect my thoughts. As I left the store, I took a turn too wide and hooked a pole with the fender. The pole basically pulled a good portion of the front of the truck to it leaving a nasty dent. I went back to work and told everyone what had happened and not a single person believed me. Even the owner thought I was making it up. He was a nice guy and did not make me pay for the damage.
A few weeks later, I was driving another truck and broke the key off in the ignition. The owner was not as nice about that issue, and tore me a new one. I was benched from delivery pizzas for about a month.
@ConAndLibrarian
/giphy barking
@ConAndLibrarian Just after high school I had a job filling vending machines. One of our customers was an asylum. At the time I had long hair. Once when I got into the elevator a patient jumped in just as the doors were closing. He stared intently at me as the elevator was heading up and finally asked, “Are you Jesus?”
To err is human, to delegate blame is managerial.
@rtjhnstn hmm and so that is why we have goats on this forum?
Today?
The time I wrote a database cleanup script for a client and used a “>” symbol to compare dates when it should’ve been a “<”. I deleted all the latest data in that table with no backup.