Mistakes at work.

[mehuk]

Testing for a new IT system to be implemented, we had to make bookings into a live environment and on certain bookings we would have to make a payment. Anyway supposedly we had a 'fake credit card' to use, which everyone did... only to find out a couple of days later that it was being charged to some Romanian bank

Fun times ahead explaining that to finance when charges were coming in.

 

[toon_mad]

I crashed a tractor into a tree

i once crashed a golf caddy in a shed

 

[Oynas]

I work in recruitment and we worked off quite a termperamental program - this program would "automatically" pick up the candidate's telephone numbers, email addresses, names, etc.

As a result, I once sent a detailed interview confirmation to a candidate's current boss instead of him - he'd included his bosses email address on his CV as a future reference, and the program had automatically picked up this email address instead of the candidate's email... I sat in work for 3 weeks bricking myself. No one noticed

Ouch. Surely that is not your fault though, is it? Fault of the software by the sounds of it.

 

[Sonea Fifer]

Cant recall any embarrassing mistakes I've made at work however I do remember one of our drivers (working in a distribution centre) took a 44 foot trailer for delivery of stock to a store in Aviemore. Upon arriving at the store he opened the trailer to discover it was full of empty cages! Turns out the loader had input the wrong trailer number when loading the trailer. The driver took the correct one as per the paperwork but he told me he still had that amazing feeling of uncontrollable panic in the pit of his stomach sweep over him when he opened the back door

 

[kaks]

I pasted the date "31-DEC-2010" into a field that was "DD-MM-YY" and it was truncated to "31-DEC-2011".

Resulted in 300,000 customers bills not being issued for 8 days and the company being 8 days late in collecting 11.5 million euro in direct debits from customers.

If you work in Telecoms/Billing, a few hundred thousand here and there revenue loss is not uncommon at all.

 

[toshj]

Ouch. Surely that is not your fault though, is it? Fault of the software by the sounds of it.

I suppose it could only have been my fault unfortunately, as you can edit out the contact details - I just hadn't realised his bosses email address was in place instead of the candidates. Was a very awkward conversation when the candidate called up and asked why I hadn't sent him the confirmation, so halfway through protesting and insisting I had sent it I saw the incorrect email address... and went quiet.

I do know of a few people who have sent candidate's CVs to their respective managers and bosses. Very awkward indeed. If the candidate gets fired as a result of their boss finding out that they're interviewing for other opportunities, the candidate can sue the recruitment company... apparently for up to five years lost earnings (although I've never seen this happen, it can be quite daunting... especially as I recruit bankers!!)

 

[utajoker]

Eileen Dover.

Now it hurts. /* Grabs coat */

Drew Peacock.

 

[jumpy]

My first job as a CADmonkey was as a replacement for a guy who got fired over the following error - as a service and installation refrigeration contractor, the company's job was to design and refit all of the refrigerated/freezer cabinets in a large supermarket chain.

Shop floor site drawings were detailed for hi and lo temp case runs and compressor services, including measuring of the cabinet islands themselves, to fit between columns and associated access doors.
The cabinets were built by a subcontractor, to our design for length and height restrictions and could be broken down in to 10m runs or larger, depending on the store and design needs.
Drawings were issued to our subcontractor and the cases were built to size specification according to the plans - in this instance they were in 30m runs.
Installation day arrived and the cabinets duly turned up on the back of a couple of big lorries. Everything went according to plan, closing off the road, having emergency services attend for H&S, the whole shebang. It was not until the cabinets were actually rolled through the maintenance doors that it was discovered that they would not actually fit inside the store, being too long by some 5m!
The bosses were not at all happy to have spent tens of thousands of pounds on bespoke cabinets that did not fit, the store was not happy at not having any equipment for all of their stock they had ordered in advance of the fitout.

It's almost as bad a blunder as one made by one of our structural steelwork subcontractors - the condenser packs for the refrigerated systems are usually located on the roof of the store or the compressor plant building, resting on top of bespoke steelwork I-beam frames due to their weight - up to several tons in some cases.
The particular store in question was in a busy high-street, so everything had to be phased to allow for the road to be closed for the heavy lift crane access, police and fire services to be in attendance and all that stuff.
Compressors arrived and were lifted above the store. Only then was it discovered that the steelwork frames were too large for the footprint of the compressors

All down to getting a few simple dimensions wrong

 

[buckeejit]

Sylvia Freast?

dont get the big deal? take 10 seconds to change ?

if it was a published airline, there is no way it would be changed. In my work, if I notice a mistake the same day then we can void tickets but if I notice a day after I've been the ticket I'm screwed unless a, the airline helps me or b, it's 100% refundable.

Most people who do not work in the travel industry actually don't understand what it involves work wise .

 

[Freddie1980]

12 years ago I was working at a fast food chain and one Saturday I was really stressed out over something. A customer came over to me and asked me to refill their coffee cup, I grabbed the cup, went over to the machine, refilled it then slammed the coffee cup right in front of customer...........and my boss who needless to say wasn't impressed.

"Mr Gilbertson, your attitude towards that customer was a disgrace." Where her exact words to me as soon as the customer was out of ear shot.

I have no defence for my actions, I don't even know why I was stressed out to begin with.

 

[joemo13]

All down to getting a few simple dimensions wrong

I know of a gryro freezer going out to a different country, it probably weighs in the region of 20-25 tonnes. On its arrival it was found to be too tall by around 100mm to fit if it was on the ground floor it would be fine as they could dig down. But this was on the first floor, unlike what would happen in this country a simple solution was found... dig 100mm into the floor to make it fit! I would not want to be stood under that!

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

I was adjusting the time on a server at work, I managed to catch the scroll wheel and set it about a month ahead. Unfortunately it's the server other servers and ultimately the workstations take their time from. So the change ran through the system, luckily it stopped people logging in because MS systems don't won't log on if the server and workstation is more then 5 minutes apart, which is actually a good thing because working with the wrong data set could have caused more mess.

Got it sorted in about half an hour. We all make mistakes, the key thing is realising what you've done and doing the best to put it right.

 

[jumpy]

I know of a gryro freezer going out to a different country, it probably weighs in the region of 20-25 tonnes. On its arrival it was found to be too tall by around 100mm to fit if it was on the ground floor it would be fine as they could dig down. But this was on the first floor, unlike what would happen in this country a simple solution was found... dig 100mm into the floor to make it fit! I would not want to be stood under that!

Sounds like a stonemasons I worked for many years ago. They bought a fancy new cnc machine which included a 2x2x6m header tank to supply the machine with water.
When asked by the installer 'where do you want the tank?' the boss replied 'Up in the roof beams'.
The installer looked horrified - the roof beams in question were of the welded 1 - 2" diameter tubular steel type, suitable only to hold the weight of the corrugated roofing in an A-frame suport.

The tank was fitted and filled to the brim. I quit the very next week.

 

[Dark Sun]

Fell asleep while on sentry after days of no sleep after some manoeuvres in the Army. Completely unacceptable on my part and potentially very dangerous indeed. Sergeant Major caught me and he wasn't happy. I literally **** myself due to shock when I heard his booming voice and him standing over me. As a punishment he woke up the whole platoon and then bollocked me in front of everyone. Needless to say I was unpopular. The next morning he came up to me and smiled and said "did you learn your lesson?". By god I did!

 

[memyselfandi]

There was the time I accidentally shutdown a production finance cluster which my boss has just spent two hours getting running ....

... fortunately it came back up ok within a few minutes and he forgave me as it was 2am and we were both shattered.

 

[Thomas. PLease.]

Closed many an ISA account in error in my old job. Opened accounts for the wrong people, and opened incorrect types. All pretty easy mistakes to make though.

 

[Brian8bit]

Doing a run of concrete window sills and I was shovelling the concrete into the moulds. It was my job to make sure that rebar was being put in to reinforce them. Several tons of concrete later I realised I hadn't been putting the rebar in. We managed to get a few of the last moulds I'd forgotten back onto the table. But the ones that had already started setting had to be scraped. That meant my workmates having to lift all the filled concrete moulds onto forklifts again to be dumped and several hundred quids worth of dumped window sills. I was barred from that for a few weeks and stuck back on gang operation.

 

[uknowist]

Made every mistake going inputting a drivers licence when I worked at DVLA drivers medical.

Firstly i didnt change the persons name to her new married name
I didnt reject it for questions not answered and she had not signed the form
I didnt change her address so her passport went to her old address
and to top it all off she didnt even have a medical problem so i shouldnt have been dealing with it anyway.

The women got through to my boss and went nuts. Good times, i miss that job sometimes just for the lolz

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I pasted the days "31-DEC-2010" into a field that was "DD-MM-YY" and it was truncated to "31-DEC-2011".

Resulted in 300,000 customers bills not being issued for 8 days and the company being 8 days late in collecting 11.5 euro in direct debits from customers.

You could have paid 11.5 euro out of your own pocket

 

[edscdk]

You could have paid 11.5 euro out of your own pocket

I think he means 300,000 people * 11.5 euros'! eeep...

someone installing a test MS exchange 20(08)? server into our domain gave all the admins email box's he then uninstalled exchange which deleted all our admin accounts....!!!!!