Screwing up at work

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-31 08:18pm

Post your stories about fucking up at work here, because I did today and I need to hear them. I managed to completely, utterly screwfuck a guy's pool water circulation system today (I'm in pool maintenance), and after two hours spent trying to fix it, I accomplished nothing. In addition to this I broke a piece of the guy's metal fence that surrounds the pool, almost killing myself in the process (I was trying to use it to climb up, and I hit the ground HARD). I had to call my boss and schedule him to go out tomorrow to fix it. The guy was so disgusted with me that he didn't even give me the dignity of apologizing, he just went into his house and didn't come back out. I was so ashamed of myself when I called my parents to tell them why I was coming home late that I almost didn't go home.

I'm not going to get fired or anything over this, and my boss doesn't appear to be terribly angry, but I'll likely lose about 50 bucks (I volunteered to have the amount that would normally be charged for repair taken from my check) and I just feel like a goddamned idiot, more than anything.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2003-07-31 08:26pm

I once almost screwed up a guy taxes to nearly get him audited(I cannot discuss more because a matter of privacy).

But I was very happy that day my boss noted a zero was out of whack.

A minor scolding, nothing bad...because it didn't get past quality control...but if I screw up...it's bad(thank god I don't and there is quality control in our office)

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-07-31 08:35pm

Ghost Rider wrote:I once almost screwed up a guy taxes to nearly get him audited(I cannot discuss more because a matter of privacy).

But I was very happy that day my boss noted a zero was out of whack.

A minor scolding, nothing bad...because it didn't get past quality control...but if I screw up...it's bad(thank god I don't and there is quality control in our office)

If the guys name is DT or BG then who cares he can afford to lose money.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-07-31 08:38pm

I use to in a picture framing store when I was in high school. I somehow managed to misplace a customer's family portraits and I just couldn't find them no matter how much I searched. We had to call the customer up and tell him what had happened, and that it could be a while before we tracked down his pictures and framed them. He was pissed, the boss wasn't happy, and I wasn't happy and looked like a fucking idiot. The pictures eventually turned up when we did a total shop cleaning for inventory a few weeks later.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2003-07-31 08:38pm

Since I have only had a few jobs in retail so far, I havent had anything major happen. However, 4 years ago at my first part time job, I lost my cool and started arguing with a customer over something really stupid during one of the busy days in the holiday season. I was told I could have easily gotten fired but I was lucky because the customer never filed a complaint with the manager.

At my current job at a Chapters bookstore I have been nagged at for slacking off a few times but thats about it.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-07-31 08:46pm

Once, when I was working at an outfit that did screen printing (an el-cheapo method of putting designs and logos on fabric, like tee shirts and umbrellas and whatnot), I had the screen out of alignment and I didn't notice until I had about $300 worth of canvas bags printed with the customer's logo at a thirty degree angle.

That's not the worst fuckup I've ever seen, though. When I worked at a Nissan dealership, one of the salesmen blew a big sale because the customer wanted 60 month financing, and he tried to talk him out of it (it was a bad idea for the customer, because the interest charges would have been enormous, but the customer didn't want bigger payments). The manager reamed the guy up one side and down the other when the customer finally got disgusted and left, and I'm pretty sure the only reason he wasn't fired was because he was the manager's son.

Another time, the assistant manager went to pick up the showroom model of the X-Terra (it was a brand new model line that year and we got a showroom model a month and a half before they were released, which was a big coup for a little dealership like ours). The first few X-Terras that rolled off the assmebly line had a defect that caused the parking brake to lock into place on its own if something was done to the car. Instead of realizing something was wrong and taking the car back, he drove it all the way to the dealership. By the time he pulled into lot, the car was on fire. We put it out before it spread into the engine compartment, but he had to have caused $5,000 in damage.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-07-31 09:01pm

I had a vehicle accident after hours in an amusement park. I clipped a very large brick planter (big enough to hold a tree ) and it bent the axle of one of the trailers I was pulling with a tug.

The amazing thing is I was not speeding, but going about 5 miles an hour. Anyway, I called security and filed a report, this was like 11pm at night. I "assumed" they would tell my boss. They didnt and my boss and his boss found the destroyed trailer where I parked it to the side of the service road.

I got a total ass chewing when I came back to work ( the next day was my day off ) cause they thought I was lying about what happened, trying to hide it, fucking off, etc. The guy in charged threatened to fire me for lying to him. I felt so powerless, cause I was telling the truth.

Then here comes the kicker, I told him I filed a security report and thought they would tell him. He says "Oh, okay." And walks off. I didnt get fired or written up. I was teased for a while to come, but thats okay.

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-07-31 09:36pm

Uhm...I got chewed out once for leaving a dub (It was a fucking dub!) to go gawk at something everyone else was looking at.

Then there was that one time I didn't go to work for three weeks since I was training for my other job...but I told 'em, I did, and still almost got fired

Other than that, I've never screwed something up really really badly.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-07-31 10:13pm

Dalton wrote:Uhm...I got chewed out once for leaving a dub (It was a fucking dub!) to go gawk at something everyone else was looking at.

Then there was that one time I didn't go to work for three weeks since I was training for my other job...but I told 'em, I did, and still almost got fired

Other than that, I've never screwed something up really really badly.

What the heck is a dub?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2003-07-31 10:15pm

I dropped a computer containing 60K US worth of equipment. Luckily nothing broke, but my coworkers won't let me touch the rack anymore.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2003-07-31 10:41pm

TrailerParkJawa wrote:What the heck is a dub?

I was just thinking that, with heck replaced with fuck.

Next of Kin · Post by **Next of Kin** » 2003-07-31 11:05pm

When I was demonstrating how to install a toner cartridge for a client that had just purchased a mid range photo copier the cartridge some how open and ....fwoosh!!...I had the fun of creating a toner bomb. The soot covered the photocopier and I. What a mess!

Matt7 · Post by **Matt7** » 2003-07-31 11:21pm

i wasn't personally involved with this, but a McDonalds in Winnipeg served a raw burger to a customer a few weeks ago. Got about 6 upper-level managers fired, a complete overhaul of the restaurant, and some very, very, very annoyed people.

Hasler · Post by **Hasler** » 2003-07-31 11:43pm

I dind't actually do it but i was reamed for it anyway. Im in a rotc batalion and i was working out near one of the cadets that was running his mouth about about this bitch who was one of the senior ranking cadets. The next day i got called into the Col's office and got reamed for calling her a fat ass and a bunch of other things. The Col wouldnt let me get a damn word in . I was embarrased and mad as hell because he did it infront of just about every officer and NCO in the batalion. I got shit from the cadets that new the whole story for weeks.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-08-01 07:11am

A few years ago we had a few contracts as a second tier supplier for Apple. Anyway were startingup a sample production run on a new set of tooling. The part and tooling were designed by the engineers in our customer's (Apple's supplier) engineering dept. Well any way, we put the tool into the molding machine and fire it up, shoot out some parts and i take some samples. I run through the part drawings and fill out my dimensional report. all fine. I then try and put the two supposedly complementary parts together (a mounting base and low insertion force lever for a microprocessor) and UH-OH. I check the drawing and my report and recheck my figures, all are conforming to print tolerances, but when i put the parts together the lever sticks up on a 45 degree angle from the surface of the mounting clip where it is suppodes to be parallel. Fuck. so i call the customer, and explain the problem. Quality control says, sounds like an engineering problem. So i talk to the engineer. Well, apparantly this asshole suffers from an affliction that affects most engineers in the world today. It is called "I am always fucking right because i went to (enter univerity here)" syndrome He bitches me out for fucking up the inspection, curses out the toolmaker and everyone else he can think of. I voulunteer to bring the parts and drawings over. He agrees. I arrive with myself, the senior process technition and a vice president. and meet with their engineers and production manager. Long story short we make the guy look like the biggest asshole, because he fucked up the design, ruined the tooling and damn near lost the apple contract for his company.

Larz · Post by **Larz** » 2003-08-01 01:45pm

When I first got started repairing tires, I buffed the interior of a tire down to the cords (and partially into the cords...). Suffice to say the tire wasn't repairable after that...

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2003-08-01 02:01pm

once screwed up 700 pair of end panels the bad thing was the day shift managers and even the night shift managers didnt catch the screw up till well I was almost finished with that cutting

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-08-01 03:05pm

When I was packaging up the Cisco VPN Client for my school, I gave it to the web people to post in .dmg format. The download worked fine for me, but the VPN administrator tried downloading it and said that all he got was garbled text across his browser.

Naturally, I used an intelligent browser for my download link test (Safari), as opposed to the dumbshit browser he used (Internet Explorer). Normally, this wouldn't have been so bad (compressing it in a .sit archive was all I had to do), but one of my co-workers stuck her neck out for me by saying that I'd said it worked, so he must've been doing something wrong. Granted, I never really asked her to do anything like that, but the office pretty much has to rely on my word that something works on a Mac.

So, I felt like a total ass after my boss talked with me about that, because it made her look really bad. Granted, I should've tested the download on the most popular Mac browser, but for fuck's sake, it's been on OS X for over two years and it doesn't recognize that the .dmg MIME is meant to be saved to the disk and not opened in the browser window? That's simply negligence on Microsoft's part.

Lt. Dan · Post by **Lt. Dan** » 2003-08-01 04:09pm

I don't work but once I fell asleep during reading day, and the teacher had taken the empty desk in front of me. When I woke up, my leg jerked and I kicked the basket of his desk. I think the whole school felt the shake of his desk. He turned around and asked me what the hell my problem was. Now it's funny that I think about it but at the time it was very embarrassing.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-08-01 04:14pm

When I was a reporter I messed up once and published something that wasn't entirely accurate (although I heard it from five frickin' eyewitnesses in three different groups). As an editor, some of my reporters have made mistakes and we've had to issue retractions, etc.

The worst I ever felt about a screw-up was when we were doing a tribute to an old baseball player who had died. This is when I was running a teleprompter. I wrote in what his lifetime batting average was as a decimal (.358 ), but the talent didn't know how the fuck to read a baseball statistic. She just sat there staring at it. And the whole time I'm going "Oh shit. She doesn't know how to read a baseball statistic." The producer was watching this and eventually had to mike in what she had to say, and at the end of the day everyone was laughing about it, but I'll never forget having to sit there by the teleprompter and know that there was nothing I could do to help her get through it.

Korvan · Post by **Korvan** » 2003-08-01 04:17pm

While working at a Ford dealership, I came within an inch of scraping the two most expensive cars on the lot together. Didn't get into trouble, but the look of horror on my co-worker's face was priceless.

As a temp groundskeeper at a golfcourse I got the maintanence truck stuck on a hill on the fairway. Without thinking, I floored it and ended up spinning out, digging a long trench into said fairway. Wasn't fired, but my contract wasn't extended either.

thecreech · Post by **thecreech** » 2003-08-01 04:18pm

I once put in a wrong date for a turn off order on a guys house. He wanted me to disconnect the power on 5/25/03 and i set the order for 6/25/03. The guys was gone from the premise for a whole month and the new owners of the house used like a thousand dollars worth the usage under his name. He was not happy when he found out

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-08-01 05:00pm

Well, I think my biggest screw up ever (I've worked lots of jobs before, so I've had a few doosies) was when I was working at Eat'n Park, I used to work as a waiter in Squirrel Hill. I was working a few tables and one of the waitresses, a very cute one in fact, made a comment to me that I was needed in back to help get some boxes off a tall shelf and I took the tray I was holding to the wrong table. Looking at my notepad and said something to the effect of "OK, gentlemen, who ordered the shrimp scampi?". Looking up, I noticed that it wasn't the table it was meant for, but rather a Jewish family who I was also bussing. Not a good move on my part, since shrimp isn't kosher. The father of the family was not happy about it. What saved my job was the mother realizing it was an honest mistake and convinced dad not to complain to the manager (who would have fired me in a heartbeat for such a gaffe), and I ended up paying for their meal out of my paycheck (which kind of sucked, since their meal was worth two days worth of pay there, but I had it coming).

J · Post by J » 2003-08-01 08:33pm

I mis-shelved some books in the Princeton chem library while working there as an assistant. Oops. not a good thing considering how huge the place is, the chem library is bigger than most public libraries, who knows how many books are in there.