Work place goof ups - what are the biggest ones?

15,589 Views | 106 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by Builder93
Al Bula
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AG
As a student worker at A&M, I:
Burned a prof's laptop with a candle on accident. Was repairing something on his Dell and a fellow student worker came into my office and farted. I lit a candle and proceeded to work on the laptop, but the candle was right behind the laptop and melted the outer case on the screen side.

Also was repairing a corrupt hard drive once that belonged to a prof... thought I backed everything up and completely wiped the drive... I don't remember why I couldn't blame it on the bad hard disk but I was honest and fessed up to losing all his data stored in the drive.

As a high school student working at a country club, boss told me and a coworker to strip some wooden floors and wax it after hours. Well we got a friend to buy us some tall boys to sip on as we worked and didn't strip the floors too well and applied more wax on top of the old and basically turned the wood floors a cloudy white color. We weren't janitors so what the hell did we know?

Luckily my career choices have been such that I do not repair computer hardware nor wax floors so that's good.
BombayAg
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My friend worked for JPMorganChase and there was a salesman come by to sell some service and all his slides had Bank of America in them
TyHolden
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AG
Dated a coworker and my director's daughter for a month before making the connection...nearly ruined my young career
GCRanger
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The guy at Harvard who thought it was a good idea to designate Chelsea Manning as a Visiting Fellow.


Ones I witnessed at work:
The cleaning crew at one of the oil majors was sweeping/mopping up the floor outside the data center entrance. Near the entrance was an emergency power shutoff button (the big red kill switch button) with a door covering it. The mop/broom handle tapped the door, which opened, sounding a small warning alarm. The custodian, not knowing what it was as all information was posted in English, pressed the shutdown button thinking it would turn off the alarm. Goodbye data center, which ran the internal systems (including gas station POS) for most of north America. That was probably a bad day for that person. Those not managing the datacenter went home early as you couldn't get to email, intranet, LAN, nothing. They changed the emergency shut off panel and included instructions in English and Spanish.

Same major had another major outage when a backhoe digging up a Houston street tore through ATT fiber trunk connecting multiple buildings to the same data center as above. That was another day we all went to happy hour early. Not sure what happened to the construction crew that F'd up that one, but if the MSM and libs are right, then the O&G execs used the crew for human hunting camp.


CrottyKid
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AG
We have two Marks in our professional circle. One is a colleague (Regular Mark), the other is the equivalent of a vice president (VP Mark). A dumb coworker sent an email to all our colleagues about how horrible and stupid VP Mark is for recent changes in our budgetary structure. Of course, she included VP Mark's email instead of Regular Mark's (because she is dumb). Now we all have a stupid mandatory meeting at 7am on Monday. Thanks a lot, Sheila!
BombayAg
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CrottyKid said:

We have two Marks in our professional circle. One is a colleague (Regular Mark), the other is the equivalent of a vice president (VP Mark). A dumb coworker sent an email to all our colleagues about how horrible and stupid VP Mark is for recent changes in our budgetary structure. Of course, she included VP Mark's email instead of Regular Mark's (because she is dumb). Now we all have a stupid mandatory meeting at 7am on Monday. Thanks a lot, Sheila!

I don't get why people beech about higher ups on corporate devices like email or chat. Just a bad idea and is there in black and white.
EastSideAg2002
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A guy at work who saved his pron to a network folder.
Wildman15
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AG
Client of a coworker of mine went on a rampage to us about a defective product. Client tore entire project apart and sent in samples to our lab for testing. Lab results come back as "product produced by competitor". Client made an awkward apology
tamuags08
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Quote:

Ones I witnessed at work:
The cleaning crew at one of the oil majors was sweeping/mopping up the floor outside the data center entrance. Near the entrance was an emergency power shutoff button (the big red kill switch button) with a door covering it. The mop/broom handle tapped the door, which opened, sounding a small warning alarm. The custodian, not knowing what it was as all information was posted in English, pressed the shutdown button thinking it would turn off the alarm. Goodbye data center, which ran the internal systems (including gas station POS) for most of north America. That was probably a bad day for that person. Those not managing the datacenter went home early as you couldn't get to email, intranet, LAN, nothing. They changed the emergency shut off panel and included instructions in English and Spanish.

Same major had another major outage when a backhoe digging up a Houston street tore through ATT fiber trunk connecting multiple buildings to the same data center as above. That was another day we all went to happy hour early. Not sure what happened to the construction crew that F'd up that one, but if the MSM and libs are right, then the O&G execs used the crew for human hunting camp.
These sound familiar.
Human
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AG
malenurse said:

I watched a Doctor kill a person once. (through incompetence, not deliberately)


"Practicing Medicine"
redd38
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EastSideAg2002 said:

A guy at work who saved his pron to a network folder.


This thread is about goof ups, not heroes.
hillcountryag86
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AG
Stationed at Altus AFB and had high level drug interdiction mission. Takeoff at 3 am. This mission had visibility up to the Pentagon. Any flight delays would be highly embarrassing. Another spare aircraft was ready to go with engines running and crew on board to take off if first didn't go.

Flightline had all the horsepower from the base watching the operation -- wing commander on down.

A minute before takeoff, on the runway, crew member gets on the radio, which everyone was on, and sarcastically announces an inoperable radar. This guy was a known jerk and with a smartass comment says something about dumb radar maintenance people.

Maintenance crew on standby hauls ass to the aircraft, ladder on KC-135 comes down, technician races up ladder, into cockpit. Other airplane getting ready take first one's place.

Within seconds, technician comes down ladder, runs to truck and returns to flightline. Aircraft takes off on time with no time to spare.

Wing commander gets on radio (everyone listening, including airborne crew), and asks technician what the problem and fix were.

Technician responds, "Sir, I simply instructed the Navigator the radar works better in the on position."
aggiebq03+
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NoahAg said:

I was working for a data/tech company back in the day, getting our systems ready for Y2K, working out bugs, etc. Got fed up with the mundane tediousness of that career. Coworkers and I implemented a program to siphon of fractions of pennies from the company's transactions. It worked TOO well, b/c my idiot buddy who coded the program put a decimal in the wrong place. Instantly, millions of $$$ was transferred to our account. We were doomed. Fortunately, some buffoon in the basement went postal, and burned the building down. Evidence of our scheme disappeared. I'm in construction now.

I really would have thought your biggest goof was forgetting to put any dinosaurs on the boat.
Scoopen Skwert
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AG
Ditto. :*(. Probably my most painful war story.
Burdizzo
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AG
I was sitting in my boss's office when an email comes in from an engineer named Shawn at one of our vendors. My boss looks at the email and then asks me, "What is Call of Duty?" I explain to him what Call of Duty is. He then says, "Why would Shawn at XXX Company be sending me an email that says, 'As soon as Dawn leaves for her meeting we'll start the Call of Duty.'?" (Dawn was Shawn's boss). I thought for a minute and told him he probably got that email by mistake (autofill on the email address). My boss who likes to screw people replied to the email and copied Dawn, "Sorry Shawn. I can't play Call of Duty right now." Dawn replied in less than a minute, "Real nice, Shawn." Shawn was gone a few months later.

A guy at an organization I work with called his own boss one day. His boss immigrated from Africa and has a really thick accent. His boss wasn't there so it rolled to voicemail. He left a message then hung up (he thought) and then proceeds to mimic the voicemail of his boss in his boss's thick accent. Voicemail caught all the mockery. He was fired about two weeks later.

About ten years ago I was on the phone with a guy at the city about a permit we needed for a project. We are wrapping up our conversation on the phone when an email from my wife pops up on the computer monitor. As soon as I see my wife's name my brain switches modes for a split second like I am talking to my wife, and I tell the guy on the phone, "I love you, Bye!" Very embarrassing.
rlb28
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My receptionist posting her resume on sites I look for new employees
ZofranAggie
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Using the word "suckle."
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Moy
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Do you work for GE?
Ragoo
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AG
Human said:

malenurse said:

I watched a Doctor kill a person once. (through incompetence, not deliberately)


"Practicing Medicine"
practice makes perfect.
If at first you don't succeed, try again.
gigemags-99
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Quote:

My boss who likes to screw people replied to the email and copied Dawn, "Sorry Shawn. I can't play Call of Duty right now." Dawn replied in less than a minute, "Real nice, Shawn." Shawn was gone a few months later.


Dick move
MGS
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BenFiasco14
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Burdizzo said:


About ten years ago I was on the phone with a guy at the city about a permit we needed for a project. We are wrapping up our conversation on the phone when an email from my wife pops up on the computer monitor. As soon as I see my wife's name my brain switches modes for a split second like I am talking to my wife, and I tell the guy on the phone, "I love you, Bye!" Very embarrassing.


Don't leave us hanging. Did he say "I love you, too"?
Burdizzo
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BenFiasco14 said:

Burdizzo said:


About ten years ago I was on the phone with a guy at the city about a permit we needed for a project. We are wrapping up our conversation on the phone when an email from my wife pops up on the computer monitor. As soon as I see my wife's name my brain switches modes for a split second like I am talking to my wife, and I tell the guy on the phone, "I love you, Bye!" Very embarrassing.


Don't leave us hanging. Did he say "I love you, too"?


It is the love unspoken. I have seen the guy multiple times since then. We never talk about it. Like Broback Mountain without the touching.
Burdizzo
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gigemags-99 said:

Quote:

My boss who likes to screw people replied to the email and copied Dawn, "Sorry Shawn. I can't play Call of Duty right now." Dawn replied in less than a minute, "Real nice, Shawn." Shawn was gone a few months later.


Dick move


Oh, he is a total dick all right. He has done well moving up the corporate ladder
dcAg
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A co-worker gave the go ahead to order close to a million dollars in steel to build a bank building only to later realize after the fabrication started that we couldn't build the bank he wanted because of the height restrictions.

A lady at PwC in the New York offices sent an email to EVERY SINGLE PERSON worldwide that worked for PwC asking if anyone found a purse. Over 220,000 people received the email. People responded from all over the world that they found a pencil in a conference room in London or an empty Coke can on a desk in Tokyo. It was ridiculous.
Claude!
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Less of a goof up and more of a fraud, but I worked for a company that did invoice arbitrage to get ready cash. The company would sell its accounts receivable to some bank for 90 cents on the dollar or whatever. Not really a bad thing, so long as you're selling invoices for accounts receivable that actually exist. Turns out the bank finds out pretty quickly when it tries to collect on non-existent invoices.
Noblemen06
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BQZip01 said:

I think accidentally flying nuclear weapons across the country is pretty big...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident

That was my first unit. Happened 9 months after I entered active duty.
CharlieBrown17
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Noblemen06 said:

BQZip01 said:

I think accidentally flying nuclear weapons across the country is pretty big...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident

That was my first unit. Happened 9 months after I entered active duty.


Way to **** up then BQ.
Thomas Sowell, PhD
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Racist Hobby Lobby

Outrageous insensitivity !!!

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/hobby-lobby-cotton-display-goes-viral-racist-192821026.html

They displayed raw cotton. The horror!

What a work place goof up
CDUB98
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DrHeadShrink said:

Racist Hobby Lobby

Outrageous insensitivity !!!

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/hobby-lobby-cotton-display-goes-viral-racist-192821026.html

They displayed raw cotton. The horror!

What a work place goof up


You dumbass white honkey cracka.

Everything and everyone who is white is racist these days.
Builder93
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AG
On my first day in the construction department at UTSA, at about 9am, I was told to go with a young PM to watch as he managed a sanitary sewer testing project. The technique is to use a large fan over the sewer manhole to pressurize the pipes while blowing smoke into them. The idea is that wherever the pipes are not sealed, you will see smoke rising through the ground. Before the test I asked the PM if he had notified the people in the admin building adjacent to where the they were conducting the test in case the smoke entered the building through the sewer lines. His response was, "I filled out the paperwork, they know we are doing it today." So I further asked if they put someone on top of the building to make sure the plumbing vents were working properly. Same response, "I filled out the paperwork." On my my last inquiry I asked if he checked with the building manager to make sure floor drains had water in them to block off the sewer gasses from entering the building. It was OK, he assured me. He filled out the paperwork. Fine.

They run the test for about 10 minutes and turn off the blower. We found a few leaks around a parking lot and all seemed well until the fire alarms in the admin building start going off. People poured out of the building. The evacuating president of the University walks by looking rather perturbed. 6 firetrucks show up along with 2 hazmat units and a couple of TV stations. My boss and her boss and everyone related to everything showed up and started asking questions. My boss's boss came straight to me as he realizes I had foreseen something like this happening. Strangely, a week later I was told I wasn't a good fit for the job. Looking back, that turned out to be the one of the best things that ever happened to me.

FWIW, the sewer testing had pushed the sewer gasses back up into the building and set off the carbon monoxide alarms. The tenants of the building said they saw urinals bubbling. That happens when the vents aren't working properly. It must have looked like someone put dry ice in the urinal. I guess he filled out the wrong paperwork.
CDUB98
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Quote:

My boss's boss came straight to me as he realizes I had foreseen something like this happening. Strangely, a week later I was told I wasn't a good fit for the job.


Yeah, your sin, as a gov't employee, was doing the job right.
tamuags08
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Quote:

A lady at PwC in the New York offices sent an email to EVERY SINGLE PERSON worldwide that worked for PwC asking if anyone found a purse. Over 220,000 people received the email. People responded from all over the world that they found a pencil in a conference room in London or an empty Coke can on a desk in Tokyo. It was ridiculous.


Love me a good "reply all" story
Nightman
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Had a VP sleep with a direct report. Even got her a promotion and a raise. They were both married to other people at the time. Would sneak out to lunch together and she'd come back with messed up hair and a guilty look.

And then they got caught... And they both got promoted again and married each other and still work for that same company 7 years later.
Drawkcab
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Nightman said:

Had a VP sleep with a direct report. Even got her a promotion and a raise. They were both married to other people at the time. Would sneak out to lunch together and she'd come back with messed up hair and a guilty look.

And then they got caught... And they both got promoted again and married each other and still work for that same company 7 years later.

They ****ed up their marriages and ****ed up in their company.
 
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