Biggest mistake at work?

[PanthaSan]

I rolled a city owned dump truck because I was on heroin and dropping off a hooker at the stroll......

oh wait, that was a co-worker. :D

For me, I never really screwed up per se that I can talk about on a public forum. I had a biggie and if you really want to know, it is something we can talk about IRL. And if I ever screwed up and it was obvious, I usually found a way to blame it on equipment failure...

[g5jamz]

At a client's once...they'd had power issues and had all their main servers running on a single power strip. 2-3 Novell boxes, NT server, etc...

The strip due to the cables hooked up to it rotated the strip on its side. I walked over to do something and slid my foot across the floor and it barely touched the little red power switch. I heard a faint...click...and watched the client's servers Novell red snake disappear. Nothing was lost fortunately.

[Epistaxis]

The operation was a complete success.

Unfortunately the patient died.

[Hawk]

once...we had a power failure and I missed one valve that I needed to open...well...I didn't miss it, I just choose not to get it opened for fear of the safety of my guys outside. I almost had a double reactor meltdown! (not nuke, relax)

[DC Amp]

Many years ago I instructed a new guy on how to load & secure a bobcat on the trailer to return to the shop. The next day I found out he lost the bobcat on a bridge and it hit a car. I nearly lost my job over that.

[Panthers_Lover]

I'm still mopping this mess ... probably will be tomorrow, too. UGH, where's my tequila shot?????!!!!!

[j2sgam]

This isnt my mess, but my younger broth-...um this guy I know was recently hired at the local Pepsi plant. So less than 2 weeks into his employment he misjudges backing a forklift up and catches a stack of palettes....

His new co-workers said it was the biggest spill in this plant's history, over 2200 bottles broken. ..

[j2sgam]

Mine, however, was a few years back when I was a 3rd year Electrical apprentice. I was doing a job in Norfolk Int'l Airport' mechanical area.That area was basically the entire 1st floor, it was 9pm, I had been there since 7:30am and had to get it done. I had just finished wiring up the last valve and somehow the cover hit something it shouldnt, it shorted and I heard a 'click form one of the panels behind me followed by a number of distinct 'byoooo's of many large compressors and such shutting down. I ended up needing my bossman to come out and help me find the problem. It was a single 3amp fuse in one of the main panels that caused half of the equipment to shut down.. Turns out it wasnt that big a deal, but at the time it really f__ked me up...

[Doyle]

This isnt my mess, but my younger broth-...um this guy I know was recently hired at the local Pepsi plant. So less than 2 weeks into his employment he misjudges backing a forklift up and catches a stack of palettes....

His new co-workers said it was the biggest spill in this plant's history, over 2200 bottles broken. ..

Another photo from the Michael J. Fox collection.

[natty]

Well our DBA royally screwed up the db server this morning and our site was down all day. We were all laughing at a voicemail from one of our clients that ended 'go kill yourselves'.

We deal with car dealerships and a co-worker accidentally deleted every vehicle from the db about a year and a half ago.

[Darth Urious]

I've had my share of dumb mistakes at work...

I once hit a district court judge's vehicle with one of our cargo vans... What made it worse was that I had no clue I had hit his vehicle, and they tracked me down a few hours later and ticketed me for a hit and run... I got out of that one, but it cost me $400 bucks (a lawyer)...

Not many months afterward I was in the same van, and was backing up in a parking lot and hit someone's vehicle... nothing really happened with that, as my job's insurance covered that one...

Haven't had a vehicle incident since (several years)...

Did walk in a room with a reported "leak," and upon going in to investigate got sewage rained down upon me from a pipe that had become disconnected...

Got my foot in front of a cart another guy and I were moving some cabinetry with, and he pushed the cart onto it... my big toenail was messed up for about 8 months...

Almost pinched/cut my pinky finger off a few weeks ago moving something heavy carelessly...

Other than stuff like that, I don't really make mistakes involving emails/paperwork/interaction with other employees... most of my stuff is physical/wrong place wrong time/careless driving (that last one has been corrected though...)

[TheRealDeal]

This wasn't me because I work in finance but at my company we are supposed to launch a very awesome satellite of our very own for the first time and when they were moving it in the warehouse with the forklift it dropped and caused a couple million in damage, not to mention all the money that was lost when the stock dropped.

Hopefully when we do launch our stock will jump again.

[Hugor Hill]

This one time on the job, I got shot in the leg because I hesitated on shooting first.

also, when I was in college I worked out at RDU for a cargo company unloading cargo. Well, first week working the 2am shift a huge DC-8 comes rolling in and parks, I walk by the engines not even thinking about anything, and a guy who had been there for a long time runs and tackles me before I walk in front of the turbines. If not for him I would have been a red stain on the tarmac. As it was, only my hat got sucked into the engines, but there was no damage done to them.

[Matt Foley]

What's the biggest mistake you've ever made at work? A co-worker made a pretty big one, forwarding an email to a mass of people without realizing that there was an email conversation still at the bottom, with lots of high level people discussing what to say in the final memo. And, no way to recall the message for a variety of reasons.

It won't get her fired, I hope, but she's all shaken up, and it reflects on my department poorly. I had to send the mea culpa email to the president and senior staff ... we'll see whether we have major fallout from it.

Hell, it could cost me my job, since it's out of my department/area ... crossing my fingers!

Nooo!