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Bigger or smaller in scale and absurdity, mistakes are often inevitable. They can happen anywhere: at home, in school, or, of course, at work, usually making for one unfortunate—or funny if you’re just a spectator—story.
Stories about mistakes at work, some funnier than others, were recently shared on the ‘Ask Reddit’ subreddit, where the user ‘Midtown-Fur’ asked people to share the dumbest instances of workplace blunders. Covering all sorts of situations, from unexpected to so cringy it hurts, they add up to one colorful collection of mishaps, so if you’re curious to see what they entail, wait no longer and scroll down to find netizens’ answers on the list below.
Upon scrolling down, you will also find Bored Panda’s interviews with the OP themself, as well as the Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Dr. Lizabeth Roemer, who were kind enough to answer a few of our questions on making mistakes.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I asked the Prince of Monaco to step out of the way because we were expecting a VIP to arrive any second. He was the VIP.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 5 months ago
When Calvin Coolidge moved into the White House, he alerted the floor staff of the imminent arrival of a very important government personage. The staff very quickly straightened the area and stood at attention. Coolidge walked in, and asked "What's all the fuss, boys?" The staff spokesman reminded Coolidge that he'd alerted them to the arrival of important government personage. Coolidge said, "Well, here I am! You can't get much more important than the president of the United States."
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#2
I needed to cut a 2 inch rubber hose. There wasn't a table nearby so I put the hose on my knee and pushed the box cutter through the hose, directly into my knee. Sometimes the brain just doesn't work.
Luke Branwen 5 months ago
"I used to be a handyman like you, then I took a boxcutter to the knee..."
#3
This one makes me laugh when I think about it:
I was sixteen pushing grocery carts outside a grocery store. “Lot attendant” was my title, and my job was to make sure chaos didn’t break out in the parking lot. But I also had some other duties, like taking out trash, emptying ashtrays, and doing a few other little odd jobs around the store. One day a woman taps me on the shoulder in the store and says “I’m sorry, but my kid just threw up over that display.” She points at this display of Entenmann’s snack cake that was freestanding in between some aisles. And I can see that this toddler had clearly projectile vomited all over it. There was some on most of the boxes. And I think “I’ll handle this.”
So I scoop up all the boxes, take them out to the dumpster, and throw them all away. And as I’m dusting my hands off and congratulating myself on being so helpful, a manager was like “what did you just do?” And I said “I cleaned up a big mess, a kid threw up on everything.” And he said “yea but you can’t just throw a whole display away. There’s a process. Inventory. We have to report these losses.” I said “I push shopping carts man. I don’t know anything about any of that.” And he let out a long sigh and said, “this isn’t going to be fun for either of us.”
Then he lowered me by my ankles back into the dumpster and I had to fish out all the snack cake boxes covered in child vomit and then learn how to scan them through some kind of computer. And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t eaten an Entenmanns snack cake since.
TheBlueBitterfly 5 months ago
Nope, not dumpster fishing for ANY job. I don't get paid enough for that.
In a recent interview with Bored Panda, ‘Midtown-Fur’—the user responsible for starting the thread—shared that they have previously delved into online content on a similar topic, which awoke their curiosity. “I wondered… does ‘Ask Reddit’ have any stories like that?” they said.
And clearly, it does. The redditor admitted being quite surprised by the netizens’ stories, which they found quite amusing, too; especially the one where a person hit a lamppost with a truck. Well… happens to the best of us, doesn’t it?
#4
I delivered funeral flowers to a hospital room where the person was very much alive. Didn't realize it until I was about to deliver the get well soon flowers to the wake.
featherytoad 5 months ago
I had a priest come into my hospital room thinking I was on the brink. Clearly some mix up at the nurse's station. He was very glad it wasn't me, as I was in my early 30s and looked very much alive.
#5
Not me but a middle aged female in another department was unmuted while taking a massive dump and loudly taking a personal call on her cell. All 265 people on the call could hear her answer the phone and start talking about whatever while hearing the distinct sound of pee followed by farts and plops. Despite the CEO and the group directors all calmly (at first) telling her to please mute before the panic started to set in. She thought she was muted the entire time and had the volume set so low she couldn’t hear people yelling at her so she could instead be on her own call. It was almost 5 minutes into the call when we could hear the toilet paper rolling in the dispenser that she went dead quiet and left the meeting a second later. This was also not a work from home position either.
“My personal work stories aren't anywhere near as funny,” ‘Midtown-Fur’ admitted. “But I once heard from someone in my family that someone they knew had something stolen from them at a restaurant or building and they walked in shouting ‘The colored girl stole it.’ They walked in, and everyone was a person of color. They said that they wanted to die upon walking in.”
#6
At 17, mistaking HR for a reasonable ear for my Manager being a total a**hat and bully. HR is not there to protect you it's there to protect the company.
General Anaesthesia 5 months ago
Human resources, like natural resources, are there to be exploited in corporate processes and the waste products disposed of as cheaply as possible.
#7
My boss charged me with carefully depositing our cash earnings from the week at the bank down the road.
I walked out to my car, set the bag on top of the car, and happily drove off 🤪.
Jaya 5 months ago
For those who need to know how it ended: " I got all the way to the bank and parked and went to reach for the bag in the passenger seat. Cue panic. I drove back up the same road (MAJOR road in Nashville) just crawling in the middle turning lane the whole way, until I saw that blessed little black lump on the road a few miles back and cried tears of joy. "
#8
I'm an assistant. My second week on the job I took my boss's $2000 personal computer to get repaired. When I was bringing it back to his house, I dropped it and cracked the screen.
Thank God it was a small crack and my boss is the chillest person on the planet, I genuinely thought I was going to get fired but instead he just happily started using it again and said it was no big deal since it still worked.
Discussing the role mistakes play in our lives, the Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Dr. Lizabeth Roemer, pointed out that we often feel like we shouldn’t make them ever, but in reality, mistakes are a natural part of life and part of the learning process.
“We can put effort into our work and try to minimize mistakes, but we will still inevitably make some. By learning to respond to our mistakes as opportunities to learn, we can reduce the additional difficulties that can arise from avoidance and withdrawal and instead become a person who responds gracefully and effectively to our mistakes. In this way, mistakes can ultimately play a positive, rather than a negative role in our lives,” she explained.
#9
We were in an all-hands meeting over Zoom. Small company, ~90 employees. Had just hired 6 new people, mostly remote. CEO ended the meeting by opening it up to questions. I wanted to sound welcoming to the new employees but I didn't want to turn on my mic, so I typed in the chat, "where are all the new employees located?", immediately hit send. Except I didn't type "new". I accidentally hit J on the keyboard instead of N. And I didn't proofread before sending. So I asked the entire company where the Jew employees are located. IMMEDIATELY followed up with "new* omg I'm so sorry" and my CEO played it in stride like a pro. Best part - one of the Jewish employees Slacked me after the meeting to tell me where he was located.
UncleJohn3000 5 months ago
I had to take a group of county commissioners to task because they signed the contract but their people weren't doing the work. County Commissioners do not usually get taken to task. My finger was dropping on the mouse button to hit Send when I realized I'd left the "o" out of the first word in "County Commissioners" in the subject line... It turns out the letter "o" can be pretty important.
#10
Teams meeting, thought I was on mute. Person I dislike shows up a couple mins late and I blurt out… “Stupid a*s finally decides to show up.”.
Upstaged75 5 months ago
I once put something in the chat during a webinar I was running that was meant for only the moderator to see. Except I accidentally put it in the attendee chat where everyone could see it. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Lesson learned. :(
#11
Drove a semi truck full of mail from Providence to Boston with the trailer door open.
According to the expert, the emotions that typically accompany making a mistake are rather negative, so it’s no wonder that individuals feel like they shouldn’t be making them. “People often experience anxiety, stress, and shame when they make mistakes, often connected to experiences of being scolded or punished when making them in the past,” she noted.
“A natural reaction to these emotions is to avoid or withdraw from the situation, which can be particularly problematic in a work situation, and will likely worsen the impact of the mistake. It can also lead to self-criticism and self-consciousness, and reduced confidence at work.”
#12
Cut grass on a z-turn for like an hour before I realized I forgot to turn the blades on.
#13
One of my first jobs in 1989, I was doing typesetting and artwork and did a menu for a restaurant round the corner. I did the Wine List on the back page and accidentally typed 'Whine List', the spell checker didn't pick it up and no one else picked up on it until two weeks later when the owner brought them back saying: "Oi, look what you did!".
Beak Hookage 5 months ago
If I were the client I'd have laughed myself stupid and seriously considered just leaving it that way.
#14
Was giving a presentation to 300+ people and rested my arm on top of the podium in a spot where there was a button that turned the entire system off, taking ~10 minutes to reboot and get my presentation back up. 2 minutes into talking again, I did it again.
Talking about the best ways to cope with the negative emotions that follow making a mistake, Dr. Roemer suggested practicing mindfulness. “Instead of withdrawing, a more effective response is to notice how you're feeling (in other words, be mindful), practice compassion for yourself, and actively respond to what happened. This might include acknowledging the error and also taking actions to address it.
“Recognizing that everyone makes mistakes for many different reasons is one way of creating a healthy workplace in which everyone's humanity is recognized, and everyone can learn and grow together. A simple and honest apology is sometimes useful, followed by efforts to address the error and move forward as a team.”
#15
Forgot to turn the sign to open. Coworker found out after he came out, asked why the place was empty and watched five people come to the door, stop, turn and walk away. I was hungover and stood at the counter like a zombie for an hour and a half having watched many people walk up and away.
Coworkers greeted me until I resigned with "Are we open?".
quentariel 5 months ago
I once forgot to put out sliding doors on in the morning at a fast-food restaurant. (to my defence, we had two doors on opposite ends and at least I remembered to open the other one).
#16
Turned off the stadium lights to a professional baseball game, mid-windup by the pitcher.
#17
A 3d sensor we make slipped from my hands... dropped on the floor. i felt so f*****g bad ...we sell those for 100k :| (nothing broke ! we just had to fix the laser and camera alignements)
We have a tradition now, if you drop a sensor, your name will be written on the floor where the hole left in the floor is (they make a nice mark in the flooring material).
#18
Was on vacation and my boss told me to push a script another employee wrote before he quit. I was at Disneyland and didn't bother looking at it and just pushed it. Needless to say the former employee locked all our computers, 25000 of them. They tried to pin it on me but in the end my boss got in trouble for forcing me to work while I was on vacation and without anytime to prepare.
#19
Brand new manager trainee. Had to sit through death by 90’s OSHA videos. All stuff I had seen before and I was incredibly bored of it. At the end of the video there was a random guy in our office I assumed was a customer and I sarcastically said “well that was an hour I’ll never get back”. He goes “did you not enjoy it?” I said “yeah I didn’t at all but like, I get it, safety comes first so it’s necessary but the videos are so common sense it hurts. Anyway can I help you real quick? I have a meeting to get to, big guy from corporate merchandising team several states away is gonna be here in an hour or two”.
He goes “I’m filling in for big guy from corporate, I’m the North American safety director. Let’s have a chat about your vision of safety at our workplace since you have that all figured out”.
David 5 months ago
OP isn't wrong. Stuff like safety videos have to lower the bar for the dumbest potential employees so they can't later sue and say, "But I didn't know / nobody told me". Mini version of this is the Washington state food worker permit. I had to take it due to handling food in a food charity I volunteered with. But it's the same one you get if you work in a restaurant. It's an online course followed by a short test. Takes about half an hour maybe so not too bad but mind numbingly dumb. A small amount of useful information like the safe temperatures for food to minimize bacterial growth. The rest of it was dumb as rocks common sense stuff like washing your hands after taking a poop, or wash your hands after handling raw meat. Been a while - I forget a lot of it - just remember wanting to face palm a lot.
#20
I accidentally deleted the entire project directory for my company thinking i was deleting a folder called proposals. We lost about 2/3 of the directory before i was able to cancel the deletion. The data was gone as the folder was too big to fit in the trashcan so it was permanently deleting files as it went along.
#21
Worked in a mental hospital as a janitor. Been there for about a week when someone said I needed to clean a part I've never cleaned. It was a wing that had a security desk, and locked door. Halfway though mopping the floor the entire place locks down because one of the violent patients got out since I didn't know I had to lock the door, and the security guy was out to lunch. That ward was an isolation Ward for violent people who were there on court order or sentenced there. Thankfully the guy who got out just went to the day room, and turned on the TV. When the nurses said he had to go back he did.
The janitor that did that ward was off sick, and I've never even been to that side of the hospital before. Wasn't told of any special rules or anything.
#22
I am personally responsible for a US Navy warship losing all power and going completely dark in the middle of the night, in the middle of the pacific ocean, for almost a half hour.
I also am responsible for flipping a switch that resulted in a mass murder of fish large enough that the local media covered the event and postulated on the possible causes.
#23
Sent the wrong door sizes to the framing company, every since door was 1 inch too short. It was on a 212 unit apartment building. I think each unit had between 7-10 doors. It’s amazing how expensive 1 inch can be.
#24
Was filling a paint drum and left to use the bathroom then proceeded to go on break and midway through a snack realized and ran all the way back to paint everywhere.
Brian Droste 5 months ago (edited)
Before I retired a few years a go we had this one person running a tube machine. He had started running this one product. It was very soupy. Liquidity. Most products run through the machine was thick, so ypu could start to fill the hopper up and walk away for a few minutes with no problems. There was ho sensor in the hopper at the time to stop it from overflowing. He was filling the hopper up with this soupy product. He walk away for a few minutes to do so ething else.. I am working maybe 10,,20 feet away. All of a sudden I hear someone hollering at me. Turn around. The hopper is over flowing all over the machine. Before I could get to the machine to hit the emergency stop button, someone else gets to it first. It was big mess to clean up.
#25
I renamed all customers last names to the same last name. I don't remember why I was doing an update, but forgot to include the where clause. Thankfully i had a way to restore them, but that sucked.
#26
My biggest mistake was that I had this delusional that if I work hard, never slack off and never called in unless really sick, somehow I would move up in the company. It's really about who you know in higher positions that gets you moved up, I've also noticed they don't want to lose good workers by moving them up in positions.
Tucker Cahooter 5 months ago
Yep, my parents instilled that ethos into me too. Took me a very long time to wake up to how the real world operates (by which time the damage had been done)
#27
Well, many years ago while in my early days of military life I was in charge of ordering supplies for my division. I was trying to order D batteries for mag lights. I wanted to order about 38 cases which was 380 batteries. I misread how they came. I thought it was ordered by each, so I ordered 380 batteries. That was the first mistake. For the second mistake I actually fat fingered it and ordered 3800. To compound the error the unit of issue was by the case…. I ended up with 3800 cases of D batteries while at sea on an aircraft carrier.
It sucked so bad.
#28
Long ago, was in IT and was moving data volumes on and offline. Misread and 8 for a 0 and took the Airline’s reservation system down for 30 minutes. At 2 million per hour, oops. Immediately reported what I did, it was fixed, mgr said you know what you did and I know it won’t ever happen again. Yup. Sorry. Okay, carry on. I Went on to a long career in IT. Clearly never forgetting that lesson and response.
ZGutr 5 months ago
Good manager. I've got one alike. After causing my first major outage in this job (That's not all that hard to do in networking) my mgr also said, okay, good thing it was a typo, you won't do that one again. A software bug had been much much worse (will it happen again, when will it happen again, will they fix it? when will they fix it?)
#29
Put an adrenaline needle through my thumb. I was basically messing around with returned stock at a pharmacy whilst destroying old medication. Our old fashioned pharmacist/owner would always prime the adrenaline injectors and stab them into the wall to get rid of the liquid before disposing of it. I stupidly tried doing this myself one day but I squeezed the wrong end as I tried to prime it, and it ended up going right through my thumb and out the other side popping through my thumb nail.
Felt like such an idiot. The needle wasn’t actually used, it was just out of date stock that a patient had returned. I still think about what could have happened quite often nearly 15 years later.
Zero Costa 5 months ago
oof you can lose your thumb doing this! never put your thumb on top of an EpiPen when jabbing
#30
Delivered the wrong furniture at a house and they wouldn’t give it back. The company I worked at didn’t care, told me to get over it even though THEY gave me the wrong address to deliver to. Tried to take it out of my paycheck so I put in my 2 weeks.
What do you think ?
Tucker Cahooter 5 months ago
Me, newly graduated from high school, now working as a lab assistant for the chemistry department at that school. Chemicals stored in a locked cabinet outside the chemistry classroom. Accidentally left a large bottle of mercury on top of the cabinet, came back and it was gone. Emergency school assembly called. Thankfully the person who took it returned it to the top of the cabinet (anonymously).
Happy Jack 5 months ago
I worked at a publishing company and cut into a drum of etch (acid) with a forklift. Acid etch went everywhere. I did not get fired.
Jen D. 5 months ago (edited)
So, this was a time when you could still get 35mm film developed in d**g stores in one hour: A customer came in with some rolls of film from of his daughter's wedding. They weren't 35mm though, they were that now-defunct "Advantix" film. Not a problem, the equipment handled that type of film. Problem was...I forgot to change the leader plate to the "Advantix" type when I processed the film. The photos were destroyed because the process was slightly different. I felt absolutely awful, profusely apologized and was surprised I was able to keep my job. I have kicked myself for years now and then for that. Never made that mistake again.
I_imagine_even_worse_w***s 5 months ago
In today's world the wedding party would definitely sue.
Load More Replies... Tucker Cahooter 5 months ago
Me, newly graduated from high school, now working as a lab assistant for the chemistry department at that school. Chemicals stored in a locked cabinet outside the chemistry classroom. Accidentally left a large bottle of mercury on top of the cabinet, came back and it was gone. Emergency school assembly called. Thankfully the person who took it returned it to the top of the cabinet (anonymously).
Happy Jack 5 months ago
I worked at a publishing company and cut into a drum of etch (acid) with a forklift. Acid etch went everywhere. I did not get fired.
Jen D. 5 months ago (edited)
So, this was a time when you could still get 35mm film developed in d**g stores in one hour: A customer came in with some rolls of film from of his daughter's wedding. They weren't 35mm though, they were that now-defunct "Advantix" film. Not a problem, the equipment handled that type of film. Problem was...I forgot to change the leader plate to the "Advantix" type when I processed the film. The photos were destroyed because the process was slightly different. I felt absolutely awful, profusely apologized and was surprised I was able to keep my job. I have kicked myself for years now and then for that. Never made that mistake again.
I_imagine_even_worse_w***s 5 months ago
In today's world the wedding party would definitely sue.
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