ADVERTISEMENT

Most days at work are pretty mundane. You know exactly what to expect, and you can probably complete the bulk of your tasks without having to think too hard. This may sound boring, but sometimes the days filled with excitement are actually the worst days. Because anything out of the ordinary might mean that somebody has made a terrible mistake.

Recently, Reddit users have been spilling about the worst mistakes they’ve ever witnessed someone make at work, and I'll warn you right now, pandas, these stories are painful. From losing huge amounts of money to losing limbs, strap in and put on your safety helmets because this list is full of it all. Keep reading to also find a conversation we were lucky enough to have with Anjan Pathak, CTO and Co-Founder of Vantage Circle, to hear his thoughts on the importance of safety in the workplace. 

Be sure to upvote the stories that you cannot believe occurred in the workplace, and feel free to share about any horrible mistakes you’ve ever witnessed while on the job in the comments section. Then, if you’re interested in reading even more cringe-worthy stories that happened while on the clock, check out this Bored Panda article next!

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

A local dealership was promoting a contest where they would give away a truck. I was driving around with my parents who were visiting from out of state when we hear the commercial for the give away on the radio. The drawing was in about 15 minutes, and we were right there, so we stopped in and put our names in the collection bin.

I watched them take the bin upstairs out of sight of the crowd. They had clearly selected the winner in the back room and announced that if the winner was not present, they will contact them for the winnings.

So they chose a winner ….that was clearly from out of state. But what they didn’t realize, was that it was my mom visiting for the weekend.

She walks right up to the announcer, showed her license, and said, I’m so happy I won the truck! The look on their faces was priceless!

For the next couple of weeks, the dealership tried everything to not give us the truck, It was clear that they had no idea how to even give away the truck.

But we prevailed. And I’m happy to say it we loved the truck!

SuitableHope7813 Report

Final score:
228points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT

To gain some more insight on the topic of workplace safety, we reached out to Anjan Pathak. Anjan is a technology leader with over two decades of experience building and deploying cross-channel web applications. He is the CTO and Co-Founder of Vantage Circle, which is dedicated to helping companies build winning work cultures, and is responsible for the technological progress and evolution of Vantage Circle. As an expert on work culture, we wanted to hear Anjan's thoughts on safety in the workplace and why it's so vital.

"When we think of a workplace, we spend most of our time there, five days a week. It has become like our second home. But that is only possible when we feel safe around our workplace setting," Anjan told Bored Panda. "Workplace safety is a crucial influencing factor that enables a workplace to become more employee-centric. It involves creating a safe working environment with the help of safe equipment, policies, and procedures to ensure employees’ health and safety, physically and mentally."
#2

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I used to work as a maid in a motel and our usual supervisor was out sick. The person who took her place that day mixed ammonia and bleach in a window cleaner bottle and poisoned me with ammonia chloride gas fumes when I sprayed the bathroom mirror. If the maintenance man hadn’t come by and found me unconscious,it could have killed me. For several months after I had respiratory problems,vision issues and a lingering burn in my nose and throat.

Lanai1215 , Polina Tankilevitch Report

Final score:
210points
Add photo comments
POST
mike1dog avatar
Michael Vickery
Michael Vickery
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a coworker tell me she used this concoction at home. I told her it was really dangerous and she was making poison gas. Her response was she opened the windows and it really cleaned good. People are idiots.

Vote comment up
107
107points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#3

Years ago, about 8 or 9yeara ago. A nurse give an adult dose injection of a med to a 4 month old in the Emergency room. I even called him out on it and said, "...check that medicine before you administer, I think that's the wrong one."

He killed the kid.

Destroyed the family. Obviously lost his license. Devastated the hospital system with huge lawsuit payout. Made us all look incompetent.

F*****g cocky idiot. I hope it ruined his life and haunts him forever to the point he can't function or ever have a normal life.

Penguin-Loves Report

Final score:
192points
Add photo comments
POST
iwastherefirst avatar
Pumpkin Spice
Pumpkin Spice
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

...I can't and won't make a joke out of this. Today we mourn.

Vote comment up
150
150points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu

"A safe workplace ensures that everything is intact, which assists in employees becoming more productive and engaged in their work," Anjan explained. "Well-implemented safety measures keep employees safe and also protect industrial equipment. Another critical factor to remember is that workplace safety creates a sense of job satisfaction that eventually leads to higher retention rates in the long run." 
#4

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Working at a car dealership. Last deal of the night, after closing time. Our check verification system was down and the customer has a personal check for $50,000 USD. Manager said to take the check because he wanted to go home. Finance guy took the check. Customer left with a new car.

Check bounced. Customer didn't return calls. Dealership went to his listed address, it was an abandoned house. They called his listed employer, they claimed to have never heard of him.

"Just take it so we can go home" cost them $50k

captainp42 , Mark Doliner Report

Final score:
182points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#5

In the ER, Doctor wrote down an order for 15mg IM of Toradol (anti-inflammatory pain killer) and the nurse I was training misread and started to draw up 15mg of Haldol (anti-psychotic). That's triple the standard dose for Haldol. This was for a patient with abdominal pain. The nurse I was training didn't question it at all. This wasn't a newly graduated nurse mind, just new to my department.

Yes, I stopped her before she gave the med. No, she did not continue to work in the ER.

RadiantBondsmith Report

Final score:
165points
Add photo comments
POST
the_true_opifex avatar
Katie Lutesinger
Katie Lutesinger
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I hate to think what that stuff might have done to the poor patient.

Vote comment up
55
55points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu

Anjan also noted that employers and managers have the authority to make decisions that will make the workplace safer to work, so there are plenty of actions they can take to ensure that their employees' safety is of utmost priority. A few recommendations that Anjan provided that can make a huge difference in the workplace are: identifying workplace safety hazards, revising the safety policies and making changes with the evolving workplace, developing a safety communication plan, allowing the employees to share their voices, designating health and safety representatives, forming a committee to look after the initiative, providing safety training programs to the employees, and ensuring easy access to emergency exits.

ADVERTISEMENT

"Things should be actionable and well-planned to ensure everything works fine without hiccups," Anjan told Bored Panda. "And even if there are any shortcomings, always have a contingency plan to keep things running smoothly."
#6

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Taught preschool for 8 years before the pandemic. It's protocol to count the children before moving from one room to another to make sure no one gets left behind. Had a coworker on her phone, didn't count kids, and had left behind a child in the toy closet. Kid was 2 years old and trapped, screaming and crying in a dark toy closet for 20 minutes before a teacher passing by the empty classroom heard her.
My coworker didn't even get a slap on the wrist and management never told parents.

This same coworker forced her class of 2 year olds to "get dressed themselves" for outside play in the winter so one time a little girl ended up playing outside in the Minnesota snow without boots on for ten minutes before my coworker noticed.

idontcare4205 , CDC Report

Final score:
155points
Add photo comments
POST
iwastherefirst avatar
Pumpkin Spice
Pumpkin Spice
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's it, I'm crusading this woman! I've got a flowerpot and a thirst for vengeance, who's with me?!

Vote comment up
83
83points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#7

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Update: The biggest question is "Where/what company is this?" This was over 22 years ago in Asia. I apologize for not remembering the name, but they went under shortly after.

Plant manager let the safety guy go because they didn't believe safety was a full time job and wanted to cut back on company spending and decided the supervisors could do all the safety audits, training, keep the building up to code.

Not even a week later 2 guys got their arms cut off working on a machine that they weren't trained/certified on and the back building caught fire due to pallets and cardboard boxes being stacked in the wrong area near the furnace.

Accomplished_Wolf400 , Pixabay Report

Final score:
152points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu

We also asked Anjan if he has ever witnessed or heard about any particularly unfortunate workplace accidents. "Now, this is a question that I think I will be really happy to answer," he shared. "Since our inception, we have never had the misfortune of any workplace hazard, and the employees are well aware of their own safety."

"We, at Vantage Circle, also conduct a safety monitoring of the entire office premise on a regular basis to ensure utmost safety and security of our employees," he added. "We have also organized safety awareness days in our organization to spread awareness of how crucial workplace safety is and will always be. Our little efforts have worked to date, and I hope it continues in the future." Looks like we reached out to the perfect person to hear about maintaining a safe work environment!

ADVERTISEMENT
#8

Oh, another one.

Worked at a large casino in a large tourist city.

The penthouse garden was being redone, and the gardener has put tarpaulins down to protect the tiles. A storm rolled through, and the tarps were blocking the drains, so the garden flooded, back into the penthouse, down the lift shaft, and into the restaurant I worked. Chaos.

2 years later, I'm working in a different hotel, same city. The restaurant had a fountain in it. I come in to open up one morning, and the restaurant is flooded. Gardener has turned on the fountain tap to refill and forgot to turn it off.

It was the same gardener.

DamnIGottaJustSay Report

Final score:
149points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#9

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot A lady in our sales department sent a racial message bashing foreigners and how cheap they all are to another coworker using our company email...which tagged the entire company. The CEO is also foreign.

BlackFeign , Andrea Piacquadio Report

Final score:
147points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT

Anjan also shared some tips with us for employees who are ever feeling unsafe in their work spaces. "The first thing that they should do is notify their managers or supervisors about it. But the system should be transparent," he told Bored Panda. "The employees should be able to raise their concerns directly with the HR teams or the CEOs themselves. This will give the higher-ups a clear picture of what they are missing out on and what the shortcomings are in the workplace in terms of safety." 

"In addition, the management should be swift enough to address the concerns and work on resolving them as soon as possible," Anjan noted. "Afterall, your employees are your prized assets, and their safety should be your top priority. One should have proper planning in case such situations arise, so that there is a good action plan that makes the workplace safe."
#10

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Forget they had cocaine in their pocket while crossing a border. This led the Austrian border and customs police to open up about 100 cans of exposed film stock that was in the van the guy was driving… film stock from a very expensive film shoot the week before.

The result was second unit had to go back and reshoot an entire action set piece for the film. Line Producer told me the mistake cost about 5 million euros.

PugsandTacos , NATO Training Mission-Afg Report

Final score:
141points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#11

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I'm a healthy human subject for medical research studies. I did a study with special dietary restriction groups of zero carbs, no carbs, and a regular diet. I was in the zero-carb group and our breakfast consisted of a large stack of Canadian bacon and a drink. I read on the side of the can that it had 18 grams of carbs. I mentioned this to the doctor in charge and he said, "Well, umm, it's hard to get zero carbs." I thought to myself, "In a drink? No, it's not!"

Three days later they realized that I was right and they had to stop our study and send us home. The doctor had been in charge of the clinic but I noticed he was no longer in charge when I was invited back to the next cohort of the same study. So instead of earning $7,000, I earned $4000 initially and $7,000 for a total of $11,000. So his mistake earned me more money.

omnichronos Report

Final score:
141points
Add photo comments
POST
owenjarvis avatar
Owen
Owen
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What's the difference between zero carbs and no carbs? 🤔

Vote comment up
48
48points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu

Finally, Anjan told Bored Panda, "I think as organizations grow, working on safety measures becomes difficult, but it is something that should be done beforehand. Keep checking the newer developments and adapt to them well so that you can prioritize workplace safety no matter how difficult the circumstances."

ADVERTISEMENT

If you'd like to learn more about Anjan's company Vantage Circle, be sure to visit their website right here.

#12

I'm a tattoo artist and I have two stories.

So these two things weren't like f**k ups that had a massive impact on a lot of people, but something that required immediate removals and getting fired from their jobs.

We had a new apprentice, maybe on the job less than two weeks. We already took the time and showed him everything related to his daily/weekly work, so he was familiar with the job duties.

First time he attempted to clean the metal tubes and piercing equipment that we kept in the 'clean room' before going in the autoclave, he didn't wear gloves. He got like two tubes cleaned of excess ink before I caught him and I explained that whenever he deals with any equipment, he needs to wear gloves because there is a fuckton of s**t that can go south (AIDS, Hep, Staph). Instead of just admitting his mistake, he grabs the metal brush he was using, starts rubbing it on his hand hard as f**k and says "Dude that s**t is so rare, I dont know why you'd even worry about it" i stared at him blankly for about 10 seconds and told him to grab all his s**t and get the f**k out and don't bother coming back.

Second one; Had a 'street tattoo artist' coming in to do an apprenticeship. We were gonna let him still work with his clients he already had under our supervision, but not work on people coming into the shop ('walk ins' as they are called) and he would still be incharge of cleaning and normal apprenticeship s**t even though he was gonna still work a couple tattoos a month. Within the first month I should him how to make his own shading ink and keep it stored properly so he didnt have to keep mixing his color for every cap of shading ink he needed to pour.

Yeah, well I walked into the shop early the next day for an appointment and found him standing over the sink we cleaned the metal tubes in (the one from the above post) using the metal tube scrubber to clean out excess ink from an old plastic bottle of red ink. I said "what the f**k are you doing, thats unsanitary, you need to throw that plastic bottle now." And once again instead of just admitting the mistake, literally turned to me straight faced and said "What the customer don't know won't hurt em" to which I responded "No, thats the exact type of s**t that will not only hurt them but potentially kill them." And promptly told him to grab his s**t, get out and don't come back.

ZeroIQmoves Report

Final score:
135points
Add photo comments
POST
obsidianace_ avatar
ObsidianAce_
ObsidianAce_
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I want to get a tattoo, but the ways it could go south… from having something you hate on you permanently or literally dying. Woo

Vote comment up
32
32points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#13

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot One time a member of my dev team was given a task to cancel a few credit cards (less than 10) directly in the database.

They cancelled 17 million, the mistake was only caught when the company helpline started to receive millions of calls the next day from all over the country with people asking why their cards were not working.

Due-Aioli-6641 , Arlington Research Report

Final score:
130points
Add photo comments
POST
ryancoffey avatar
Ryan C
Ryan C
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Dev ran an SQL UPDATE\DELETE statement without a 'WHERE' clause I presume. Happened at the last place I worked where some dev accidently deleted ~100m attachments for one of the big energy companies.

Vote comment up
33
33points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#14

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Guy I know was looking at porn on his laptop at home, battery died and he passed out. Gets up the next day, goes to work and is in a conference room with co workers, plugs in the laptop and opens it.. immediately the room fills with loud gagging noises, he slams it shut.. and the noise goes on for like 10 more seconds. Left the job a week later.

mookiewilson369 , Christina Morillo Report

Final score:
128points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#15

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Company director sent his travel plans for a ‘work convention’ to the communal printer in the staff room. Bet him and the other director would have had a lovely time. 5* hotel, presidential suite in Barcelona for a week sounded nice. His wife thought so to and was furious she wasn’t going also surprised that him and lady director were sharing a room … for a week … and that when she looked into it there was no convention. Things went south pretty fast and now the company is no more.

Quizzical_Chimp , Mikhail Nilov Report

Final score:
127points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#16

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I had a girl that worked for me that one day had a guy try to pay with a $100 bill. We all knew that we did not take any bill over a $20 but she didn’t listen sometimes. This time she took the bill and when she was cashing out her draw the smart safe didn’t take the $100 bill. I asked if she checked it and she of course said yes. I looked at the bill and noticed it said “Movie Prop” on the bill. She somehow missed it.

BugJuiceForever Report

Final score:
126points
Add photo comments
POST
missrld avatar
Robin Diamond
Robin Diamond
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was working in a casino in Reno (many, many years ago) and a $1 bill was altered with $100 marked corners pasted on . It passed through 2 change people and a security guard before the head cage cashier caught it. I got to stick it to the wall with a thumbtack by the time clock so every employee could see it. It was so obvious when it was by itself, but in a stack of $100s, easy to miss.

Vote comment up
46
46points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
#17

Was a 911 operator. I quit when I realized the job wasn't for me, because it's not a job you can half-a*s.

Anyway, we had a new guy who didn't take the job seriously at all.

One time somebody called and said they were paranoid that people were listening to their phone calls and their thoughts. This guy was calling from a neighboring city, so new guy had to transfer him to an operator at the neighboring city. Once the call is connected, you have to hang up, since it's no longer your call. But new guy thought "this call's too interesting" and decided to mute himself and listen on the line. The operator is assuring the caller that nobody's listening to his calls and thoughts, and at this point new guy goes, "Ah this is boring," and hangs up, which makes a loud audible **click**. Now the caller is going into a paranoid meltdown because **somebody actually was listening to his calls**.

lazarus870 Report

Final score:
124points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#18

Didn't personally see it, but my MIL' s doctor (family doctor/general practitioner) forgot the fax with her lung scan report. Next time she was there (about 6 months after the scan) she asked: "BTW, what did that report say?" "What report???" "From my scan?!" *Searches in a huge stack of unsorted papers on an untidy desk* "Oh." Well, she had lung cancer and nearly died because her treatment started 6 months late.

Dingbat2022 Report

Final score:
122points
Add photo comments
POST
janetsmyrskihotmail_com avatar
KBT
KBT
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

OMG!!! I hope the family sued. I used to work in a medical lab and there are so many regulations to make sure stuff like this doesn't get missed, it's inexcusable.

Vote comment up
75
75points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#19

Make a $30,000 art mistake. Misspelled text on a tee shirt that was produced for costco and the spelling error was only realized after 15k shirts were made. Really the opportunity cost probably bumped that up to about $60,000 since the shirts couldnt be remade in time.


It was me about 10 years ago.

Edit: about 3 months after this i got a promotion to mid management. The handling of this error probably caused this. I owned up to it and took full responsibility. A mistake of this magnitude is a humbling thing. To this day i wont hire or promote someone into a high level leadership role unless theyve made a big a*s humbling mistake at some point, and owned it.

sooprvylyn Report

Final score:
117points
Add photo comments
POST
owenjarvis avatar
Owen
Owen
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Everybody makes mistakes. How you deal with the aftermath tells volumes about a person.

Vote comment up
71
71points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#20

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Saw a guy get zapped pretty bad when he stuck a tool in the wrong place on a big dryer at a hotel where I worked. We had asked him if he should cut the power first, and he said naww, don't need to. For a moment after, we thought he was dead.

Imaginary_Medium , Ksenia Chernaya Report

Final score:
116points
Add photo comments
POST
owenjarvis avatar
Owen
Owen
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He erroneously thought he was more power-ful. Sorry.

Vote comment up
40
40points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#21

A nurse friend told me a colleague hadn’t been checking the PH aspirate from a baby’s Nasogastric tube (meant to do before every tube feed to make sure it’s positioned correctly etc) baby ended up passing away because the tube had actually been passed into the lungs not the stomach due to an unknown cut being made during intubation the baby had previously had.So she had been feeding the milk into the lungs and essentially drowned the baby.

MelissaHunt95 Report

Final score:
109points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
#22

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Someone managed to CC the entire enterprise, consisting of 6 figures of employees.
Then the follow up idiots all hit reply all “I don’t think this is for me”
In a matter of minutes there’s were probably hundreds of millions of emails produced as a bunch of idiots piggy backed off the first idiot and hitting reply all.
Email Servers crashed and weren’t restored until the next day.
IT quickly fixed that too so people could only mass CC within their own department unless IT approved it.

GL1TCH3D , David Pupaza Report

Final score:
108points
Add photo comments
POST
jihana avatar
Jihana
Jihana
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The same thing happened at a previous jon. International company, someone sent an email that a package had been delivered to a factory somewhere in South America (forgot ehich country). To all employees worldwide. Then people hit reply all to ask to be removed from the mailing list. I counted 39 please remove me emails before the server crashed.

Vote comment up
23
23points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#23

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot An IT worker once sent an advisory to the entire company about an email several people had received with a malware link. She did so by forwarding the actual email with the link.

DP487 , PNW Production Report

Final score:
104points
Add photo comments
POST
paulclarey avatar
Paul C.
Paul C.
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Our HR department set a test for the company to see how many people would open a dodgy Email. You guessed it, someone in HR opened it, even though they all knew it was coming.

Vote comment up
63
63points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#24

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Dude gave the signal that he was done working on a forge. Then he put his arm in to check something.

His robot arm is pretty cool though.

OGWillikers , j.mt_photography Report

Final score:
98points
Add photo comments
POST
davidwood_ndt avatar
Wood Carver
Wood Carver
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think I understand what happened but correct me. This is an automated press for hot metal. Said all clear, someone else turns on the press. He reached back in anyway? Sounds horrible and like it could have been prevented with a laser light gate.

Vote comment up
41
41points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#25

There was a company in rural New York in the late 1960's that took scrap metal, melted it down in big coal-fired crucibles and made home decor pieces - doorstops that looked like little dogs, bookends, that kind of thing. Not a huge profit margin but their materials were cheap and they had a steady market.

An industrial consultant convinced them to transition to electric furnaces - significant up front expense, but much lower ongoing operating costs. The consultant even designed the new electric crucibles for the company.

The company president had been thinking of expanding operations, so asked the industrial consultant to double the size of the electric crucible designs. The consultant did so, but made a mistake with the cube-square law in designing the supports for the crucibles.

The first time the double-sized (but about four times as heavy) crucibles were filled with scrap and fired up they collapsed, flooding the factory floor with molten pot metal and chunks of wrecked equipment. The company went straight to bankruptcy.

firelock_ny Report

Final score:
96points
Add photo comments
POST
owenjarvis avatar
Owen
Owen
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This seems entirely the consultant's fault. Major lawsuit I hope.

Vote comment up
60
60points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#26

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I heard there was this guy who had to clean a load of paella pans by tying them down and letting the tide of the sea do the work (was a beach restaurant in spain) apparently he forgot to tie them and almost everyone of them floated away. Sounds funnier when he tells it though.

FagnusTwatfield , Derek Wolfgram Report

Final score:
91points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#27

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Once, I served drinks to a little girl and her mom.

I accidentally got them mixed up. The mom ordered a mixed drink with bourbon and the daughter said her drink tasted funny.

achenx75 , cottonbro studio Report

Final score:
89points
Add photo comments
POST
greg90814 avatar
g90814
g90814
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Honest mistake. Glad the little girl spoke up. The mother should probably be a little more aware as well.

Vote comment up
43
43points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
#28

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot A guy i worked with got fired from his 120k a year job because he was stealing juice from the stock room

Heythere23856 , Mathias Reding Report

Final score:
85points
Add photo comments
POST
owenjarvis avatar
Owen
Owen
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If he had nae stole the joos, he would nae loose his hoos

Vote comment up
50
50points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#29

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot A girl on the till had a guy come up and buy a $2 pack of gum with a $100 note saying sorry he didn’t have anything smaller. She gave him his $98 change and he left. He came back in a few minutes later and said “hey I found a $2 coin in my car can I have my $100 back?”. So she did it. It was a small shop so it was a tough scam to fall for. She also managed to lock herself out of her own car while it was running but parked in a way that no one could get in or out of the car park

quietlycommenting , Erik Mclean Report

Final score:
82points
Add photo comments
POST
jack23458 avatar
Mavis
Mavis
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I thought it was going to be a fake $100. One simple way to launder counterfeit notes is use a fake hundred to buy a cheap $2 item and get $98 change back in real money.

Vote comment up
37
37points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#30

Watched an HP repair rep delete about 50 terrabytes of company data by not listening.

Story:

HP comes out to replace a hard drive that is on the fritz. This hard drive is 1 of many. All of these hard drives are bundled together in what is called a RAID Array. This combines the drives into one massive drive for data storage. The array has redundancy so it can afford to lose a drive or two. If too many drives die, the redundancy is gone and your data is lost/corrupted.

HP guy comes in calls us.

Us: Ok pull drive 14, it should be blinking yellow and the rest should have a green light.

*HP guy pulls wrong drive

Us: Ok we saw drive 9 go offline. Put that back. We need to wait for the RAID to rebuild. If you pull the wrong one again the RAID will fail.

*HP guy does not wait, and pulls another drive

US: Uh the whole RAID went offline, did you see what happened?

*HP guys leaves both drives on the front desk and leaves.

Turns out the lights on the device were not on....easy fix, there is a setting in the device to turn them off or on. Rather than telling us he didn't know which drive was which, he just pulled at random and ruined the entire companies data. We had to restore from many many old backups.

gummby8 Report

Final score:
80points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
Continue reading with Bored Panda Premium
Unlimited content
Ad-free browsing
Dark mode
ADVERTISEMENT
#31

Wasn't even on the Job but was out to dinner. It was a local new restaurant so the nar looked basicslly directly into the kitchen, and they hadn't put up decorations or all the doors yet so it was really easy to see and hear what was happening in the kitchen from my seat at the bar.

It wasn't super busy, but it looked like they hadn't fully staffed yet so people were running around doing multiple jobs. There was one guy who jsut would not move fast and you could see the kitchen manager getting more and more annoyed.

The slow dude brought back a load from a bussed table and then went about clearing one of the prep stations in the kitchen. He stacked up the knives, and some other stuff and put it all in a big sink... full of dirty, opaque water... multiple large knives, point up, in a big a*s sink, full of dirty water, i. A kitchen where everyone is moving fast.

Kitchen mamager canned him on the spot.

KJM31422 Report

Final score:
34points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#32

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Not sure if this counts, but during my first internship at a chemical plant I was given the task of reading through safety violation reports and sorting them. This turned out to be WAY more interesting than I initially expected as the reports were riddled with accounts of sheer stupidity in the workplace. Here are a few of the most memorable incidents:

-A woman accidentally glued her own eye shut after trying to reattach a fake nail with industrial strength heavy duty super glue and then subsequently rubbing her eye.

-Someone somehow accidentally mixed an acidic compound from an unmarked bottle into their beverage and drank it.

-(Not as much stupid as it is fascinating) A man working atop some scaffolding forgot to attach his safety harness and fell from ~20 feet onto his back. The report stated that he stood up, somehow okay after falling from that high, and came back to work the next day good as new.

IrishWristwatch97 , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:
33points
Add photo comments
POST
fartingpinwheel avatar
Well-Dressed Wolf
Well-Dressed Wolf
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh man… my dad fell only about 10 feet off of our garage and shattered his skull. Traumatic brain injury, subdural hematoma… catastrophic brain injury that left him in a near-vegetative state. But I’ve heard tons of stories of people surviving worse falls and being fine/only breaking a limb. Wish my dad had been that lucky :(

Vote comment up
29
29points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#33

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I was working in a tool and die shop in my early 20’s and I was watching an old guy (who was perpetually drunk) pound in an injector pin into a plastic injection mold with a big piece of steel round stock. Well as he was pounding the pin in, he missed the pin and hit his thumb. It looked liked his thumb exploded. He was in such pain he pissed himself. They ended up amputating down to the first knuckle. Then to make matters worse, he got fired for being drunk on the job.

1980pzx , Life Of Pix Report

Final score:
32points
Add photo comments
POST
marcopinto2 avatar
Paulo Freitas
Paulo Freitas
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The drunk bit reminds me of a coleague of mine lol, dude was a great guy, a work mule, but he was drunk as hell by the afternoon, at the time i was working in a tire shop, i work at the storage Room, but a lot of the time i was on the shop floor where they changed the tires, One day a preety costumer comes in with a Ford Fiesta there are 3 places where the spare tire can be stored engine bay ( older Cars and some FIATs ) the boot under the carpet, or under the car boot with a metal wrack, in the case of this Fiesta was the last One lol, só preety Lady needed to Change tire, my drunk coworker goes full " superhero " to Change the preety lady's car tire, opens the boot, pulls the carpet up, and then freezes with a stupid look in his face like " what? this car doesn't come with a spare !!! " Took him almost 10 seconds to " wake up " and check under the car, meanwille my eyes where tearing from laughing só much.

Vote comment up
1
1point
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#34

Last year: Guy died at his house. Daughter calls police for a well being check. Police show up, dads dead. Police called medical examiner but he's old and died of natural causes. No need to bring him in the ME. The police call the daughter and tell her to call the funeral home. Funeral home tells officer they're en route to the house.

5 days later.

Funeral comes to Medical Examiner to pick up body. I'm like "guy never came into the building he was released to the funeral home. Let me go figure out what happened."

Several phone calls later, we find out the funeral home forgot to pick up the guy and he was still at the house. Because he was now decomposed he then turned into an ME case.

I don't know what happened after that.

iremovebrains Report

Final score:
29points
Add photo comments
POST
kcmilholland avatar
Justme
Justme
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Funeral home gets the Hazmat clean up bill from the daughter

Vote comment up
6
6points
Vote comment down
reply
#35

I work in a hospital. One of my colleagues was removing a deceased patient from a ward. We use these big trolleys with a bright blue cover. He'd had a long day and forgot to actually take the patient to the mortuary on site and ended up putting the trolley back in the cupboard. Next person in that cupboard got a bit of a surprise

dustypipe Report

Final score:
29points
Add photo comments
POST
nicpay avatar
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, okay.
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Oops, forgot about that one. Sorry!" I'm sure it's a dark humor joke that still makes the rounds in that hospital.

Vote comment up
6
6points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#36

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot In the Army, I was assigned to a Field Artillery unit. During a training exercise, a gunner in our unit didn't align his tick-marks up with the collimeter correctly and his tank ended up shooting a dummy round into a formation of soldiers [taking out] 4 or 5. (If it were a live round, the whole unit would have been decimated.)

Dude got 15 years (or more) in Leavenworth...

DebraRBlack , Arctic Warrior Report

Final score:
28points
Add photo comments
POST
fartingpinwheel avatar
Well-Dressed Wolf
Well-Dressed Wolf
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For those unfamiliar with BP’s censoring and “gentling” of words: the dummy round killed 4 or 5 soldiers. Sometimes we use the word “unalived”.

Vote comment up
28
28points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#37

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I worked at a car dealership several years back. There was a new mechanic who was there barely a week, and tasked to go fill all the brand new, top of the line, biggest diesel trucks on the lot.

Diesel.

The guy filled all the trucks with regular gas. At the gas station down the street. Then drove them back to the lot.

He was fired pretty quickly after that.

NadjaStolz28 , veeru edits Report

Final score:
28points
Add photo comments
POST
jraum0001 avatar
Johnnynatfan
Johnnynatfan
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I did this to a forklift when I was in the military. It was pretty embarrassing especially since the repair shop was right next door to our shop so I had to see the guys working to fix it every day for weeks and felt stupid every time I walked by it. Good thing I couldn't get fired.

Vote comment up
10
10points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#38

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I'm a nurse, used to work on a med surg unit. Someone connected a c-pap machine to the "air" socket in the wall, instead of the "oxygen" one. Patient was without oxygen most of the night, with a periferal saturation of 54% when I discovered it at the start of my shift.
Man did we do a lot of root cause analysis on that one.

marlyn_does_reddit , Anna Shvets Report

Final score:
28points
Add photo comments
POST
marysheplor1 avatar
Mary Jeffries
Mary Jeffries
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If someone needed that much oxygen on a CPAP they should have had a pulse ox monitor on so their O2 was continuously monitored!

Vote comment up
18
18points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#39

I got a couple stories.

Working at Mcdicks as a teen, I saw someone drop a piece of jewellery into the fry oil... and try to grab it as it dropped and sank thier hand and half their forearm in 450 degree oil. They ran out screaming and we never saw them again.

Working at a tire shop, I saw someone use an old bottle jack to lift a semi, and then as they began taking the tires off, the jack failed and the whole trailer sank down onto thier legs, pinning them under the tire. Its important to note how you take tires off a semi truck, you lift it a couple inches, and sit on the ground with your legs around the bottom of the tire, and use your legs to lift it while you pull it off.

Crazily enough though, the guy wasnt hurt too bad for one big reason... he was a enourmous guy. We called him Big Joe because he was 7 foot 2 inches, and wasnt just tall, but proportionally bigger in every way. It was like someone clicked the drag and expand box on him. Any normal sized person would have had thier legs crushed, but he just had some nasty bruises.

Another story from tires, one of my former managers got killed by an exploding industrial tire. There have locking rings that hold the tire on the rim, but if they arent set on just right, they will blow off when you air the tire up, often with enough force to go right through you, and then still keep going with enough force to embed itself in steel or concrete, which is what happened to him. I didnt see this, just heard of it later on.

Youpunyhumans Report

Final score:
25points
Add photo comments
POST
marcopinto2 avatar
Paulo Freitas
Paulo Freitas
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same exact c**p happened to my coworker, luckely it was a light truck tire ( 16,5" rim ) the rings hit him in the head, bounsed off and took a chunk out of the concrete selling, dude was rushed to the hospital, got a few stiches, and was good as new, he got nicknamed " Iron head " after that.

Vote comment up
9
9points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#40

Working with a tree cutting service in Tampa, I was asked by the boss to ascend a nearby tree and cut some limbs. After seeing how close they were to power lines, I refused. He got really pissed off, yelled at me to clean up the area.

Then he sent up Dallas.

Dallas put on his climbing spikes, roped up the tree and started cutting. I was worried and kept watching him as I picked up limbs.

Sure enough, he leaned back and before I could yell, put his sweaty bare back right against the power lines. A bright blue flash arced across his back and his body jerked away and slammed against the tree trunk. He bounced off and back into the wires. And again. Finally his spikes got dislodged and he fell out of the tree, falling until his safety line snapped taut, leaving him dangling upside down like a broken-back doll.

I thought he was dead, but a moment later he started moaning, then screaming. "I'm on fire!" he yelled. We lowered him to the ground to the sound of sirens approaching; a neighbor had seen what happened and called EMT.

A nasty black mark curved across his back and the current had surged down his legs and through his boot heels, seeking out ground. Both his heels were blown out.

I quit at the end of the day.

IQBoosterShot Report

Final score:
24points
Add photo comments
POST
craigmariah31 avatar
PeridotPlatypus377
PeridotPlatypus377
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Poor Dallas. Even worse that the neighbors thought to call the EMTs and they got there before the other employees even thought of it.

Vote comment up
12
12points
Vote comment down
reply
ADVERTISEMENT
#41

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Newish employee deleted the root directory for the SFTP server. Took the server guys about a day and a half to fully restore it, with all files since the previous night backup lost. Same employee did the exact same thing again a few weeks later. Still had a job when I left, somehow.

GreatTragedy , Ujesh Krishnan Report

Final score:
23points
Add photo comments
POST
paulclarey avatar
Paul C.
Paul C.
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was a carpet fitter back in the day. Lad who worked for me unplugged a standard house hold electric plug, in the office we were working in. Apparently turned off half their computers in about twenty other offices around the country. Same lad, made a cup of tea, using a customers kettle, which she had left for us. Electric kettle, he put it on the gas hob! I had to buy the lady a new one.

Vote comment up
8
8points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#42

I worked for a start-up cider manufacturer in my second year of college. Normally after a day of production we have to sanitize all the metal components in hot caustic wash. There are hundreds of pieces, so it takes a while. Anyways, our managers left us an hour before our shift ended to clean up. I had to go do some e-commerce end-of-day stuff before leaving so my coworker wrapped up the cleanup. On Monday we returned to the warehouse burned down. Apparently he left the caustic heater on all weekend and it caused a chemical fire. Everything was destroyed and it ended up bankrupting the company. He dropped out of his co-op degree after, he wouldn’t be able to get recommended for another placement.

byebyecars Report

Final score:
22points
Add photo comments
POST
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#43

Before retiring, I was a branch manager for my state's DMV. Suddenly, one of the other managers is off sick for a few days. Then it became a week. Two weeks. Then, the auditors completed their investigation, and she was gone. Turns out she was accepting bribes from aspiring truck drivers so they would pass the written test. She was taking in an additional $100 - $250 a week. The dumb part? The pay was decent, and the benefits were fantastic. So she gave up decent pay, fantastic benefits, and a really nice retirement for extra spending money.

Then there was the assistant manager who would pocket anywhere from $750 to $1500 a week. So a better payoff. But she was removing it from the day's cash receipts. She had only ever worked for the DMV, working her was up from clerk. She had no idea that there are accounting systems within accounting systems. The bank would send over deposit discrepancy reports which she would blithely pitch, not realizing that the same exact report was also sent to our central office. The wheels of state government turn slowly, so she was able to do this for over a year, but once those wheels start, they do not stop. She ended up going to prison, and ordered to pay over $30K in restitution. The full manager also got fired because the investigation revealed that he was rarely in the office, and left everything up to the assistant manager.

Mondestruken Report

Final score:
22points
Add photo comments
POST
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#44

Work in a brewery. One morning a brewer went to run a clean in place on a 60 barrel vessel. After the vessels are empty they usually are under some significant pressure usually anywhere from 5-15 psi. Guy did not de-gas the fermenter before taking the sample port off. These vessels had two ports on them and we put a 1.5 inch cap on one port and a perlick sample faucet on the other. He starts with the stainless steel cap. All of the pressure came out like a bullet. I could hear from the other side of a rather large facility. Dude got lucky and the cap barely missed his head. He did get a bunch of yeast and hop residue in his eyes as his safety glasses were on top of his head and not covering his eyes. I drove him to the hospital and hes okay. Just got fired a couple weeks later.

thompson1291 Report

Final score:
22points
Add photo comments
POST
teresacline avatar
Daffydillz~
Daffydillz~
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sounds like that's what needed to happen. He got incredibly lucky that the cap missed his head.

Vote comment up
2
2points
Vote comment down
reply
#45

Guy in the kitchen accidentally used chili instead of veggie chili and the customer got extremely pissed and was giving the managers hell.

The guy that did it very rarely messed up orders, and he felt extremely bad about it. He wasn't going to be fired or anything but he was so guilty he ended up quitting that same day.

I definitely see the customers side too, especially since they were likely vegetarian or something. But also you shouldn't expect perfection from people making 9 bucks an hour.

Just a very unfortunate situation, no one had any ill intent.

LunaRealityArtificer Report

Final score:
21points
Add photo comments
POST
shaunlee avatar
SheamusFanFrom1987
SheamusFanFrom1987
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We have to learn that people make mistakes, most times without malice intended but just out of sheer tiredness or plain exhaustion. The least we can do is try to be reasonable customers and DO NOT give them or management hell...

Vote comment up
10
10points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#46

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Had a buddy whose wife and he would play marathon WoW sessions into the early a.m.

First mistake was when he was caught by the network admins playing WoW, from work, on the company laptop. After that happened he uninstalled the game and didn't play from the office, but would be on voice chat to guide his clannies in raids while on the clock.

Last straw was when after one of those marathon sessions he *fell asleep* at his desk, and unfortunately for him our department head was strolling by and noticed him out like a light at his desk. He got canned that day. Really dumb because they had a young teen daughter to support, and while they lived paycheck-to-paycheck, it was a decent one, like upwards of $60K (database developer).

RedditAdminsEat , Sean Do on social or copy the text below to attribute. Report

Final score:
20points
Add photo comments
POST
nicolaroberts avatar
Nicola Roberts
Nicola Roberts
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't feel sorry for this guy. If WoW was so big on his lifestyle choices then why not get a job that fitted around it? Developers can generally work when they want because it tends to be solitary project work. If that wasn't possible then it was down to him to make better choices.

Vote comment up
11
11points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#47

Management. They knew more than six months in advance that the workload on the whole department would triple. We already were kinda pushing the limits, we barely had enough people for even the current workload.

They failed to hire any new staff to handle that vastly ramped up workload. And didn’t warn us. At all.

Suddenly, work was hell. Customer upon customer flooded in with work, and these were internal, meaning part of the same company, customers. So when they got mad, they could look us up in the company email system and find out our managers and scream at them to get us fired. Which they did fairly often. They also screamed at us, it wasn’t unusual to be screamed at 2-3 times a day, or more. Some days, every customer we spoke to screamed at us. The work pace was ridiculously intense. There were no breaks and managers were recording bathroom break times and handing out write ups for going to them “too much” and if we insisted it was needed they’d demand we sign a full HIPAA release so they could access our medical record and judge for themselves if we needed the bathroom that much, and yes, this specific action was directly OK’d by HR.

People quit left and right. I quit and moved. The department manager got fired, and eventually all but the most crony-like idiots who were s**t at the job were left. I can’t imagine what happened after that, because everyone I knew who worked there quit, or I stopped talking to.

I’ve no idea how that epic f**k up ended. But I can say that there were huge consequences for the company if they did crash and burn hard. I dunno if it was the executive management denying money to hire more staff, or if our director just thought he could look good by making people work three times as hard for the same pay. But there was no way that department wasn’t gonna eventually implode spectacularly. And it was entirely management’s fault.

maonohkom001 Report

Final score:
20points
Add photo comments
POST
benmaharaj avatar
BenMaharaj
BenMaharaj
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I mean if you ride that out and everybody else is either fired or quits you are in a good position to get promoted. Crony idiots or savvy, cold reptiles?

Vote comment up
3
3points
Vote comment down
reply
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#48

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Saw a guy load a bar in a band saw in an unsafe way and the band saw blade spun the bar and shot it off across the shop like a rail gun

crucifix_peen , Nottingham Hackspace Report

Final score:
19points
Add photo comments
POST
boredpanda1_1 avatar
Becky Samuel
Becky Samuel
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've seen someone mount a large milling tool so that as soon as the machine was run it loosened instead of tightening. It obviously came loose and then shot across the workshop at light speed, eventually embedding itself about 6 inches deep into a very solid wall. This thing was heavy enough that it would have killed you instantly if it hit your head or body.

Vote comment up
7
7points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
#49

So a friend of mine works in telecoms. When he was a young engineer, he accidentally knocked out fm radio in several London boroughs.

To be clear, this is quite a feat. There are like, four layers of redundancy before it bumps to mp3 songs, which it did. Only for five minutes or so but, hooo boy…

ReaverRogue Report

Final score:
19points
Add photo comments
POST
owenjarvis avatar
Owen
Owen
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So... he affected sound quality for some listeners for 5mins? Doesn't seem that bad.

Vote comment up
2
2points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#50

Worked in dog rescue. Vet prescribed an injection for a pup. Coworker gave it orally for no known reason. She shouldn't have even been touching the meds, and certainly not administering them without checking the notes.

Luckily there were no ill effects other than needing a new injection. Still makes my blood run cold at what could have happened.

Thayli11 Report

Final score:
19points
Add photo comments
POST
lmellie21 avatar
Flare
Flare
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If that happened at the veterinarian's office I work for, that person would have been fired AND blacklisted.

Vote comment up
5
5points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#51

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot Told a newbie to clean the steel panels on the deep fryers, expecting them to wipe them down with a cloth.

They instead grabbed a jug of water and decided to rinse it, with water going into the still hot oil. Yanked them back so fast I nearly gave them whiplash.

And an answer from dad: a colleague dismantled a machine to fix it without first checking the pipes were cleared. The pipes were full of melted sugar (VERY hot). He got horrific burns that made the skin slough off his hands…

chillyfeets Report

Final score:
18points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
#52

Had a coworker send a multi million dollar transfer at the wrong time (forex diferencial). Ended up costing half a million dollars more. He was fired within a week. The worst thing is that he had just graduated college and shouldnt have been in such high position. Higher up/executive was his friend and promoted him 4 times within a year. Ruined his entire career. He works as a salesman last i heard.

TencilCatButt Report

Final score:
18points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#53

I worked in a cannabis lab and I watched someone drop a jar of cannabis oil worth 30,000 dollars on the floor, she just walked out and didn’t come back after

Immortaltaco66 Report

Final score:
18points
Add photo comments
POST
View more commentsArrow down menu
#54

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot my pharmacy manager accidentally stabbed himself with a USED needle after vaccinating someone. he had to leave immediately to get a blood test lmao

lets_get_wavy_duuude , Anthony Quintano Report

Final score:
17points
Add photo comments
POST
craigmariah31 avatar
PeridotPlatypus377
PeridotPlatypus377
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This happens to medical professionals administering injections i think more than they fess up to. Obviously they are very careful but since they do this hundreds of times over their career a mistake is often inevitable.

Vote comment up
10
10points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
#55

I was getting my blood drawn when I was in the hospital. When the nurse finishes she then proceeds to throw away my blood tube in the sharps disposal. I was absolutely furious. She had to take my blood again immediately after that even though both arms were bruised up.

crymer15 Report

Final score:
17points
Add photo comments
POST
snewlands2 avatar
JammaCoast2Coast
JammaCoast2Coast
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That happened to my Mom. Understandably frustrating, but goes to show how over worked medical professionals are.

Vote comment up
11
11points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
#56

When I was a shift manager at a restaurant one of the waitresses forgot to put a decimal point on the POS system so someone was charged $3,000 for a $30 takeout order. The guy didn’t notice at first either and paid with a credit card. Luckily he thought it was hilarious

17Ringz Report

Final score:
16points
Add photo comments
POST
gale41_1 avatar
Alan Gale
Alan Gale
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was in the pub, my pin number used to start with a zero. Barmaid did not press enough buttons on the cc machine, I nearly paid 10x as much.

Vote comment up
4
4points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
See Also on Bored Panda
#57

Printed 500 copies of her gas bill on the company printer. The printer only has enough tray capacity for 250 copies so she had to have reloaded the paper at least once.

alltherobots Report

Final score:
15points
Add photo comments
POST
teresacline avatar
Daffydillz~
Daffydillz~
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why the hêll would anyone need 500 copies of their gas bill???

Vote comment up
2
2points
Vote comment down
reply
#58

When I was in high school, our school had job training classes where we would go and gain work experience (kinda intern). One of my friends went to a cabinet makers shop.

About a week into the 8 weeks stay he ran his hand through a band saw, lost three fingers and whole left side of his left hand.

SillyPuttyGizmo Report

Final score:
15points
Add photo comments
POST
i-fisher avatar
Fish Fingers
Fish Fingers
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Used to work on a furniture factory. One guy, working on a sanding spindle (vertical rod spinning at 3000rpm) wasn't sure if it was on or not, so touched it to check. It dragged his whole hand in and tore off everything except the outside half of his little finger. I believe they grafted a toe on for him to have a rudimentary thumb.

Vote comment up
11
11points
Vote comment down
reply
#59

My professor - A Cardiologist
There's always risk in cardiac surgeries i understand but not learning from your mistakes?
I have now lost count on the amount of patients he "accidentally " dissected the aorta while performing cardiac surgeries.
Aorta is a hugeee artery, i don't understand how many times you don't realize dissecting it.

aksingh29 Report

Final score:
15points
Add photo comments
POST
mjkankone avatar
Hutt'nKloas
Hutt'nKloas
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That shows again that some people should stay away from the working floor. One of my former bosses [professor chemistry] caused a huge ether fire, after being warned for setting it up unsafe. It was ignored with a silly smile & remark. Me, being the tech guy and safety officer, had to safe the lab, extinguish the fire and evacuate collegues. Point of the story: You may be a theoretical master in your profession but if you cant apply it properly..................stay away from the working floor!

Vote comment up
6
6points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#60

I live in Ireland, I used to work in a store that accepted Sterling (British pounds) to be more convenient for tourists. So everyone was trained on Sterling and Euro (our currency) extensively... even though most of us were familiar with it from going up North or to the UK.

A girl working on the till accepted a completely different European currency.... thinking it was Sterling.... it had the image of a King on it.. a different language and colour than Sterling.... I still can't understand how she did it, it was in no way similar. Nice girl but f**k me... she had lived in the UK at one point.

TeaLoverGal Report

Final score:
14points
Add photo comments
POST
deray_1979 avatar
DE Ray
DE Ray
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I live in the US, a place more than 12 hours driving from either Mexico or Canada, and I can't tell you how many Canadian dollars or Mexican Pesos end up in local registers - sometimes even Honduran or Colombian pesos. I currently have a little more than $30 Canadian at home, and have never been within 100 miles of Canada.

Vote comment up
3
3points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
#61

Spent a summer during college driving a truck for a soda company. One of the guys who also got hired not long after proceeded to run one side of the trailer against the corner of a building and then as he tried to back up, he ran the other side against a telephone pole. He drove back to the base, got the key to the safe and took whatever money was in it and left. Have no idea what happened to him but the trailer was destroyed.

NachoBag_Clip932 Report

Final score:
14points
Add photo comments
POST
phobrek avatar
Phobrek
Phobrek
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is a f'ing riot. Derp realizes his massive screwups are going to get him fired, decides Whelp, might as well just rob the place instead! What utter scum.

Vote comment up
11
11points
Vote comment down
reply
View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#62

A few years ago I was working at a tech sales company and this guy started at my company for only a couple of weeks. His dumb a*s (we are in Austin), had a **pound of weed** delivered from Colorado to our office, lol. We were all sitting there working and all the sudden all these cop cars come racing into the company parking lot, we were all "*What the f**k did someone do?!*". Minutes later he was being led out in handcuffs while we all watched and laughed. Like I said, he had only been there 2 weeks so we really didn't know him so we didn't give a s**t. We told his story to every new person that started from that day on. *"Hey, don't have weed delivered to the office, ok?*".

OUBoyWonder Report

Final score:
13points
Add photo comments
POST
tara_neves avatar
tara
tara
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't think this is as foolish as it seems. Lots of people very very successfully order weed and have it delivered. Even in places you aren't supposed to have marijuana. Pretty dumb thing to do, having it sent to work, but who knows how much trouble he got in to? All the while his new co-workers are laughing at him cause they don't give a s**t.....

Vote comment up
0
0points
Vote comment down
reply
#63

Tried to disassemble a large CNC lathe while it was still powered up, came very close to copping an oil injection injury cause the hydraulics were live.

Another time put the key into a manual chuck on the same old (think 80’s punch card CNC old) lathe thinking it was the end of the program. It wasn’t. Luckily the next step in the program required the lathe to spin up to 2500RPM in reverse so when the key invariably came flying out of the chuck it smashed into the guard on the back of the machine rather than through his chest.

Both cases it was me. I am really lucky to be alive.

inactiveuser247 Report

Final score:
13points
Add photo comments
POST
ADVERTISEMENT
#64

On my last day of my high school Walmart job I was showing the new guy how to move pallets of milk into the cooler. There were maybe 6 in total. I went to grab the last one and when I got back into the cooler the new guy had somehow bumped the pallets with the one he was bringing in and knocked all of them over. Milk all over the floor, all that product gone. I immediately left and never looked back

BillyMayesDer Report

Final score:
13points
Add photo comments
POST
tara_neves avatar
tara
tara
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So you didn't help the new guy clean up??? You *might* be the a*****e.

Vote comment up
0
0points
Vote comment down
reply
#65

I'm a home appliance installer and was out working a pretty big job at some 20,000 square foot mansion. They had another installation team working on a second kitchen in the basement. One of these guys was drilling the mounting holes for the dishwasher into their granite countertop (don't do this, ok?) and drilled them too small, so when we went to secure it a massive 4ft chunk of granite split off and smashed into the floor, breaking a couple tiles in the process. Dude sounded like Yosemite Sam with his cussing and the customer was pissed.

bushpotatoe Report

Final score:
12points
Add photo comments
POST
amytaylor_1 avatar
Amy Taylor
Amy Taylor
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When my in-laws house was being built, we went to take a tour of the construction. The crew had installed an entire wall of moldy drywall. I pointed it out to the foreman and he tore them a new one and had them replace it. Had we not toured it that day, it would've been left there. My MIL has severe allergies.

Vote comment up
5
5points
Vote comment down
reply
ADVERTISEMENT
#66

Used to be a supervisor for a security company.

One of my guards was working a truck gate. They let a truck leave with an "empty" trailer that was actually loaded. The load on that trailer was valued at almost $1m.

She was damned lucky I was able to figure out how to get in touch with the driver and get that load back.

TM_Rules Report

Final score:
12points
Add photo comments
POST
#67

I used to work in a daycare, we had a 3 step cleaning routine #1 spray was a soap and water mix, #2 was just water, and #3 was a disinfectant spray. I worked with a girl in the 1 year old room and some people in there would spray the babies with the water because they liked it and it would distract them during transition times when we were getting them ready for a stroller ride and we had permission from our director to do so. Well this girl ended up spraying them all with #3, the disinfectant spray instead of the water.

lex444x Report

Final score:
12points
Add photo comments
POST
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#68

A colleague of mine made a small error of window properties for a construction project. It was just a single letter that was from, resulting in the windows having the wrong classification for sound-protection.

We found out when they where already installed. Since this is Germany, they had to be replaced. 50K € out of the window. The manufacturer was fine, he just did was he was asked to and we had to carry the damage (thats about what he would have earned that year).

ExploratoryHero Report

Final score:
12points
Add photo comments
POST
#69

I'm a car mechanic. Had a colleague once, who had a pretty small job on an engine, about an hour or two and costs like $50. Made a mistake, quite big, but also quite common and easy to make, it's the "well s**t" category, not something to drag him through the mud for. Started fixing it, made an even bigger mistake. At this point we even had to outsource some issues we couldn't fix in house, we were looking for about 2 weeks and $500, on us of course, not the customer, but it was still okay. We got everything back, he started putting the engine back together. All done, first run, whoopsie another big problem, whole engine apart. Broke something again, outsourced, expensive. Overall it was about a month long procedure, hitting $1000. Once it was done, he got fired. He got away with a lot, but at one point it was way too much.

DangerousTrashCan Report

Final score:
11points
Add photo comments
POST
ADVERTISEMENT
#70

30 Horrible Mistakes People Made At Work That Their Coworkers Never Forgot I know 2 people who have made over 40k payment to scammers. They never got the money back.

Ihanuus , Monito - Money Transfer C Report

Final score:
11points
Add photo comments
POST
nicolaroberts avatar
Nicola Roberts
Nicola Roberts
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is sad. I've seen it via a third person and it's so easy to explain things that don't quite make sense in our heads. The only reason it would never happen to me is I don't have 40k

Vote comment up
8
8points
Vote comment down
reply
#71

Had a cook set part of the kitchen on fire because he decided to clean the fryer with the wrong chemical.

BravesFan252 Report

Final score:
11points
Add photo comments
POST
tara_neves avatar
tara
tara
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Was the cleaner not labeled and they didn't know? Or did they not read it??

Vote comment up
1
1point
Vote comment down
reply
#72

Uh I once leaned a long wooden plank against the back window of the company pickup, my boss then proceeded to back up into a dumpster (to get as close as possible) pushing the plank up through the window. Whoopsies!

Legitimate_Page Report

Final score:
10points
Add photo comments
POST
#73

My first day on my own in my job of Identity and Access Management. We got a ticket to remove access for someone. I was excited and got the whole thing done without someone watching over me...

I accidentally removed all the access for the requestor. Of course it was near the end of the day. I was scrambling to make phone calls and such to get her access back.

nethtari Report

Final score:
9points
Add photo comments
POST
ADVERTISEMENT
#74

a tourism boat bought nearly 1800 worth of groceries and wine for their guests, one of the new hires charged it to the wrong account. there were hundreds of dollars of weighed items on the order so it had to be entirely redone and it took all day, because it wasn’t noticed until the end of the day and the tour boat had already left the docks. he had to fiddle with different items on the scales to match the weights on the invoice. it was awful.

NaivePassage6315 Report

Final score:
9points
Add photo comments
POST
#75

One of my coworkers in a marina was relatively new. He didn't ask if the guys boat took gas or diesel and he just handed him the diesel hose. I noticed around 250 gallons in that it was a boat I knew took gas. The boat owner was cool about it he paid for the diesel, the fuel pump out, the gas, and even tipped the guy. Could've been a big disaster, though.

cruisegal224 Report

Final score:
9points
Add photo comments
POST
missmali1969 avatar
Miss Mali
Miss Mali
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow as expensive as gas is that was quiet the gracious customer. Most people these days would have had a fit, demand guy get fired, insist they get something for free for the error, and make sure all of it was filmed and posted to their social media account.

Vote comment up
5
5points
Vote comment down
reply
View More Replies... View more commentsArrow down menu
ADVERTISEMENT
#76

I work for an IT company and my client is one of the biggest consumer goods providers on the planet. One time a project manager tried to deploy a 60-manday project in a single week without any quality control whatsoever and ended up implementing discounts on products which weren't supposed to have them. So as you can imagine things got super ugly super fast. Client lost about a billion dollars in revenue (seriously) and our leadership got involved firefought for several months. It happened in our contract year with them too and we almost lost them over this incident. The PM who delivered the project was first placed on leave then eventually moved to another account.

astarisaslave Report

Final score:
8points
Add photo comments
POST
#77

A coworker falsified the validity certificate of some safety gear twice

ZigotoDu57 Report

Final score:
8points
Add photo comments
POST
#78

We had an old electrical engineer in my department, really knew his stuff except he was nearly useless on a computer. He didn't want everyone to know so he skated by and had other people pick up the slack for him. Though a series of blunders and lack of documentation on his part he caused an electrical control box to be removed from the list of parts that we were supplying to the customer for that program. That was worth 12.5 million dollars for revenue in the first 6 years once the product went into production.

redditusername_17 Report

Final score:
7points
Add photo comments
POST
ADVERTISEMENT
#79

Here I am thinking what I did last week was bad, and people out here telling stories significantly worse. Makes me feel less like an idiot but still.

I forgot to submit a 200 case + order for an account plus a holiday display, got a Vendor Violation for it. Came in Monday to write my order for today and surprisingly we didn't run out of product and we decided to push the display back to next week as they were waxing the floors this week. :/

Murazama Report

Final score:
6points
Add photo comments
POST

Anyone can write on Bored Panda. Start writing!

Follow Bored Panda on Google News!