What is the worst workplace screwup you’ve ever witnessed?

[Henry Torres]

[Richmond]

Surprisingly, I don’t think I’ve seen any. I heard of a guy before me making a mistake on a campaign that costed the company $50K so they decided to just fire him to make up for the costs

[pavi]

Didn't witness it myself, but a friend and I both work at a school (pupils aged 12-18) and she witnessed a nightmare on a different school.

 

Multiple times a year we gather with all teachers to discuss the progress of our students. Somebody takes notes, of course. Apparently, one of her supervisors once emailed those notes to EVERYONE (students included) instead of just staff  You can imagine these notes can be kinda blunt, cause it's up to the teachers to talk this through in nicer, more uplifting words with students and parents. It also included sensitive personal information about students and their families.

 

The worst part: he had made the same mistake before, it was the second time 

Edited January 24, 2023 by pavi

[EnigmaticAndroid]

1 minute ago, pavi said:

Didn't witness it myself, but a friend and I both work at a school (pupils aged 12-18) and she witnessed a nightmare on a different school.

 

Multiple times a year we gather with all teachers to discuss the progress of our students. Somebody takes notes, of course. Apparently, one of her supervisors once emailed those notes to EVERYONE (students included) instead of just staff  You can imagine these notes can be kinda blunt, cause it's up to the teachers to talk this through in nicer, more uplifting words with students and parents. The worst part: he had made the same mistake before, it was the second time 

 

---

 

Off the top of my head, I work retail and recently someone in corporate pushed the wrong button and all of our stockroom logs were gone. Every item we had backstocked had to be manually reentered into the system. 

[cinnamongirI]

3 minutes ago, pavi said:

Didn't witness it myself, but a friend and I both work at a school (pupils aged 12-18) and she witnessed a nightmare on a different school.

 

Multiple times a year we gather with all teachers to discuss the progress of our students. Somebody takes notes, of course. Apparently, one of her supervisors once emailed those notes to EVERYONE (students included) instead of just staff  You can imagine these notes can be kinda blunt, cause it's up to the teachers to talk this through in nicer, more uplifting words with students and parents. It also included sensitive personal information about students and their families.

 

The worst part: he had made the same mistake before, it was the second time 

oh my god? how do you even mess up like that.. 2 times too.. 

[Europe]

When Lady Gaga (a professional singer, mind you) didn't release an official sped-up version of her viral global hit song "Bloody Marty", when in fact it takes a whole of 2 minutes to create one.

[PMKARDASHIAN]

I worked with a nurse who claimed to have been a chiropractor in the military, and snapped a patients neck who was complaining of neck pain. The patient died shortly after. She wasn’t fired, wasn’t reprimanded, and still works there. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by PMKARDASHIAN

[getBusy]

My colleagues and I had a nickname for one of our clients, the translation being NOSY, which was pretty close to the spelling of her actual last name. One day my colleague sent her an envelope and instead of writing the client's last name, he wrote NOSY. She obviously called our boss as soon as she got the envelope.

[zasderfght]

When I worked at Walgreens, the security member on duty (this is when Walgreen locations in my area had the budget to keep security) let a thief walk right past her. Literally the only person who can put their hands on a thief let this guy go scot-free. To make matters worse, we all saw this thief blatantly steal, and security even know what this guy looked like, so all she had to do was elbow him and take his goods. Or at the very least call the police and tell them where the thief was headed. 

 

Listen, we're still in a pandemic, I couldn't care less if people steal because it doesn't come out of my paycheck, but this woman had one job lol 

[MonsterJohn]

48 minutes ago, AbeHicks said:

When Lady Gaga (a professional singer, mind you) didn't release an official sped-up version of her viral global hit song "Bloody Marty", when in fact it takes a whole of 2 minutes to create one.

this only applied to random people on the internet

 

it's impossible for Gaga's multi millions label to figure this out

[gustavothehuman]

1 hour ago, pavi said:

Didn't witness it myself, but a friend and I both work at a school (pupils aged 12-18) and she witnessed a nightmare on a different school.

 

Multiple times a year we gather with all teachers to discuss the progress of our students. Somebody takes notes, of course. Apparently, one of her supervisors once emailed those notes to EVERYONE (students included) instead of just staff  You can imagine these notes can be kinda blunt, cause it's up to the teachers to talk this through in nicer, more uplifting words with students and parents. It also included sensitive personal information about students and their families.

 

The worst part: he had made the same mistake before, it was the second time 

Oh my GOD 

[duybeeGAshantiGA]

1 hour ago, PMKARDASHIAN said:

I worked with a nurse who claimed to have been a chiropractor in the military, and snapped a patients neck who was complaining of neck pain. The patient died shortly after. She wasn’t fired, wasn’t reprimanded, and still works there. 

A MESS.

[The7thStranger]

I worked at an airport for years and our security supervisor ripped the door off a plane with the jet bridge. And also hit somebody with a tug.

 

...her best friend in the office, who was in HR, also got fired for giving herself a raise in the payroll system.

 

[BGKC]

I worked at a Sushi restaurant years ago where the owner and head sushi chef didn’t pay his server an hourly rate. He was famous in the city so a lot of people came just for him and always tipped very generously. It was also BYOB and customers would get him drunk every shift. He’d verbally abuse us by the end of each and accuse us of being funny with tip out. (We had to do all of the work regarding pay and inventory) I put up with it for 6 months because I was making a solid 900-1100 a week, but that ultimately could have been 1300 -1500 with an hourly. It wasn’t until one shift where he was screaming at us yet again and I just had it. I went off and confronted him on all his exploitive business practices and took it to the labor board. I ended up winning the case and won 6 months worth of unpaid labor. 

[harwee]

Someone peeing and then pooping during a zoom call. The wiping was, well, inchresting.

[harwee]

1 hour ago, PMKARDASHIAN said:

I worked with a nurse who claimed to have been a chiropractor in the military, and snapped a patients neck who was complaining of neck pain. The patient died shortly after. She wasn’t fired, wasn’t reprimanded, and still works there. 

 

omg

[naval23]

My work station had the computer case on the floor which wasn't an issue for months until it accidentally tumbled on the day before the holidays because of me.

 

I quickly repositioned the computer case and when I came back 2 weeks later I acted like I didn't know what happened and that my computer stopped working and it got replaced (with the workplaces money of course) 

 

Good thing no one was sharing the room at the time

[naval23]

I used to volunteer in a retirement day centre and one of the employees forgot to give lunch to one of the clients and their caregivers were pissed (rightfully so) when they came back home with a full lunch container

 

 

[AlanRickman1946]

8 hours ago, getBusy said:

My colleagues and I had a nickname for one of our clients, the translation being NOSY, which was pretty close to the spelling of her actual last name. One day my colleague sent her an envelope and instead of writing the client's last name, he wrote NOSY. She obviously called our boss as soon as she got the envelope.

Cackling!