What mistakes have you made at work? (career, $10,000, contract)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've made some very costly mistakes on several of my previous jobs, the kind where you lose the product you are making (at that stage the product is potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions). These were the result of being careless in documentation and doing wrong calculations in terms of formulating the product. I never got in trouble for any of these mistakes because I had a good reputation on the job and was never a drama queen or troublemaker.
But in my entire life, I have been fired once from a job when I worked at a rental car company garage changing oil on the vehicles. One time I forgot to put the cap back on after I refilled the oil. I later learned that the oil leaked out and caught on fire, and the driver of the vehicle had to pull off the highway. I was let go after that.
I always say when I make a mistake at least I never killed anyway. At least you never killed anyone.
I was fired from my first job out of college in the probationary period. It was a bank and trust and my job was a bunch of administrative bs minutiae that had to be perfect. I was living with a bunch of roommates in a new town and I couldn't get any sleep because they were coming and going at all hours so I was exhausted all the time. I wasn't too happy at first but I really kind of hated it there anyway. It was a foreign company and had a very stuffy culture where the men were called Mr. so and so and the women were called by their first names.
About 15 years ago I was working in payroll / benefits at a company who had around 200 people on their 401(k) plan. This was an IT company but they refused to pay someone to build an interface to export the 401(k) withholding amounts directly to the 401(k) company. So each payroll I had to do an Excel spreadsheet export that was very glitchy. Something happened, and somehow around the last names that started with P... the spreadsheet had the correct names and amounts but the employees' mailing addresses were all one line off. Normally this would not be a problem but that happened to be the end of a quarter, so the 401(k) company uploaded all of the "new" addresses to send out the 401(k) statements. So anyone with a P - Z last name received a statement that had their address, but someone else's name and account info. They didn't fire me or write me up but several of the employees demanded that I be fired, lynched, demoted, etc. I felt so bad and could never mentally recover from that mistake... I found another job and quit within about 6 weeks.
But did the guy think it was a mistake? Maybe he still stands behind what he said...at his new place of employment.
He bit the hand that fed him and ended up taking a job that paid far less than he was making until he retired.
So yeah... I'm pretty sure he regretted saying it.
My biggest and I am still paying for it was not taking sales management offers because I was making similar as a rep at the time. I didn't want the added responsibility either at the time of everyone's quota over my head. Either that or I should have gone into sales engineering. Oh well live and learn.
One time by just showing up! Big Mistake. I should have made one Right and three lefts...Left the building...Left the Building...Left the Building. Get my drift?
Not in any particular order:
1: I wrongly and regrettingly accused a co worker of an action (damaging a prized statue) . They were completely innocent ....I ate humble pie for Months on that one! ]
2: Took a large order from a state employee..Only to find out that the STATE was on a budget freeze. They couldnt pay us til the budget got passed. She refused to pay with the state emergency fund they have in place. The biggest joke was...she worked for our Dept of Corrections. She was on the wrong side of the cell in my opinion.
3. Not reporting til it was too late...a Guest who I suspected was a Pedo and taking kids up to his room. By the time the police got to the hotel.He had hightailed it out of the building and the toothless Mom of these two young girls denied that she was pimping her girls...which she was.... I live with that every day that I didn't speak up sooner....
One that I was a witness too...was a nurse. The patient was ailing. The family had asked that we send her to the hospital.The nurse scoffed it off saying: Ohh shes OLD and dying soon anyways!
Later that night when I sat with the patient ( this was a critical care nursing home) ...( augh Im tearing up remembering it) the lady begged me to get her medical help . The nurse kept rattling....shes old! yada yada.... and sure enough the patient passed by morning time. The nurse said...see! I told you she was dieing.....
To this day and that day since....I can still see the sheer panic of the patient when the nurse rattled on.....
I made the mistake of rolling my eyes in a meeting when everything a certain person was saying was total bull crap and lies. I thought I had my head turned in such a way that it wasn't visible. Apparently not. My position was eliminated shortly thereafter.
I made the same mistake a number of years ago but only made myself an enemy until he finally retired. It's amazing how small minded management is - they'd cut off their nose to spite their face.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I will have to tell that to my friend who is an nurse practitioner. Scary 
Please don't reply he is still practicing medicine?
