Mistakes at work

[peppy]

Title says it.

I clicked the wrong button on a state web site to file sales taxes and have to pay a $402 penalty.
Anyone else make these kinds of screw ups?

[ramonesfreak]

Back in the 90s I was working at Ogilvy & Mather in NYC. I was instant messaging (remember that) with a friend. I was telling my friend that “my boss (Gina) is a see you next Tuesday” except I mistakenly replied to one of her instant messages, not my friend. I didn’t even bother to wait, just grabbed my bag and left. It was very easy to land on your feet in NYC prior to 9/11. Had a better job in 48 hours and never looked back but did learn a lesson….slow down and remember what mama said…

Plenty of opportunities to make errors in my work. My clients make most of them. One recently paid a settlement one week late resulting in a $60k penalty. This happens a lot. Insurance companies fight over a few bucks and then end up throwing a ton of money away because of their errors.

[unclebilly]

$402? That’s cheap compared to the cost of an oilfield screw up. Add 2 zeros to the end for a minor screw up. And yes, I’ve had a few. All part of R&D and trying new things…

[id10t]

No monetary losses but several times over a 20 year period I managed to delete all of our students from our LMS/online courses

Easy enough to fix but kinda embarassing

[HardDrive]

see you next Tuesday...didn't know that one. Oh my do I have use for it....

Originally Posted by ramonesfreak

Back in the 90s I was working at Ogilvy & Mather in NYC. I was instant messaging (remember that) with a friend. I was telling my friend that “my boss (Gina) is a see you next Tuesday” except I mistakenly replied to one of her instant messages, not my friend. I didn’t even bother to wait, just grabbed my bag and left. It was very easy to land on your feet in NYC prior to 9/11. Had a better job in 48 hours and never looked back but did learn a lesson….slow down and remember what mama said…

Plenty of opportunities to make errors in my work. My clients make most of them. One recently paid a settlement one week late resulting in a $60k penalty. This happens a lot. Insurance companies fight over a few bucks and then end up throwing a ton of money away because of their errors.

[ramonesfreak]

I had used the actual word….didnt wanna do that here

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by id10t

No monetary losses but several times over a 20 year period I managed to delete all of our students from our LMS/online courses

Easy enough to fix but kinda embarassing

Scariest moment of my life was when I deleted a production database.

Thank heavens for "rollback".

[fastfredracing]

Oh gosh, I have had some whoppers . Often , in my business, mistakes are ugly ones . Ive lunched a couple of motors over the years . Caught a car on fire, left a wheel or two loose .
Ive managed to never hurt anybody except myself and my check book

[flatbutt]

Back when I was in charge of label content for an OTC medication I missed a typo in the proof galley. It didn't create a regulatory situation nor did it require any level of notification to FDA but, I worked for a new exec at the time who used it in my next fit rep. It cost me $20,000 in bonuses.

[LWJ]

Scrapped out a semi load or two of aluminum...

Really pi55ed some people off every now and them. Not intentionally.

[masraum]

Yep, but it fortunately never cost me money.

Hmm, deleted a VLAN with all of the corresponding up addresses out of a satellite system that provided data to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately it was about 2 am and I was able to fix it in less than an hour.
There have been a few other issues about the past 25 years in the IT business.

[A930Rocket]

I only worked at Boeing in Charleston for a short time, but a coworker got a piece of plastic stuck between the upper center fuselage section and the wing box fuel tank. I heard it was not discovered till the plane was on the flightline and it was a $1 million repair.

I don’t think it was my fault, but my boss told me to order roof trusses for a house we were going to build. I soon left the company, and I heard later, they did not start the house, but the trusses showed up. That was a $40,000 mistake

[1990C4S]

When I was a young EE I did some calculations for transformer sizing at a new manufacturing facility based on equipment my employer was building. The numbers went to our customer, and then on to the local hydro supplier. There were some 'questions' as the hydro supplier thought the numbers were a bit high for the size of the facility, but it went ahead because my customer told them the numbers were calculated by an 'engineer'.

About two months later I realized I had missed a step. At one point I should have divided by the square root of three, and I did not. As a result, the transformer size was about 1.7x larger than needed. We were too far down the road to go back, so I kept my mouth shut and hoped no one would notice. This added costs to the electrical service were significant, six figures for sure.

About a month before the plant was to open, the work was transferred to a different facility 100 miles away, and my error was hidden forever. I believe the building that I mis-sized was never used by our customer, it was sold to a transmission manufacturer. I tell myself the huge power service available made the sale easy...

Sometimes you get lucky and your big errors stay hidden.

[wdfifteen]

I made the same mistake three years in a row.
I failed to change an LLP to a single member LLC when I bought my partner out. Three years in a row I forgot to make the change, paid my taxes late (LLPs have to file in March, single member LLCs file in April) and had to pay $7xx in penalties each year.

We had a trivia question contest and I made the mistake of saying, "Anyone who answers this question gets a free subscription" when I meant to say, "The first one to correctly answer this question...." I had to give away about $2400 worth of magazine subscriptions to the people who responded.

I don't know if I was the one who made this mistake, proofing was supposed to be done by the proof reader, but as the boss it landed on me. We ran a promotion one year and gave a way a free T-shirt with each new subscription. The ad ran in our magazine, and the copy was supposed to say, "Free T-shirt with your new subscription." Some proofreader let the ad run without the "r" in "Shirt."

[john70t]

I've heard of a mall foundation pour being oriented in the wrong direction.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by john70t

I've heard of a mall foundation pour being oriented in the wrong direction.

That sounds cheap, quick, and easy to fix.

[fastfredracing]

Originally Posted by peppy

Title says it.

I clicked the wrong button on a state web site to file sales taxes and have to pay a $402 penalty.
Anyone else make these kinds of screw ups?

Id be trying to fix that . No way Im giving those grifters a penny more than I owe them .

[peppy]

I have found a number to call that I can plead my case and maybe get my money back.
I really don't understand why you would have the option to file the return and not pay the amount owed.

[GH85Carrera]

Back in the olden days of film and Silver halide, I worked at a professional photo lab. The number one rule every employee is drilled over and over, NEVER open any door unless you are willing to bet your next paycheck that there is nothing on the other side that can be ruined by light.

Just a little bit of light from an open door can ruin thousand dollar roll of paper, or tens of thousands of dollars in customer film.

I ruined a box of 20x24 paper when I forgot to close the lid on the box properly. That was expensive for the company, but the worst was to ruin customer's film, especially a professional's weekend of work.

[MBAtarga]

Not my error - but someone else's in the company. Business was manufacturing modems - you know - the 54k baud modems. Anyway - packaging was printed in China and in urgent cases- air freighted. Someone missed a typo and the word "Messages" became "Massages". Certainly couldn't release the new product with Massages on the front of the box!
Had to expedite the replacement packaging printing AND pay the air freight all over again. That was expensive!