There’s truly nothing like the knot of absolute dread that sinks heavy in your guts the moment that you realise you’ve messed up big time. As a fun little treat, folks on Twitter have been sharing all the times that they’ve royally screwed the pooch at work, some giving me insane levels of secondhand cringe and anxiety.
Because I refuse to endure this whole thread of stories where people have done something so bad that it makes me break out in a cold sweat, I thought it would be a nice little Friday activity to bring them to you.
Kicked off by one Steve Doherty, who shared his story about accidentally erasing an entire section of a radio play, the replies are literal waking-nightmare stuff.
What's the biggest mistake you've ever made at work? I once accidentally erased a section of the master tape for a Radio 4 Afternoon Play. It still haunts me.
— Steve Doherty (@SteveDoherty1) February 27, 2020
So please, join me in cringing into a little ball of dread with these work fuck-ups that make me want to vomit in stress and then immediately become a hermit.
21 years ago I reviewed a Meat Loaf gig for a newspaper without attending the gig (I was ill/an idiot). An hour after publication the paper called to inform me that the gig had, in fact, been cancelled. I was sacked. The Sun wrote a piece about it. The headline: “MEAT OAF”.
— Sarah Dempster (@Dempster2000) February 27, 2020
Oh no.
I’ve said on here before – years ago I left a cell in a spreadsheet empty instead of inserting a “1”. This led to eight million dollars being spent drilling an oil well in the North Sea that shouldn’t have been drilled.
— Count Mysterioso (@MysteriosoX) February 27, 2020
I don’t know the logistics of how the hell your work can get this screwed, but it’s made me feel deeply unwell.
I once emailed the CEO of a FTSE100 corporation to tell him I’d be home at seven, I’d pick up some pasta on the way, and that I loved him.
— Mike Maddox (@MikeMaddox10) February 27, 2020
Oh my GOD this is like the workplace version of calling your teacher “mum” or “dad”.
Employing an arsonist. On his first day, he set fire to the building.
— The librarian (@TheUrbaninnit) February 27, 2020
I’m all for equal opportunity but also maybe they should have been supervised…?
I worked in a UK semiconductor plant. An American colleague faxed details of a two chemical mix. The instructions were simple, 1 bottle of this to 5 of the other. My bottles were of different volumes.
Evacuated the building, fire brigade called, Police cordon. I kept my job.— Will B (@virtuallywillB) February 27, 2020
This absolutely RADIATES Homer Simpson energy and I refuse to hear otherwise.
In my first week at work I somehow deleted the entire home page of the website I’d been employed to manage.
— Big Trish Little Trish Cardboard Box (@Trishie_D) February 27, 2020
I once deleted the BBC comedy website.
— Kat Sommers (@dogwinters) February 27, 2020
If anyone was wondering what my recurring nightmares are, it’s 1000% this.
Look, there’s just a whole heap of stomach-knotting stories of times people have screwed up at work, but nothing is more horrifying than this one sentence.
Turned up to a funeral with the wrong body
— Archie W Maddocks (@ArchieMaddocks) February 27, 2020
