Worst day at work.

[her209]

I remember being yelled at by my ex-boss one time but I don't remember what it was for.

The only other time was when the SolidWorks Network License Server went down and the Engineering department couldn't run their app. The CEO came down personally to see what was going on. Fun times.

 

[fustercluck]

I don't understand what OP is talking about...sounds like he left out a paragraph. What did you do that was wrong? You just said you "delayed some calls"

 

[SandEagle]

wow, i'm glad none of you dumbasses are on my team

i almost got canned because i kept going around and telling the whole staff that fruity pebbles tastes 10x better than froot loops :-/

 

[RearAdmiral]

My worst days haven't come from "professional" work. They were all teenage jobs. I don't see how any job can be worse than working at a restaurant. This makes me scared of getting fired though.

 

[ixelion]

Once I was delivering a customer's laptop to a coworker's workstation when I dropped it and shattered the screen. Luckily it was a cheapo laptop, we managed to pull the data and put it on another laptop before we even told her about it.

 

[rudder]

I broke a starter shaft on a Boeing 727 once. Caused a 4 hour flight delay.

 

[SP33Demon]

Nef on ATOT and not work and got laid off. Now I work a little.

 

[RearAdmiral]

I broke a starter shaft on a Boeing 727 once. Caused a 4 hour flight delay.

Ouch.

 

[thatsright]

Yeah, I'm not going to get fired.

But I spoke with my boss yesterday and he was congneial and tried to be reassuring and calm me down. So that was a good feeling. BUt VERY odd timing, he asked me pretty soon into the call "you know that developer positon is still open in our dept. Have you considered it?" I was taken aback greatly, as I don't think the timing was a coincidence. But he presented it as a way to make more $$ than the current position. I told him I was not interested. So this item he mentioned, I feel maybe he now views me as a liability to your group. I dunno.

While I will keep my job and be 'ok,' in the eyes of my colleagues, I really question if I've limited many possible opportunities in the future with my boss??

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

I worked at a Fertelizer mixing tower for a couple of summers. One day I was transfering Nitrogen pellets to a different bin, but forgot to swtich an auger off along the way - well, it turned out that I accidently poured around 20 tonnes of Nitrogen into our Phosphorous bin ><
Boss was not happy. but in retrospect he went easy on me.

When it comes to bulk fertiziler, we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product.

The only thing we could do was mix up the the entire bin as best we could. take a few samples as we moved it, then determine an approximate mix that we had, and calculate how we could use it with our different customers' mixes - specifically those who were not very serious about the exact mix they needed.

Most humbling day at work Ive ever had.

 

[invidia]

Employers rarely remember any of the good stuff you have done at work and only the bad stuff. It just stands out much more.

 

[CPA]

It's not about the screw up, but how you propose to fix it and what you will do to insure it doesn't happen again.

 

[nerp]

My worst week was getting fired from a job for an honest mistake by a boss who really was just trying to get rid of me. My girlfriend dumped me a few days after that. Hmm. That was 7 years ago and considering how my life changed after that, it was a great thing that it all happened.

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

It's not about the screw up, but how you propose to fix it and what you will do to insure it doesn't happen again.

this.

 

[Jadow]

I've made a lot of mistakes in 8 years I've been with my company.

Bringing the production system down, billing issues, the works. Heck, I missed something on a test in Jan that prevented us from billing 200k in charges out until March.

Fortunately, my management has a stance that if you're not breaking something you're not trying hard enough. They don't like people who play it safe and CYA all day long.

In the end it's a lot more productive to move quickly,take risks, and fix problems when they arrise than to play it safe and try to avoid every problem.

 

[rasczak]

wow sorry OP.

I remember my first ever contractor type job. A company asked me wire their entire network (they were completely wireless). I came in, started laying the wire down, and finally came to the point where I needed to hook up to their router. for some stupid reason i thought that their patch panel (phone line) was where I needed to patch these cables up for internet access. I totally missed the wireless router (duh) sitting on a shelf behind me. So I snipped their lines. At that moment it dawned on me what I had done, realizing i had cutoff their phone lines. I couldn't do anything at that point as i didn't have the proper punch tool to get the cut wires back into the panel. Needless to say Monday morning came around and I got a firestorm of a talking to from the owner. I apologized and told her that she could take the cost of the repair off of my bill. After I said that she was happy as a clam. I finished the job, got paid and was so embarrassed that I never called back to see how things were going.

You're going to be OK OP. shit happens. learn and move on.

 

[rasczak]

Yeah, I'm not going to get fired.

But I spoke with my boss yesterday and he was congneial and tried to be reassuring and calm me down. So that was a good feeling. BUt VERY odd timing, he asked me pretty soon into the call "you know that developer position is still open in our dept. Have you considered it?" I was taken aback greatly, as I don't think the timing was a coincidence. But he presented it as a way to make more $$ than the current position. I told him I was not interested. So this item he mentioned, I feel maybe he now views me as a liability to your group. I dunno.

While I will keep my job and be 'ok,' in the eyes of my colleagues, I really question if I've limited many possible opportunities in the future with my boss??

give them some time to get over it. All you can do at this point is work hard and show the ability to learn from your past mistakes and what you are going to do if and when another mistake comes around. If you feel that he will never get over it, then make plans to move to a new job, I wouldn't want to work at a place feeling like I'll never get the opportunity to prove my worth.

 

[Possessed Freak]

When I worked at a Catholic school, a young priest who obviously did not know how to convey the afterlife to the kids made them upset. My class was after this (taught basic computer skills). A 3rd grader asked me in a teary voice on why their dog did not go to heaven... it has no soul the priest said. So I did the very diplomatic thing and said that while the dog might not make it on its own accord, surely if you make it to heaven why would God deny you your best friend? This cheered up the student. The next day I got a lecture on the bible and Catholicism from the priest. I don't think I ever wanted to punch a man as much as that day.

I would still be teaching if I could have lived on the pay. I miss that job.

 

[NesuD]

I made (or actually, didn't make) two judgment calls that most likely caused a bit of lost faith in my abilities. We are implementing a new software program at our company that is used by the whole sales team and very high up there execs. The scheduled update date has not changed however and we are on track with the original time line. But in me delaying these calls it caused quite a bit of consternation with my boss and his (most likely) loss of faith in my ability on future projects. While I didn't get fired (not that bad) I have delayed/postponed my advancement in our department (perhaps not forever, but it sure as hell seems like it now). So much stress this week. I'm probably down to Homer Simpson hair levels.

What about you? What was your worst day/week at your job?

Don't sweat it. The thing to keep in mind is that mistakes are how we learn. The only time mistakes become a big problem is when the same one keeps repeating itself. I question the desire to excel of someone who never makes a mistake. People who never make mistakes usually do so by playing it safe all the time. People who play it safe are at best just mediocre and will never realize their full potential. As an employer I would expect a mistake to happen now and then and be concerned if there never were any.

Read a story once (don't recall the name of the book) I think it was from Jack Welch former CEO of GE. Seems there was this bright up and coming young manager who was given charge of his first major project. Well things didn't go very well and the young man ended up losing several million dollars for the company. Welch called him up to his office and asked him to explain what went wrong. He told him all the mistakes he had made with the project and finished it up with "I completely understand if you fire me now". Welch just laughed and said why on earth would I do that after I just spent several million dollars on your education.

Keep your chin up and do better next time.

 

[MisterJackson]

If you stress over it you'll lose focus on your job and likely make further mistakes. THAT will probably get you fired. Just own the mistake, learn from it, and then move on.

If your boss is worth a flying flip he'll recognize your ability to overcome and do good work and the mistake will become a distant memory.

 

[PingSpike]

It's not about the screw up, but how you cover up your fuck up and who or what you blame the problem on.

fixed for American audiences!