Worst screw-up at work

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Sphexi

Originally posted by: NeuroSynapsis

Originally posted by: Sphexi
A buddy of mine worked for a contractor who was hired by IBM, and they were moving some giant, expensive machine or other around, and I guess they had just inches of room between it and the ceiling, and he wasn't paying attention and rammed it full speed (using an electric pallet jack) into some sort of pipe carrying coolant (this is in a chip mfg facility). Not only did he bust the pipe open, spilling coolant out, but they had to shut down the production line, plus the machine he was moving was a total loss, and it was some sort of xray device or other, not sure how expensive but it was enough to lose his job and be threatened with lawsuits for a while until they calmed down.

Myself, I've never done anything super horrible, although at my last job I got a 2-ton load of lumber caught on the steel girder that was supporting it, and when I tried to wrench it free I bent the steel upright support sideways, making a whole row of bays unusable for 2 months until someone came and replaced the girder ($15k in costs). We ended up just using them anyways, since the bend in it wasn't that noticible. Didn't even write me up for it either, lucky me.

wow that ibm story is horrendous

I know it. The sad thing is the guy dropped out of college to take this job, because he felt his engineering program was going nowhere (he wanted to get into CAD and drafting), and that this would give him a foot in the door so to speak. Obviously after this he was kind of screwed, and shortly afterwards knocked up his girlfriend, and all 3 of them ended up having to move in with his mom.

This was at the Vermont plant right?

A friend of mine worked there...I'm not aware of any screw ups he made, but I remember him telling me some construction crew was working on something in the plant and managed to kill the power to a huge section. I guess part of the chip making process involves dipping wafers or something in acid for a precise amount of time. So a bunch of product ended up ruined. He didn't tell me what the fall out for the construction company was though.

I'm pretty sure that would've been the company my friend worked for, Engleberth or something like that. I had two friends that worked there, only one screwed up really badly and got fired, the other still works there.

 

[daveymark]

can't say for legal purposes...let's just say it involved a uniloader, a hook and a basket of apples

 

[her209]

Not mine.

Meant to delete an account for a user that left the company. Ended deleting the OU that contained said account. OU also contained all accounts for users in Southern California.

 

[mattpegher]

Medical here. Hopefully the multiple layers of checks and balances keep us from making any kind of dangerous mistake. If i order the wrong drug or wrong dose the nurse usually catches it. If I give someone a drug their allergic to the pharmacy usually catches it. But considering that any medical mistake could result in a multimillion dollar settlement, we try like hell to not allow any one persons actions to go unchecked. All the major mistakes I have seen have been due to erogance and not listening or reevaluating your orders when questioned by others.

 

[MrPickins]

I was doing some land surveying with a Leica RTK GPS system which consists of a backpack with the receiver hardware in it, along with a pole that has the antenna on top. I needed to look in my truck for the plat map so I leaned the pole on the truck and set the backpack on the ground. After reading the map, I realized I needed to be on the other side of the tract, so I hopped in the truck and took off. As soon as I felt the bump, I knew what had happened. I had run directly over the backpack, flattening the receiver. At the time that model was worth around $20k.

Insurance covered it, but my boss had recently been harping on us about equipment maintenance, so they decided to make an example of us, and fired my whole 3 man crew.

 

[Bateluer]

My most recent mess up more funnier than serious. I was having a conversation with another coworker while connecting some cannon plug cables. The cable I was trying to connect wasn't going in, so while still talking, I examined the plug for damage and tried again. Still didn't go on, so I examined it again. After the second time, the guy I was talking to started laughing. It was then that I noticed it both the plug and connector were female ends.

Another time, I accidentally hooked up a 20db attenuator instead of the needed 10db attenuator. Didn't cause any damage, but the bench check failed I spent a good 30 minutes trouble shooting before I figured out the wrong part was on. The 20db and 10db attenuators a visually identical and the labels are faded so it was an easy mistake to make. I relabeled both attenuators after that.

 

[DainBramaged]

I ran over about $1000 worth of copy machine parts with my manly truck.

 

[Evadman]

Worst screw up was I put a steel pipe into a compactor at work. I thought the compactor would just taco it, but it did not. The compactor pushed the pipe out of the side of the compactor and into the loaded truck next to it. It went though the side of the semi and 2 pallets of special order doors. That was about $15k of product plus whatever the compactor and trailer were to fix.

I also dropped a bunk of fencing from about 20' up because I had 32" forks on a 60" fence leaving a balance point of less than 2 inches on the fork. I said it would fall, my boss said move it anyway. It fell when a customer ignored the screaming spotter and kept walking into my path. I was forced to take my foot off the gas which was enough for gravity to take the bunk. Thankfully I was staring at the bunk and saw it starting to go and jammed the gas and turned to push the falling bunk away from where i guessed the guy would be. The only casualty was the fencing and the 1/4 pallet of fence parts I ran over. Scared the sh!t out of the guy because the bunk missed him by a few feet, and the side of my fork almost hit him before I stopped my momentum.

I have also ran updates or deletes on production tables without where clauses at least twice. Both times were because I was in a hurry and someone needed something immediately.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i backwashed a swimming pool filter system for too long and drained about a foot of water off of a 6 lane 25m pool. it was one of those pools where the water is supposed to be levell with the poolside. apparently it can be considered dangerous, and i guess so the pool is now 1 ft shallower lol

in my defense, i followed the filter cleaning routine to the letter as it was printed on the controls. however, what i didnt know was that the back tank at this particular pool ( a smallish tank full of pool water which is what is used when backwashing the filters) was actually designed way too small.

instead of being able to wait for the water in the monitoring tube to go clear, you could actually only backwash for about 30 seconds before the bank tank was drained and it started taking in actual pool water instead

a funny screw up at a place where my mate is on placement is a good one

some irish guy turns up with a flat bed HGV, and some how manages to over hear the managers name being said whilst a warehouse employee is on the phone to him

he turns up and says im here to pick up the titanium.... warehouse guys are like ?.... he says dont worry adrian gave me the go ahead.

they let him drive off with 20k's worth of titanium

 

[Cattlegod]

organized about 30 engineers to come to a meeting and report out on issues (basically for a beating), then when we started reviewing the issues, our chief said "Who the hell brought all these people here". I was like "Uhh, that was me". Needless to say, he didn't want them there lol.

 

[Raduque]

My screwups are pretty minor. I usually either put the wrong note on an account or disconnect the wrong line, but I catch it before the end of the call and correct it. The biggest screw up I did was disconnected somebody's line out of contract same-day, rather then future-dated, and they ended up with only 200-some minutes allowance when they used like 1200 and ended up with a humongous bill =X

 

[jagec]

At my old maintenance job I was driving the truck, with three coworkers sitting on the back...no, not legal, but that's how we rolled at the maintenance department. I turn the corner and accelerate, not realizing that the guy in the middle didn't have anything to hang onto. Luckily I wasn't going very fast, so he wasn't badly hurt, but I felt like CRAP and my driving privileges were suspended for a while.

At a later job, I managed to break no fewer than FOUR $1500 diamonds in four separate incidents. The first two might not have been my fault (unresolved), but the other ones absolutely were.

 

[imported_Imp]

Just remembered a hilarious, but stupid one. At my first job as a receptionist, which I was never good at due to a language barrier, some old guy came into an old folks home. Well, he walks up to the front desk (me), and asks for a guy in a bad accent called "Ricky": the name of our administrator. I tell him to wait cause the head honcho is in a meeting across the floor with all the department heads and a few other 'executives'. So I give it about 10 minutes, tell the guy to wait; he tells me that he's in a hurry, the engines running, he's gotta go, it's urgent and that he's "Ricky's" grandfather. Naturally, I went into the meeting to get my boss.

Lo and behold, "Ricky" doesn't recognize the dude, and after 5 seconds, it is more than obvious that the guy isn't his grandfather. If he were, it probably would have required two teen pregnancies between successive generations. Turns out the guy was really looking for "Vicky": one of the summer interns. I just hauled as* to find the right person in shame...

 

[Mr Incognito]

I've been pretty lucky but Thursday night one of the beers I stocked got upright and the top quarter inch of the bottle broke off clean. When someone ordered a Corona it sliced the bartenders palm. Needless to say I felt like shit for the rest of the night.

 

[Reliant]

Dropped a server when trying to rack it. Bent it all out of shape and it wouldn't turn on.