People Reveal How They Accidentally Ruined Someone's Life

There's a saying:

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

People can have the very best intentions when doing something, but still have things go disastrously wrong.

And sometimes, other people get caught in the crossfire.

Reddit user xxHoneyBunxx_ asked:

"People who accidentally ruined someone‘s life without meaning to—what happened and how do you feel about it know?"

Last To Know

"I work in Human Resources and way back when I was new and naive, I had a home address change request for an employee come across my desk."

"I couldn’t read the handwriting and wanted to be sure I put in the correct new address, so I called their house and their wife answered."

"I asked her about it and much to my surprise she said what the hell are you talking about‽‽' The employee came up to me a few days later and said 'I didn’t tell her I was moving out yet'."

~ OutOfPlace186

Wing Man

"I unknowingly introduced a really good friend to the most toxic person I’ve ever come across in my life."

"My college buddy Chris (fake name) and I both had a Thursday afternoon off and decided to hit up a happy hour. It was early, there were only about a dozen people in the bar including us and a group of 3 girls."

"One of the girls was 100% Chris’s type (tall, thin, dark hair, outgoing), but he was a shy guy and didn’t have the courage to strike up a conversation."

"30min and some liquid courage later, I take it upon myself to start chatting with the girls and specifically introduced Chris to the tall, dark haired girl Veronica (fake name for this story). She and her friends were all single, our age, in a nursing program at a cross town school and seemed like nice gals."

"Chris, myself and the girls ended up shutting down the bar that night and by 10PM, Chris & Veronica were fully sucking face and acting like the rest of us didn’t exist. I was happy for him, but got a little nervous when they ended up leaving together and her friends started joking about ‘not knowing what he was in for’. Whatever, he’s an adult and far be it from me to rain on his parade."

"After that night, Chris effectively disappeared off the map. The only times I would see him was in class or at that same bar with Veronica. The dude just seemed off, but refused to talk about it and insisted he was happy. Veronica on the hand? Refused to let him out of her sight (would make him wait outside the bathroom for her)."

"Surprise surprise, turns out Veronica was a complete sociopath/narcissist/straight-up con-artist who bled Chris dry both emotionally and financially. Highlights include (but are not limited to) fake pregnancies, forcing him to cut off friends, demanding he drop classes to fit her schedule, and manipulating him into paying her rent/bills/lifestyle."

"Now, Chris came from a nice upper-middle-class family with whom he was super close, and apparently, they rightfully had some suspicions about this girl. I had just figured he was head over heels for Veronica and ignoring us all, but I knew something was wrong when his Mom called me and asked if I had spoken to Chris lately."

"Turns out he had drained his bank account and started wracking up significant debt on the credit card he shared with parents, buying crazy expensive jewelry/make up/clothes for Veronica. That was enough for his parents to drive the 4hours from their hometown to stage a mini intervention."

"In the end, Chris had to drop out of school, move back home, and his parents ended up getting a restraining order against Veronica. His parents forced him to get a job to pay off the $3K he accrued and ended up forfeiting his partial football scholarship."

"I lost touch with him once he moved back home, but I sometimes wonder how his life would’ve turned out if we didn’t go to happy hour at Kelly’s on that Thursday."

~ sloppy_sheiko

First Timer

"I was a volunteer firefighter a while back. Pager went off for a medical assist (we often had to help the ambulance with patient lifts, etc...). I opted to give my spot on the truck to the rookie we had in training, figured a lift assist, he could help the guys and get that mental boost of being on the team. No biggy."

"I shouldn't have. Patient was an older guy who had been smoking in his wheelchair, wearing synthetics, and with oxygen thru nose. Caught fire. Was a lift assist to get patient onto the helicopter. Didn't survive the flight."

"The rookie had to see that as his first call. He left brigade shortly after. Some sh*t you really can never unsee, and he was just a high schooler trying to do something good for the community. Hope he's OK these days."

"I've seen alot that'll never leave me either, but I have come to accept that is how life and death can be, and I was prepared the moment the helmet was on for whatever came at me. Kid probably was his first experience of that and unprepared for it."

~ waikato_wizard

Go With the Flow

"I was looking after my friends' apartment while they were on vacation. There was building work outside and someone hit the downpipe of the toilet, which broke the ceramic toilet bowl, flooding the bathroom."

"I cleaned it all up then complained to the building management and asked for the toilet to be replaced before they got back, which set off a series of events that led to them being evicted."

"It turned out they were illegally subletting without knowing it."

"I felt like absolute sh*t at the time, but they ended up moving back to Australia because if it, and living a good life there, so I'm OK with it now."

~ ScreamingDizzBuster

Timing

"An ex-coworker had been a manager at a different company, and at the time managed a team member who was not cutting it. He gave her lots of chances and opportunities, but she was failing miserably at the job."

"He made the decision to fire her. She was terribly upset - loved the job/company. Begged him to stay. He had to say no."

"Fast forward a few weeks later, she gets a new job opportunity - across the country. Needs to fly out for the interview. She was on one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers, on her way to that interview."

"He obviously had no control over any of this but felt deep regret for a long time. What if he waited just a few more weeks to fire her? Delayed her search for a new job, and then she wouldn’t have been on that plane."

"That story always sticks with me."

~ CurlyMom7

Hooked

"Many years ago I was going to the track (harness races) and I asked a guy, Alan, if he wanted to tag along. He was 17 I think. He'd never even seen a horse before. Each race I would tell him what I thought and he'd either bet $2 or skip the race. $2 was important to him."

"Then, in a late race, there was a horse named Minya Mitzvah. He got all excited. 'A Jewish horse! I gotta bet him!' The horse was awful, and I told him so. Went off at 30-1."

"This was early winte,r and there was a heavy fog obscuring the far side of the track. Off they go and disappear into the fog. Even the announcer is saying 'your guess is as good as mine'."

"They're in the fog for a long time, and finally, the first horse emerges. Alone. We're waiting for the rest of the pack, which eventually the field emerges, but the lead horse is way out in front."

"Who knows what happened in that fog. We can now see the colors, and sure enough, it's Minya Mitzvah."

"It cruises home, and Alan reveals that he bet $10. So now this kid suddenly has more money than he'd ever seen in his life. His brain is doing cartwheels."

"He was hooked. From that day on he became a degenerate gambler, always chasing that high. Years later, he told me, 'I can't stop. Even if you gave me a million bucks, I'd be broke in a year."

"All because of a Jewish horse and me casually asking him if he wanted to tag along."

~ ParadisePete

Phone Tag

"My good friend was scheduled to have surgery when it was discovered she had an aneurysm. I was with her at the hospital with her family and right before she was taken away, she handed me her phone and said she wanted me to keep it until she was in recovery."

"She ended up dying on the table, she was a heavy smoker for 20+ years and that doctor couldn’t find any good tissue to graft to save her."

"I turned her phone back on and just handed it to her husband. It was maybe 24 hours after her death when we discovered that she had been having an affair for years, had been embezzling money from the business to provide for her boyfriend, and signed over a car to him that he was supposedly still paying for."

"It broke all of us, and I still have unresolved feelings towards her for putting me in that position. I think she knew I would figure it out from her phone and expected me to cover for her."

"I love and miss you Amy but you’re a POS for doing that to your family."

~ Trin_42

Lost In Translation

"I do photography and videography at weddings. This particular wedding, half the guests spoke a language I am not fluent in and it was before AI translations existed."

"The mother of the bride said something derogatory about the groom's mom in her native language and I included it in their video because she was smiling when she said it."

"Turns out the groom's mom spoke multiple languages."

"The cameras we use for video look just like a still camera so sometimes I intentionally let people think I am taking photos because it makes for better candid b-roll.

Bride's family was from India, groom's family was from California. Both very wealthy. It's a destination wedding location and it's not uncommon for weddings to break $100k all in.

"The groom's mom was in great shape and wearing a dress that let everyone know. Bride's mom was in traditional Indian wedding attire which is typically very conservative."

"The comment was about the dress being too revealing. The groom's mom traveled to India for work and spoke basic Hindi, but didn't tell anyone. I assume in an attempt to eavesdrop."

"We post a teaser video before the full video goes live a few weeks later, so everyone already has a link and gets a notification when the video uploads. Because of the time difference, the groom's family saw the video before the bride's side."

"I have since done photos for the couple and the parents from California. They mentioned that the bride’s mom was so embarrassed by the comment being on video, that contact has been minimal."

"California mom doesn't take it personally. Cultural issues are common at weddings."

~ Sufficient_Bake6862

Jessica

"Coworker would always talk about how 'Jessica and I' were going to go here, or 'Jessie and I' went there, or 'Jess and I' got up to this, that, or the other."

"One day I ran into him and his wife in the wild. He introduced her only as 'my wife'. I, of course, said 'Oh, Jessica. It's nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you'."

"Gentle reader, his wife's name was not Jessica."

"I feel nothing about it. He shouldn't have been cheating on his wife."

"But if was going to, he shouldn't have spent years telling me about Jessica then introduce his wife only as 'my wife'."

~ pm_me_gnus

Nepotism

"I was working for a federal program and had a boss who hired her sister without disclosing to higher ups that it was her sister. A disclosure required by the program."

"Boss then paid the sister 2x the usual rate for the job and sister was logging a lot of extra work hours that she hadn't actually been working. I only found out because my boss insisted I needed to do the time sheet inputs for her because she couldn't be bothered."

"Boss told me to take any questions to Boss's boss and left for the day."

"I noticed the discrepancy immediately, and went to boss's boss to let them know there was an issue with time tracking vs scheduling 'on her sister's time sheet' and wanted to know what I should do."

"The sister thing was news to Boss's boss and then the discrepancy triggered an investigation that uncovered a whole bunch of other misuse of government funding. Boss lost her job, the FBI got involved, and Boss eventually ended up with some massive fines and jail time."

"Knowing what I know now, I would accidentally report her again."

~ St3phiroth

Moving Day

"Big move on a busy road a while ago. Lots of moving parts. Permits. Store downstairs. Reserved parking. Just an incredibly stressful amount of management."

"When the day comes me and my roomies were incredibly stressed because if one thing goes wrong, the whole house of cards collapses. It seemed, however, to be smooth sailing."

"The only thing that was annoying, was that cars kept parking on our reserved space (before we got our moving vans there). Most left numbers we could call, so we did and they'd usually leave."

Right before my dad is supposed to show up, four cars park in the reserved spot. They'd left no number. Their owners weren't in sight. There was no way for me to get any of these cars out of there."

"To be clear: this meant that there was nowhere for my dad to park the moving van in this incredibly busy road. If he couldn't, we couldn't move my stuff, which was completely blocking the already very tight hallway and first part of the stairwell."

"Moving my stuff back up four floors was out of the question. I had like 40 minutes to solve this, so I just called the cops. They show up within 15 minutes, start writing down fines, and tell me they'll get a tow truck."

"Half an hour later, a tow truck shows up, along with a couple of the car's owners. Big arguments between the cops and the owners."

"All of a sudden, reinforcements show up. Like six other cops. Apparently they'd seen drugs laying in one of the cars illegally parked there. And the dude seemed to be working in the hookah bar across the street."

"So they detain the guy with the drugs and wait around for an hour to get a warrant to raid the f*cking hookah place. Meanwhile, one cop is holding back traffic (including trams in two directions) so my dad can parallel park the van)."

"Other civilians are still arguing. It's f*cking chaos and I'm just standing there so f*cking stressed out about what's going on."

"Suddenly, one of the cops asks me if the sandwich place downstairs in the building always has their outdoor seating out like this. Apparently that was also illegal so they start getting into that."

"Four people got pretty big fines and towing costs, the sandwich place has no more outdoor seating, the hookah place is closed and I'm sure the drug user was arrested."

"Just cuz they parked in my spot."

~ Friendly_District547

Have you ever witnessed someone's life ruined by accident?

What happened?