The Biggest Mistakes People Have Ever Made At Work

Dedicated employees strive to do their best in the workplace.

After all, there's a lot at stake, and poor job performance can result in unwanted consequences.

But because not everyone is perfect and human error is inevitable, minor missteps are par for the course.

Unless those missteps are major.

Employees admit to not excelling at work when an anonymous Redditor asked:

"What's the worst mistake you ever made at school or at work?"

Too much confidence can be to your detriment.

Biting Off More Than Can Be Chewed

"Volunteered to help with transport."

– tishjf

Too Much Of A Good Thing

"I did a lot of things at work in one day, and my boss set this as the norm for me."

– Orthodoxghee966

"Just had a part time job bait and switch me with something like this."

"I have a full-time dev job with great benefits, but I was getting tired of it. Was pulled by a friend to be part time dev on some projects. I was TOLD one thing and what I'd be working on only to give stuff not related to what I was told or software I was told I'd be working with. They asked if I wanted to be full-time time, and I said yes because I was thinking of leaving my current job only to be told of various reasons why they couldn't do it at that time.' That set off my red flags."

"First project I was told was small was a FULL dev project that I couldn't complete in a month if I had 40 hours a week. Then they added that if I could complete this project before x date, then full-time would likely not be an issue because they wouldn't care about a contract being signed by a prospective client. I immediately realized they were trying to not only get full-time work at a third of the cost but also set the bar that if I managed to pull it off, that would be the standard they'd hold me to."

"I politely told them, 'Yea I'll stick with the stuff you originally told me I'd be working on.'"

– SheriffComey

Pasta Foul

"I cooked about 50 pounds of macaroni. Then dropped the pan, moving it. Cleaning up 50 pounds of oiled-up pasta is not fun.."

– NissanNiqqa69420

Nugget Of Truth

"My second job was at Wendy’s. I was trained by a rough-around-the-edges and very fun older lady."

"First day she told me: 'don’t let them know you’re good at something because they’ll take advantage of you'… as she popped a stolen, but very fresh chicken nuggy off the line into her mouth 😅"

"The nuggets just don’t taste the same when they’re not stolen off the clock."

– Antique-Airport2451

Doing The Ethically-Compromised Boss's Bidding

"Worked at a granite countertop manufacturing company in the Ap/ar department. I have no history or training in financial or accounting. The owner decided he wanted to let go of the current payroll lady, who had a degree in accounting, and dump it all on me with just a few days of training in Excel. Actually, he got the hang of it alright after a bit, then he wanted me to start handling his personal finances also."

"Found out he was siphoning huge amounts of money from business accounts to his personal bank account then telling his workers he couldn’t pay them. He thought I wouldn’t say anything because I was heavily pregnant and needed the job. He was correct, and I didn’t say anything."

"Until he tried to fire me at 8 and a half months pregnant. I had a bit of a mental breakdown and went to one of the co-owners and let it all slip. Company went under a little over a year later. It was a huge mess. My mistake was not bringing it to the co-owners sooner. Dude got away with it all somehow."

– InstantElla

These Redditors had witnesses.

Bad Example

" Deleted the production database while showing a group of trainees what NOT to do."

– SheriffComey

"The real lesson from that day was learning we had a data backup process but no data restoration process."

"Took a while and a LOT of people, especially in our IT department, learned many valuable lessons."

"Like I tell my son, 'I can't tell you what to do, but I can give you a long list of what NOT to do.'"

"In my defense, the naming convention of the databases at this place was horrendous, and it was very, very easy to update the wrong database thanks to it. I found out I wasn't the only one to do this but I did delete one of the most critical ones that everyone used. 30 seconds after I did it, my phone started ringing off the hook."

– SheriffComey

Ship Happens

"I was once teaching a boat full of trainees how to navigate from one channel to another without running aground .... and ran aground pretty hard."

– RagingAardvark

Roam Free

"I left a gate open while herding cattle on my own property. 437 cows ended up scattered on the highway. It was chaos. It took us 14hrs, with myself and 9 other people, and 4 cattle dogs, to get them back in. Luckily I can’t fire myself but it sucked and was the most stressed I’ve even been."

"I also grow produce in large commercial greenhouses, its a job that involves heating the greenhouses through the winter and causes a lot of sleep deprivation, I slept through my alarm and froze out 30,000 tomato plants. It was a hard financial hit."

– kitgrow

Beware Of Pranksters

"Convinced by my superior at a new job that a guy sitting opposite me was called Hugh Janus and they paid me $10 to say his full name during a meeting and I thought it was a friendly initiation."

– theITthrowaway98

Hot Mess

"I accidentally lit some foam on fire at the warehouse I work at, and all the foam piles immediately caught on fire."

– spon000

Maybe these Redditors were too occupied at the time.

Freudian Slip Much?

"I once accidentally said 'I love you' to my boss while saying goodbye on the phone. I didn’t realize it until after i hung up the phone and he immediately called me back just to laugh at me."

– Skank-Pit

"On a phone call, I thought my boss said, 'I love you,' and answered, 'I love you too.' After a brief pause, she said a surprised sounding goodbye, after which I realized that she had not said that she loves me. She was an older, motherly woman and the fact is, I did and do love her, but I was embarrassed nonetheless."

– MrsTurtlebones

Costly Gaffe

"We were required to report 'red money' (wasted funds) on a management web site. We had a major screw up on a job that cost us $75,000 to fix. When I entered the information as directed, I failed to notice that the units for the cost were in K$ (1,000's of dollars). Instead of entering 75, I put in 75,000, for a 75 million dollar loss, and submitted the report. It set off alarms at every management level including the CEO in Paris."

"But that wasn't the worst part."

"When I came in the next morning and was confronted by the Vice President of our group with my mistake, I laughed because I thought it was funny."

– OkieBobbie

Screw Loose

"I make mistakes at work all the time. I'd say the worst was when I was a mechanic. I put a new set of brake pads and rotors on the shop owner's vehicle. He brought it back a couple of days later with a clunk. When I took the front wheels off, both front brake calipers were loose. Evidently I never tightened the mounting bolts. Definitely the mistake that could have been the most dangerous."

– SendMe_SmallBoobs

Misinterpreted Order

"Accidentally ordered 48 cases of something refrigerated instead of 'each' (4x the necessary amount and way more than we had refrigerated room for.) Luckily it was corporate and other locations took them off of our hands immediately and did pay outs and what not so I didn’t get into any trouble, just got made fun of for a bit (reasonably so)."

– Notascoutstillag

Wasted Stock

"I work in large format digital printing. I was printing 20mm foam core (which is very expensive). The print was double sided and I accidentally flipped the image on the 2nd side upside down, and didn’t notice as all I paid attention to was if the trim marks lined up."

"About $8000 worth of stock wasted."

– Bearlyahead

When you work in theater, you typically perform eight shows a week.

The constant repitition is an occupational hazard, as you can get too comfortable and wind up "phoning" in your performance.

That's highy unprofessional of course, and actors should challenge themselves to find new ways of staying present in every scene as if the moment is new to the character. They owe that to the paying audience who is seeing the show for the first time.

That being said, let's just say, I was an understudy who went on for a major role. Without going into detail, I flubbed a line.

The snafu had nothing to do with me "phoning it in." In fact, I was overly focused. Maybe too focused.

The line I missed was a crucial one that without it, the show could not progress to the next scene.

Oops. Fortunately, one of the actors brilliantly improvised and somehow made it make sense for the scene to continue.

That's the beauty of live theater!