People Share Their Best 'WTF Did I Just Get Myself Into?' Experiences

Everyone makes mistakes, and we've all done things that we aren't proud of.

But sometimes, we get involved in situations that we didn't see coming, and we wonder what we did to get ourselves stuck in this situation.

Curious, Redditor Spyno41 asked:

"What was your 'What the f**k did I just get myself into' moment?"

Not Their Scene

"My second job ever was at an air compressor factory. My job was using a hydraulic press to press fit a bearing into a cast aluminum housing."

"If you kept your foot on the pedal too long, it had enough force to crack the housing and explode the bearing. The press was wide open with zero safety barriers and you held the housing with your hands while the press did its thing."

"On my first day, I saw several people smoking something while on break and a group of five or six people get into a brawl. Not exactly the kind of people I'd trust my life, or feet, with. I left on my lunch break and never returned."

- thegreatturtleofgort

Not A Good Sign

"I once went to a temp job. The owner had requested help as soon as possible, so my recruiter asked me to go immediately and go into the office after the shift ended. I left within minutes."

"I walked in the door of this place and the owner/manager/whatever was literally yelling about how 'godd**n long it took to get someone!'"

"I just told him sorry and walked right back out."

- hereholdthiswire

Every Time

"I’m a software consultant and I have the same thought every time I start a new project at a new company."

"'What the f**k did I just get myself into?! This project is gonna be WILD,' and I’m usually right, lol (laughing out loud)."

"I swear, every company’s software is held together with duct tape and super glue. I’ve yet to see a company who has their s**t together, although I hope I one day can."

- fishsix

A Ransomware Welcome

"I had been working for a company as a helpdesk tech for a few years. I got some certifications and was looking to progress my career - so I told my boss that I wanted to do the job I was studying for..."

"She was excited to hear I passed my certification and was happy to promote me, as the previous network admin was preparing to retire."

"While I was acclimating to the role, we got hit with a catastrophic ransomware attack. It was not my fault, but absolutely my problem because I was the only one with any technical skills beyond the helpdesk."

"That was a long and tiring engagement... But at least I know what it's like to work 100 hours in a week."

- roflrogue

Early Parenthood

"It hit me right before having my first kid, like two hours before the birth happened."

- Hot_Focus_4017

"I remember leaving the hospital and being so confused that they were just letting us leave with this tiny human. Like, 'Here's this tiny human. Try not to break it.'"

- GreatTragedy

"In a similar vein, but right after our baby shower."

"Everyone had left and I placed the baby presents on the kitchen table and I just stared. The house was quiet and empty now. My mom drove back home (five hours away), all my friends went back to their houses, and any phone calls and Skype calls were long over."

"This was it. I was on my own. What we got at this shower was all the support we would be receiving, and the reality of that hit pretty hard. It was a sinking feeling that being on the other end of the country from family and friends was going to make this harder than I had anticipated."

"Bringing the baby home was easy. We already knew that there would be no help, so I accepted my fate."

- hgaterms

Navy Life

"I had my 18th birthday laying on the top bunk of the United States naval boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois."

"Laying in the dark in the middle of the night, I was two weeks in and wondering this exact thing."

- wallysan2270

"I enlisted at 25. I was old enough to know better, and I had that same feeling combined with, 'What rock did they recruit these other morons out from under?'"

- TerriblePokemon

Religious Expectations

"Oh! I definitely have one of these!"

"I was sitting in the Mormon temple during my first endowment ceremony. I had been born and raised in the church but the temple endowment is something else entirely and I was not prepared for how different and weird it was."

"I was sitting on one side of the room with the women while my husband was on the other side with the men. They were telling us to chant certain things and we had to put on these weird green robes and veil over our white clothes. My husband had some sort of baker's hat."

"I remember looking across the room at him wearing that dumb hat and thinking, 'What have I done?' I was so embarrassed. We were supposed to be chanting and learning hand signals and handshakes and my brain was like, 'I’m in a cult. This is a cult. How did this happen?'"

- anon_opotamus

"I wish this was higher, lol (laughing out loud). I was lucky in that I somehow knew a lot more than I was supposed to? Despite being a good Mormon and not seeking it out? So it wasn't a shock, but it was kind of a trip."

"I remember trying to puzzle out how this was somehow different from 'secret combinations.'"

- TenLongFingers

Such Commitment

"I thought that when I entered the water of my first Ironman triathlon."

- adrenalizenme6

"First! So you did it again?"

- dissectingAAA

"I did! Four more times so far, lol (laughing out loud)."

- adrenalizenme6

Overly Stressful

"This happened a few years ago. I started at a new swing shift full-time job, and I made it clear to the interviewer and manager that I could only work 40 hours a week with five eight-hour shifts from 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM."

"I was also going to school full time doing 22 credit hours a semester."

"The first night on the job, my lead walked up to me and said, 'We have a big order to finish. Can you stay until 1:00 AM?'"

"I immediately stopped what I was doing and found the manager who hired me and restated what I made very clear in the interview."

"He then told me that if I wanted to keep my job, I'd need to put in at least a few extra hours a week."

"Desperate to make money and pay bills, I stayed at that place for almost three years. During the winter months (busy season), I was working 12- to 15-hour nights and then going to school during the day."

"The most frustrating part is during the summer (slow season), they would call off the swing and night shift, telling us there wasn't enough work and to stay home."

"I had enough of this after I wasn't allowed to leave work one night that I was overly stressed and started to feel lightheaded. My arm was going numb, and when I looked in the bathroom mirror, I couldn't move half my face."

"I went to the manager that night and said I thought I was having a stroke, and they told me to keep working, and I couldn't go home. I was 25 at the time, and when I went to the doctor later, it was confirmed to be a stroke."

- LuckyCat997

An Unexpected Encounter

"I was at a mall and ran into an old high school classmate. He shook my hand and asked me to join him and his friends for a meal at McDonald's."

" While we ate, he started talking about how Jesus Christ saved him and showed him the way (and all the usual stuff you would expect). He was a completely different person than how I remembered him from 10 years prior."

"As we were exiting the mall, he asked me if I could pray with them. I didn't want to be an a**hole so I agreed."

"So we formed a circle and they started praying (out loud) including for me. This was in the middle of the day, at the busiest place of the 100k city."

"I just remember thinking to myself, 'Is this real'? He spent the next few weeks trying to convince me to join him at their religious gatherings but I refused."

- Remote-Noise5112

"I had something VERY similar happen to me, except it wasn't religion. He was a finance bro."

- snekinmaboot1

"I swear, when old classmates contact you, it's either to join their religious sect or some pyramid scheme!"

- Remote-Noise5112

Intense Volunteer Work

"Long story short, someone asked me to be a volunteer firefighter. Since it was all free training and a little extra income, I figured sure why not, how hard can it be?"

"I went through the academy and got all my certificates. Two weeks later, we had our first big call. The 3-story apartment building top floor was fully engulfed. I got on scene and the chief looked at me and my buddy and said, 'You two get that hose line and get upstairs. You are fire attack one.'"

"I just stood there and looked at him, then at the raging inferno, and then him again, thinking, 'Are you crazy? You want us to go where? Can't you see it's on fire?'"

"My buddy grabbed me and the line, and we headed upstairs. We entered the main hall, and it looked like a scene from a movie. Fire rolling over our heads, the entire length of the hallway all I thought was, 'What the heck did I sign up for?'"

" We were up there for about five minutes (but it felt like an hour) before command started blasting air horns signaling to evacuate. We ended up taking a defensive stand and surrounded and drowned the thing."

"I stayed on as a volunteer for the next seven years before I moved on. Good times!"

- baronvonredbud

Not What It Seemed

"I thought that while getting my first post-college job at ITT Tech right as they were getting investigated for misleading and overcharging students. While interviewing, everyone was really nice and the place was clean and professional."

"However, it didn’t take long for me to start seeing through all the smoke and mirrors. I made cold calls to lines I knew wouldn’t answer or were disconnected and collected a decent paycheck for six months before getting out of there."

"I’m shocked it took six more years for them to completely shut down."

- DontCallMeBenji

Traveling Solo

"Driving from San Francisco to Denver for an ad-hoc road trip before my flight back to Germany, diverting onto Highway 50 at Fallon on a whim, because I saw it on TopGear once."

"I literally stood at a rest stop, saw that 'Loneliest Road in America' sign and thought, 'Neat; I'ma find that tree full of shoes and just stop at whatever motels on my way.'"

"Alone. At night. With p**s poor cell reception. Without ANY experience doing road trips like this."

"After an hour or so on that road without ANY traffic, I asked myself that question."

"(Silence) Best driving experience of my life."

- sakatan

Recreational Diving

"I suddenly wondered what I was doing, 110 feet underwater, in the pitch black, in a massive downwelling current, and starting to panic."

- futureformerteacher

Nightmare Fuel

"I was at a festival and Robert Randolph was offering for someone to play guitar with him. I don't know how he waved me up, but as I am being escorted up by security the reality of not knowing how to play guitar hits."

"This was probably the longest 30 seconds of walking in my life as I was about to be in front of a few thousand people."

"I get on stage to some cheers, and he places a guitar on me, and says, 'We're in G, you know what you're doing?' All I can muster is the truth that I know bass, so he quickly pulls the guitar off and finds someone else."

"I got to watch the rest of the set from backstage and Mr. Randolph laughed about it after and thanked me for being honest. Apparently, people have not been forthcoming and made bigger fools of themselves than I did."

- BrewsterRockit

From underwater adventures to the first day on the job, there's no end to the "deer in headlights" feeling that these Redditors had to offer. At least there's some comfort in knowing that other people experience this feeling, too!