What's the biggest mistake you made at work, and were you fired for it?

[Bethany22]

[WhiteSteve]

I was a bouncer for many years, and I was generally EXTREMELY cool, but when I get provoked enough, I black out and can do some crazy shit. So oftentimes, there’d be an issue with a patron, and if the patron went out of line in a manner that made it personal, particularly if they hit me, there’d be a whole scene where people would end up restraining ME. Probably was not an ideal occupation for someone of my demeanor, lmao. Plus I’m just regular-big, not holy-shit-big, so guys were more prone to try to fight with me than if I was 300 lbs, I think.

Anyway, I ended up in one of these situations where I was seeing red, I’d been separated from the guy but he was still inside the building, and there was a wall of co-workers and probably some super-regular customers I was friendly with (I was in a haze, I don’t remember exactly) between us. I think it had settled for a second and I wasn’t in anyone’s grasp, and the kid yelled something else at me that reignited me, and I just instinctively grabbed one of the balls off of the pool table I was next to, took a crow hop and just gunned it at him. Luckily, I was late to let go of it and it misfired, and I somehow missed everyone and it harmlessly hit the back of a tall bar chair. That’s probably a felony if I connected😅 And secondarily, I was lucky I didn’t put a hole in the wall, or break a mirror or a window.

I figured I would be fired within the week, but I was popular there, I it never made its way up to the owner. The general manager and the manager on duty both loved me, and they just knew my deal, I think they were satisfied with the fact that I’m never instigatory or walking around like Billy Badass all the time, I just respond badly when provoked. The owner is really the only one who would’ve fired me, and that guy was already man-crushing on this absolute bozo of a manager we had who was blowing SO MUCH coke at work with half of the waitresses, just disappearing for like an hour at a time. But he played in a band so the owner thought he was just swell, lmfao. What a shitshow, now that I look back😂 Anyway…. that’s one of the crazier things that happened, and I wasn’t fired or reprimanded beyond a “take it easy, big boy” from the manager. I actually was promoted to manager not long after that lmao

[MCheetah]

That first paragraph sounds almost exactly like me. I worked in concert security as well as being a bouncer for three years, 2011-2013. I'm also short AF (5'11") and was 300 pounds at the time (half of which *was* muscle), so most men at clubs and bars were taller than me, but did not outweigh me, and thought they could take me in a fight just due to being short, when their punches literally felt like girl taps.

I knew no one could seriously hurt me without a gun, so I generally had a cool demeanor even when chaos was going on around me. Also being surrounded by all these beautiful women, half of which were over six feet in heels, always made me feel insecure, so I was rarely ever in a mood to be a "Billy Badass" myself. I was just there to do my job, get paid, and go home.

[MCheetah]

(cont.)


But if someone did something like try to spit in my face or sucker punch me, all bets were off and I'd legit f*ck them up to where they had to be taken out in a stretcher by paramedics. I was quite literally the most dangerous guy there, despite also being the most calm, rational, and procedural.

One skinny lanky white guy started crap with me because we had to escort his drunk friends out of the club and tried to fight me outside and I put him in a rear naked choke (still not even pissed off, at this point) and let him go right before he passed out and he started crying about how I "almost killed him" cause he nearly blacked out, even though he attempted to throw the first punch. 99% of the men there were such pussies and the only time fights ever broke out among guys, were if a woman was involved. Women usually were the cause of most of the trouble.

The police knew what kind of situation goes on in these clubs and everything is on CCTV, so with proper incident reports, all our asses were covered. But these rich douchebags seriously think because they do Crossfit or whatever, they can take on club bouncers and win. I had a clean record, but most of the guys I worked with were ex-cons. They could literally kill you if you pissed them off.

[RolandCuthbert]

Wow! You were a bouncer? Dude, you have lived a life and only 43 years old.

[WhiteSteve]

@MCheetah I’ll forever disagree with your notion that 5’11 makes you even short, let alone “short AF”, but I won’t battle you on it today😝 But yeah, man, it’s funny how many people get the “beer muscles”, and that’s totally it, the “watch yourself, bro…I CrossFit” attitude💀💀💀 People really do fold so quick. It’s one thing to walk in overconfident and get embarrassed. Take your L and walk away. Just don’t start crying that you were victimized, I was just here trying to get paid to holler at chicks when you started acting stupid😂

[WhiteSteve]

@RolandCuthbert Yessirrrrrrr, put in ten years at a couple establishments. Ended as kind of a manager/bouncer hybrid the last few years but still was at the door and getting my hands dirty when called for. I’ve sacrificed having any sort of exciting professional credentials in order to “do epic shit”, as the young whippersnappers say. I’ve tried to seek out “cool” or moderately interesting jobs whenever possible. I also worked at Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch, which is mostly unremarkable, obviously, but there’s sort of a cool time capsule element to it, like being able to say you worked at Chess King or something in the 80s😂 But most importantly, hot chicks worked there and hot chicks shopped there, and the pursuit and occasional catching of those gals is all part of the movie of my life, you know? Maybe not interesting to you or anyone else, but I love it on my own internal highlight reel.

Probably more interesting, I got to rap a little bit on some guest verses with some friends who were kind of an alt-rap duo, and we ended up opening local shows for KRS-One and Blackalicious, so I kind of got a taste of faux-rap stardom, even though the crowd for an opening makes you feel pretty lonely, they’re mostly like “who the fuck are you and where is the guy I paid to see?”😂

[WhiteSteve]

@RolandCuthbert I’ve probably bored everyone with my semipro football exploits, but that was a hell of a ride too, and ended in two National Championships. But again, we played for a crowd of like 11 lmfao, and nobody on the planet knows or cares about the championships except me, my teammates, and our well-wishers. Now I’m doing my hockey fantasy camp thing. I feel like my life is overall boring and unremarkable to anyone else, but I’ve lived in such a way where, if they decide to turn the lights out on me at a younger age, I’ll still feel like a checked off most of the boxes on the bucket list that I wanted to👍 My next act just needs to be more traveling, that’s the last real unturned stone for me.

But thanks for actually thinking my life is interesting, I thought I was alone in that!😂

[RolandCuthbert]

All I can say is you have some living. And still have miles to go before you sleep.

Good job. Hats off.

[exitseven]

Once whe I was having television monitors installed in all the classrooms of a school district I worked in I hung them from the ceiling at the front of the classroom. They were 35 inch monitors and they hung low enough so that if you were a tall person you could hit your head on them. I knew this was an issue so I asked the building inspector about it. He told me it would be okay so I had it done. When some busybody found out the building inspector denied he ever told me he said it was okay. The mistake was not to get it in writing. My boss was a little upset but I did not get fired.

[Sour-rose]

My first biggest one was thanks to the job itself. I was delivering packages on someone else's route and I was beyond stressed. I didn't wish it but i prayed to god to get me outta this hell hole. Wish granted, I missed my turned and I tried to back up and bumped into a guy. He was cool about it and police said it wasn't that bad. So I DIDN'T TELL MY BOSS. That was a major mistake and they fired me... and it felt like sweetest orgasm I ever had that didn't include a partner.

Second time, security at a plant. This guy was making deliveries and he didn't have any identifcation I was told to check. So I took his name, business and time he came. Security skills... but that was incorrect. It was dumb but my boss (IF THE BITCH WAS NEAR) could have helped me and told me what to actually do. They didn't fire me, just slapped me on the wrist. I learned outta that job that the boss doesn't ALWAYS know what to do. So good riddance to them.

[melanieeeB]

I had to do an annual tax report for this private company partnership thing with 16 fucking partners!
I had just started and this was my first annual tax report ever.
Anyways while taking over the accounting results into the tax report I oversaw that you have to do a special balance thing for all 16 people, nobody told me beforehand what the particularities about this case are but yeah I missed them and had already send it to my employer and he didn't notice the mistake too and so we send it to the tax authorities and realized the mistake weeks later.
I immediately corrected my mistake, had to call the tax authorities and all 16 partners and my employer just said "well next time this isn't going to happen to you again"

[Noahzaid]

Give me a single flaw in you?
Because I can’t seem to find any.

[Lliam]

I worked as a motor vehicle damage field adjuster/appraiser for an insurance company. The company gave me a brand new car ever 80 to 100,000 miles. It paid for all fuel and maintenance.

We were allowed to drive our company cars up to a 200 mile radius from our home without notifying management.

One time, I was visiting relatives and was almost 200 miles from home. I got in an collision with a pickup truck on a mountain road. It was my fault.

Even though I hadn't broken any company rules, my supervisor at the time was a dick and tried to make a big deal out of it and got the vice president of claims involved.

With adjusters driving their company cars 50,000 miles a year, some collisions weren't unusual. That wasn't the problem. They tried to pin me with driving outside the 200 mile radius.

I got called on the carpet big time. In the end, I was exonerated but they said I was only allowed to drive 100 miles from home without permission. That was actually contrary to the written company policy, but I didn't argue.

Any other supervisor would have taken care of me in that situation instead of trying to throw me under a bus. Once that guy transferred a few months or year later, everything went back to normal.

[Dinklex3]

I told a pt who thought he was withdrawing from alcohol to wait for us to give him a call back because ADAPT wasn't there at the moment.

😅😭

Just wanna say, I was still in the training phase. And no, of course i didn't get fired. I asked a number of people what to do beforehand because i wasn't even signed off and they didn't want to deal with it so they said "yeah they have to wait". So everyone was just educated on what to do.

[SnowedIn]

I had two huge mistakes. One, I accidentally sent an email to 55,000 employees of our organization. The other I didn't send a message that was supposed to be sent on my boss' behalf. In neither case was I fired. The first one got a lot of laughs and we got past it pretty quickly. The second was was harder to re-earn trust from.

[AviatorTom]

No, I wasn't fired. I accidentally shut down a computer system that controlled a rail transit system in a European city, stopping all trains for 30 minutes during rush hour until the computer system could be brought back up and mad operational again.

[Phoenix98]

My biggest mistake? When I first started out as a machinist I accidentally caused over 600$ in damages and almost seriously damaged the machine I was using. Because I was just so in tune with what I was doing due to the repetitive nature of it that I accidentally missed a step and didn’t bolt down some parts before they went into the machine.

it wasn’t a big deal though no one got mad nor was I fired.

[tfan1]

A higher level employee used my work inexperience against me (my very first job) and got me fired. He would have gotten fired too but he quit before they could fire him. But as they say what goes around comes around. Later I went to work a seasonal job at a distribution center and found out by the interviewer that the same jerk who got me fired, worked for that company and he Stole from them and they caught him with others in the act. She couldn’t tell me if he got arrested or what but it was delicious karma when I heard that. Oh and I got the job seasonal - but I got the job - Double win!! 👍😃

[midnightmoon05]

I was one minute late. She made me punch in my time card.

I changed my program card and forgot to tell them. They put a letter in my file.
They came to evaluate me and didn’t like what they see…. But told us all to not make any changes… which as their plan.
I was not fire.

[OlderAndWiser]

I am self-employed, so I don't need to worry about being fired. (I am also beyond normal retirement age, so losing my job really wouldn't be a catastrophe!)

[Andres77]

not standing up for myself when i was treated unfairly. if i had i probably would have been fired for it so i felt like a coward for doing so. eventually i changed jobs and everything changed, i went into the new job with a lot more confidence. things got better.

[Agape93]

Cursed out our prior front desk guy.

Nope, just got told not to do it again. Dude got fired not long after anyways

[ProVox]

Got my hand caught in a press and it crushed my thumb off my hand.

[Chazmatazz269]

I’ve made lots, but i’ve never been fired for an honest mistake. Mostly i quit jobs, and occasionally “just stopped going”, not unlike Peter from “Office Space”. Ell oh ell!
I have been fired for willful misconduct though.

[Rapport]

Looked away while driving for a out two seconds and hit the side of a chicken houses, luckily I didn't cause any major damage and no.

[MCheetah]

Not clearing my browsing history and using Incognito Mode. And yes, I was.
(No, I wasn't looking at porn, but they'd fire you for any BS excuse at that 2017 job.)

[Sparkie460]

I don't remember having any major screwups in my career

[Mafia24]

I had sex with my 40yr old colleague..
I caught by my boos when I was playing with her boobs.

[Sixgunsound]

I accidentally surfaced a submarine during war games. No I was not fired for it.

[jamesgoldman]

I'm self employed but once spent £100 on a fake ring, I beat myself up for that one for a couple of years

[Whatisthatname]

Telling a boss to shut the F up, when they were bothering me while I was busy. Didn't get fired, but they stopped bothering me at the wrong time.

[Anonymous]

I broke my ankle, more or less I was fired for it. They wanted to get rid of me and I just made it easy for them. It's a long uninteresting story. 🤣

[Guardian45]

Choosing to work for a loser company, and no, I was bought out, and signed an NDA to go away quietly. The division folded after I left..

[Zolly99999]

I set the fire alarms off and the fire trucks showed up.

No I was not fired...

[Anonymous]

Not reporting my supervisor's singling me out at work. Yes, she was successful with getting me fired.

[pizzalovershouse]

No but broke a bail wire in machine

[Debbie14217]

didn't happen