Monumental work cockups
Discussion
Genius who thought up a cost saving measure at a cannery - to oil the can conveyor chains less frequently
The steel chains that run the cans through the steam oven
Was expecting it to save about £40k or so
The whole job ground to a rusty halt in no time and cost triple that to fix in cash terms & loads more in lost production, bad service levels etc.
Generally a good guy as well. Not sure what came over him
The steel chains that run the cans through the steam oven
Was expecting it to save about £40k or so
The whole job ground to a rusty halt in no time and cost triple that to fix in cash terms & loads more in lost production, bad service levels etc.
Generally a good guy as well. Not sure what came over him
When I was a chef in a in a bar/restaurant we'd often run out of basic things like salmon, burgers, burger buns, bread and even chips etc. but we would have way too much on other stock like lemons which would then have to be wasted as they'd gone off because the head chef was awful at placing orders. The floor staff especially hated him because they had to deal with the customers kicking off. Silver lining was after a month I got a promotion and raise to do the ordering haha.
lufbramatt said:
Eric Mc said:
eltax91 said:
Mine comes from when I was doing my placement year at a large gypsum products manufacturer.
I was testing the boss' PA's out of office as it wasn't working, and of course she dare not leave that Friday without the world knowing she was off on the Monday
Anyways, couldn't get it to work on the PC so went onto the server admin console. Being young and inexperienced, I didn't notice the check box in exchange that says 'send only one reply per recipient' and being even more dumb I decided the best way to test this first was to copy the rules to my profile too.
Then I sent her an email.... from my email address. Cue the email server sending reply after reply to our two mailboxes. This is around 2003/4, so everything ran on real tin and nobody had failover and the server fell over.
1200 people without email, in a business where the vast majority of ordering was over email. The call centre went into meltdown with building firms shouting the odds as they had not received or confirmations and for the first time in its history the call centre had to work Saturday morning calling all the builders that couldn't get through to take their orders the old fashioned way.
No my finest hour.
Sounds bad but I still haven't a clue what you are describing.I was testing the boss' PA's out of office as it wasn't working, and of course she dare not leave that Friday without the world knowing she was off on the Monday
Anyways, couldn't get it to work on the PC so went onto the server admin console. Being young and inexperienced, I didn't notice the check box in exchange that says 'send only one reply per recipient' and being even more dumb I decided the best way to test this first was to copy the rules to my profile too.
Then I sent her an email.... from my email address. Cue the email server sending reply after reply to our two mailboxes. This is around 2003/4, so everything ran on real tin and nobody had failover and the server fell over.
1200 people without email, in a business where the vast majority of ordering was over email. The call centre went into meltdown with building firms shouting the odds as they had not received or confirmations and for the first time in its history the call centre had to work Saturday morning calling all the builders that couldn't get through to take their orders the old fashioned way.
No my finest hour.
A few years ago, I used to work in a factory that manufactured Gas Turbines. As technology advanced, they got bigger, and the latest model at the time was too large for the factory. The management rented a larger facility a few miles up the road to accomodate the few we had an order for.
Once the new machines were built and dispatched, there was still some equipment left lying at the rented premises. Amongst these items were 2 x 10 tonne chain hoists/blocks. One of the guys in the office was asked to make arrangements to get these back along the road.
The following morning, a 40' artic rolled into the factory, with no less than the 2 x 10 tonne chain blocks safely laid on the trailer bed!!!!! That guy never lived that down!!!! He genuinely thought that the actual chain blocks weighed 10 tonnes each!!!!! I'm not sure how much that cost, probably not monumental, but given he could have thrown them in the boot of his car, or the back of the small work's Astra van, we all felt it was a fair and funny cock up!!
Once the new machines were built and dispatched, there was still some equipment left lying at the rented premises. Amongst these items were 2 x 10 tonne chain hoists/blocks. One of the guys in the office was asked to make arrangements to get these back along the road.
The following morning, a 40' artic rolled into the factory, with no less than the 2 x 10 tonne chain blocks safely laid on the trailer bed!!!!! That guy never lived that down!!!! He genuinely thought that the actual chain blocks weighed 10 tonnes each!!!!! I'm not sure how much that cost, probably not monumental, but given he could have thrown them in the boot of his car, or the back of the small work's Astra van, we all felt it was a fair and funny cock up!!
I used to work as a photographer/gopher at and advertising studio in Manchester. I was taking the day's films to the lab, in the company's ex-GPO minivan. This was showing 135,000 miles (the speedo didn't work any more). I parked it by the main road and took the films in to be developed.
Cue a chorus of beeping outside. I emerged, to see the van 200 yards away, half on the Mancunian way roundabout (Piccadilly end).
The well-worn handbrake ratchet had let go so the van had trundled off to its destiny all by itself. It ended up being towed and scrapped but filling in the accident report was novel...
Time? 16:45
Speed? Unknown
Driver? Errr, No-one.
Cue a chorus of beeping outside. I emerged, to see the van 200 yards away, half on the Mancunian way roundabout (Piccadilly end).
The well-worn handbrake ratchet had let go so the van had trundled off to its destiny all by itself. It ended up being towed and scrapped but filling in the accident report was novel...
Time? 16:45
Speed? Unknown
Driver? Errr, No-one.
The new company accountant had the brilliant idea to invest short term about a £million that was sitting waiting to be spent about a year later.
we all got messages as to how switched on he was and the extra 0.125% interest was a brilliant move,
he had put it with the Icelandic banks that crashed a few weeks later,
several years later I think they got a percentage back, no one was shouting about it at the time.
we all got messages as to how switched on he was and the extra 0.125% interest was a brilliant move,
he had put it with the Icelandic banks that crashed a few weeks later,
several years later I think they got a percentage back, no one was shouting about it at the time.
Many years ago I was terminating diving umbilicals which consisted of two hoses and an electrical cable wound together in 300ft lengths. They were for an urgent offshore job which had to be out that evening.
During the process I dropped a hot soldering iron onto the bundle and managed to melt through one of the hoses. Me and my mate set about it with a hot screwdriver to try and seal the hole. After a minute my mate stops and says "it might be the divers airline"!
After a few seconds thought we decided to fess up which resulted in my boss making a few hasty phone calls and a 200 mile round trip to collect a new hose line from the supplier.
There was much piss taking for several months over that one.
During the process I dropped a hot soldering iron onto the bundle and managed to melt through one of the hoses. Me and my mate set about it with a hot screwdriver to try and seal the hole. After a minute my mate stops and says "it might be the divers airline"!
After a few seconds thought we decided to fess up which resulted in my boss making a few hasty phone calls and a 200 mile round trip to collect a new hose line from the supplier.
There was much piss taking for several months over that one.
I worked in a chain of garages where we had a monthly budget for workshop consumables and cleaning.
I blew a whole month on toilet roll by mistake!
Ordered 36 rolls as normal or rather 36 packets of 100 rolls. Wondered why it wouldn't let me order anything else but the system was forever going wrong so I pressed order then tried again next day.
The delivery driver and techs thought it was far funnier than my manager.
They're probably still using them!
I blew a whole month on toilet roll by mistake!
Ordered 36 rolls as normal or rather 36 packets of 100 rolls. Wondered why it wouldn't let me order anything else but the system was forever going wrong so I pressed order then tried again next day.
The delivery driver and techs thought it was far funnier than my manager.
They're probably still using them!
Philb1 said:
IT guys from Accenture
That explains those problems then!An ex of mine worked for a company that then got bought out by Accenture.
She said most of them were cocks.
I've not had any major cock ups certainly none that have cost any of my employers much money.
I was cleaning a brand new and custom Aston Martin coloured Audi RS6 ready to be polished and walked into the petrol cap while it was open (as we would clean in there). It bent all the way back, put a small dent in the rear quarter and snapped the fuel cap.
Fortunately (??) for me it landed plastic side down not paint side. So we just needed to order a new fuel surround and door ... on back order for 4 weeks. Only cost me about £70 but never the less.
I felt like s
te about that!One time I was doing a wireless survey for a large juice producer in Bridgewater. I attended site after carefully packing my bag the night before only to find my Wireless Reciever was not in the bag (without it, I could not do the survey).
Turns out one of my housemates kids (at the time) had picked it up and moved it and no-one had the slightest thought to tell me. Only wasted a day which at my rate is £700 but that's not really billed to anyone.
Another time I was supposed to be in London to also do a Wireless Survey but my boss invited me to go and get his tyres changed with him so I went. Didn't realise until 10:45. I managed to get in to London for 12 (fortunate with train times) and job done and home by 4
An insurance company had just arranged a new disaster recovery plan and decided to test it. I must say, this client was normally pretty good and thorough when it came to testing.
They arranged with the disaster recover firm to switch to their backup machine and all looked good, all records up to date. Tried a few transactions, all worked, some really extreme transactions and amendments were pushed through to provide a thorough test. Then some large scale additions updates and deletions, just to ensure capacity was sufficient. The final test was to bring the system down and run end of day processing.
There was just one thing they had forgotten to check, that they really were running on the backup machine.
Until practically everyone in the firm starting calling support to say 'why is our system going down?'.
They arranged with the disaster recover firm to switch to their backup machine and all looked good, all records up to date. Tried a few transactions, all worked, some really extreme transactions and amendments were pushed through to provide a thorough test. Then some large scale additions updates and deletions, just to ensure capacity was sufficient. The final test was to bring the system down and run end of day processing.
There was just one thing they had forgotten to check, that they really were running on the backup machine.
Until practically everyone in the firm starting calling support to say 'why is our system going down?'.
davhill said:
I used to work as a photographer/gopher at and advertising studio in Manchester. I was taking the day's films to the lab, in the company's ex-GPO minivan. This was showing 135,000 miles (the speedo didn't work any more). I parked it by the main road and took the films in to be developed.
Cue a chorus of beeping outside. I emerged, to see the van 200 yards away, half on the Mancunian way roundabout (Piccadilly end).
The well-worn handbrake ratchet had let go so the van had trundled off to its destiny all by itself. It ended up being towed and scrapped but filling in the accident report was novel...
Time? 16:45
Speed? Unknown
Driver? Errr, No-one.
Cue a chorus of beeping outside. I emerged, to see the van 200 yards away, half on the Mancunian way roundabout (Piccadilly end).
The well-worn handbrake ratchet had let go so the van had trundled off to its destiny all by itself. It ended up being towed and scrapped but filling in the accident report was novel...
Time? 16:45
Speed? Unknown
Driver? Errr, No-one.
One of the lads who I worked with years ago had a job as a driver for film processing company in South Tyneside , his job entailed collecting undeveloped films fro chemists and the like , getting them processed and retuned a few days later.
Near the end of his collection round one day , he left his van and ran into a chemist when he came out the van was being driven down the road complete with hundreds of undeveloped films ....
I think the t&c's stated they were only responsible for the cost of the undeveloped film , all those folk had their potential photographs removed permanently.
Think about the grief he got before he resigned.
In the early nineties, I was working in stock control for a major high-street electrical store. I was making adjustments to the stock levels on the computer after a count in the warehouse, which involved entering the 6-figure stock code in one field and the adjustment, and plus or minus then the discrepancy in the next field.
I got distracted by a customer and entered the product code into both , creating an increase in stock of a £10 item multiplied by its six figure code - an increase of several million pounds. I realised immediately and subtracted the adjustment straight away.
Unfortunately, this was the Friday afternoon of end-of-year and someone watching figures at head office saw my mistake, but not my correction, and made the same subtraction again - Without contacting our branch! - Wiping out several million off the bottom line stock holding for the company for the year.
My manager backed me up, thankfully, and I never heard what happened to the head-office bod
I got distracted by a customer and entered the product code into both , creating an increase in stock of a £10 item multiplied by its six figure code - an increase of several million pounds. I realised immediately and subtracted the adjustment straight away.
Unfortunately, this was the Friday afternoon of end-of-year and someone watching figures at head office saw my mistake, but not my correction, and made the same subtraction again - Without contacting our branch! - Wiping out several million off the bottom line stock holding for the company for the year.
My manager backed me up, thankfully, and I never heard what happened to the head-office bod
Tango13 said:
I put a '+' instead of a '-' in a program once, resulted in the bed of a £50,000 machining centre moving in the wrong direction very rapidly...
Haha I done the same thing in college when learning to operate a CNC milling rig. Plunged a 10mm slot drill into the vice rather than the bit of aluminium I was suppose to be working on, to be fair to myself it was only my 2nd ever CNC program.Been witness to a few work cockups working in the bottom end of the logistic industry (supermarket van driver). Had a colleague fill one of our vans (Sprinter diesel) with petrol, luckly in the filling station what was attached to our supermarket and she was quiered on her choice of fuel by the pump attendant, so we just pulled the van back into the yard with another van and called someone in to drain it. She was a 20 year old girl who after the fact admitted to knowing absolutely nothing about vans and had just been applying to every single job in our area, after a slap in the wrist from management and one of our better drivers giving her a crash course she actually turned into a model staff member, hell of a lot better than myself and many others who where always getting called up for one reason or another
(stupid black boxxes in vans red flagging you to the management if you exceed 3000RPM... or get the ass end out going around a roundabout). Another new colleague who was adamant that he was experienced driving LWB box vans who managed to clip left side of the van on a pedestrian crossing fence within 200metres of the store trying to turn left at a junction. He turned out to be a right knob, he got let off with a warning for that and was then fired 2 weeks later and consistently failing to grasp how to fill in our very basic paperwork.
Wasn't witness to it but I heard someone working in my store who was working in the filling station got fired for smoking, at the back door of the filling station, right next to the underground tank filling ports (not sure what to call them, where the tanker drops fuel into the station). Aparently she wasnt the sharpest knife.
Oh also one of the night staff managed to unplug our warehouse fridge when he was closing up, almost £10k of stock had to get wasted the following day. He was asked to not come back in.
Edited by caelite on Saturday 15th October 21:10
Driver at haulage company i worked for had to take an urgent load from our depot in Glasgow to Aberdeen. Customer was on the phone every half hour looking for updates. The driver got there, opened the doors, to find he had picked up the wrong trailer. This one was empty. His loaded trailer was still in the yard. Funnily enough there was a trailer sized empty space next to it. I'll never know how he didn't realise he was hauling an empty trailer.
Also haulage related. At a different company we got a contract to take trailer loads of electronic components to Sweden. A list of dos and don'ts as long as your arm. One of which was not to doublestack the pallets.
The first load was to be greeted at the factory by some of our managers, and the factory managers. The curtains on the trailer were opened to find the low height pallets all neatly floored out...with a mk2 Jaguar bodyshell on top of them! The transport planner had this other job to get the bodyshell to Sweden, so thought he would pull a fast one loading it on the same trailer, and get the driver to deliver the bodyshell before going to the electronics place. Unfortunately this hadn't been communicated to the driver.
We never did see a second load.
Also haulage related. At a different company we got a contract to take trailer loads of electronic components to Sweden. A list of dos and don'ts as long as your arm. One of which was not to doublestack the pallets.
The first load was to be greeted at the factory by some of our managers, and the factory managers. The curtains on the trailer were opened to find the low height pallets all neatly floored out...with a mk2 Jaguar bodyshell on top of them! The transport planner had this other job to get the bodyshell to Sweden, so thought he would pull a fast one loading it on the same trailer, and get the driver to deliver the bodyshell before going to the electronics place. Unfortunately this hadn't been communicated to the driver.
We never did see a second load.
Around 15 years ago I was working in New York in an IT role for one of the big investment banks. One Friday afternoon I was setting up a new instance of an algorithmic Futures and Options trading system. I took a copy of the existing production environment as a baseline, reconfigured with a new set of exchange trading credentials, and started it up to test connectivity. Unfortunately I hadn't cleaned the old orders out of the system properly, and so as soon as the new instance had authenticated with the exchange it proceeded to send the entire previous week's order book. I realised about 10 seconds (according to the logs it was actually 12) later that something was wrong, and so shut it down. By that point the system had managed to resend all of previous week's orders, starting from Sunday night up to Tuesday afternoon. I ended up executing trades with a nominal value of nearly $40 billion US dollars, and briefly moved the market 7 basis points (25 basis points is equivalent to a 1/4 percent change in interest rates). The bank had to trade out of their unintended position that afternoon and the following Monday, and my mistake ended up costing them a seven figure sum.
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