Monumental work cockups
Discussion
Robbo 27 said:
Friend of mind developed a machine to monitor the oil quality in big industrial machines so that you get the maximum life out of the oil before a big oil change was neccessary.
He had mortgaged his house to set up the business witha 3 year rent on premises where he was the guarantor
These machines sold for £22,000 each and about the size of a PC computer. Got an order from Japan on a test basis. Told him to forget it. He sold them a machine anyway.
6 weeks later it came back, in pieces, with a cancelled order.
Two months later the japanese company brought out its own version, half the price.
Friends business went to the wall and he is in big debt.
Wow and they had the gall to return it ontop of stealing the design. He had mortgaged his house to set up the business witha 3 year rent on premises where he was the guarantor
These machines sold for £22,000 each and about the size of a PC computer. Got an order from Japan on a test basis. Told him to forget it. He sold them a machine anyway.
6 weeks later it came back, in pieces, with a cancelled order.
Two months later the japanese company brought out its own version, half the price.
Friends business went to the wall and he is in big debt.
I bet karma visited them.
Not going to say which academic establishment, and personally in no way responsible for this. Only got to know of this after the event, utterly staggered and baffled by the sheer ineptitude of supposedly intelligent people.
So a law school wishes to setup a courtroom so students can get a better feel for things in moot court.
So they buy the interior of an old court which is no longer required in another part of the country. The intention is to strip it out and reinstall. When advised beforehand that it's all in a listed historical building they still go ahead as after all they just intend to strip it out and reinstall as is in their premises. Then after purchase they find out that the historical building listing prevents exactly this.
Unbelievable, except it really is true.
So a law school wishes to setup a courtroom so students can get a better feel for things in moot court.
So they buy the interior of an old court which is no longer required in another part of the country. The intention is to strip it out and reinstall. When advised beforehand that it's all in a listed historical building they still go ahead as after all they just intend to strip it out and reinstall as is in their premises. Then after purchase they find out that the historical building listing prevents exactly this.
Unbelievable, except it really is true.
hora said:
Robbo 27 said:
Friend of mind developed a machine to monitor the oil quality in big industrial machines so that you get the maximum life out of the oil before a big oil change was neccessary.
He had mortgaged his house to set up the business witha 3 year rent on premises where he was the guarantor
These machines sold for £22,000 each and about the size of a PC computer. Got an order from Japan on a test basis. Told him to forget it. He sold them a machine anyway.
6 weeks later it came back, in pieces, with a cancelled order.
Two months later the japanese company brought out its own version, half the price.
Friends business went to the wall and he is in big debt.
Wow and they had the gall to return it ontop of stealing the design. He had mortgaged his house to set up the business witha 3 year rent on premises where he was the guarantor
These machines sold for £22,000 each and about the size of a PC computer. Got an order from Japan on a test basis. Told him to forget it. He sold them a machine anyway.
6 weeks later it came back, in pieces, with a cancelled order.
Two months later the japanese company brought out its own version, half the price.
Friends business went to the wall and he is in big debt.
I bet karma visited them.
We had a Japanese University ask to trial one of our instruments so we sent one out there having sealed every cap screw with araldite. It came back with the cap screws drilled out and poorly re-assembled.
The Japanese overlooked one small detail though, the owner of the business was the expert in his field and very well respected to boot.
He put the word out that any attempt to copy his idea would make it 'difficult' for the Japanese to do business in his field
OpulentBob said:
Colleague's cock up.
We were closing the A12 for a weekend to replace a bridge, and diverting everything through Colchester. We did a letter drop to over a thousand properties giving the mobile phone number of the traffic officer responsible for when the closure was on.
Closure went well, no complaints recieved.
It was about 3 weeks later we noticed the mobile phone number was wrong. Some poor bugger had been taking the brunt of all the calls. My colleague was meant to ring him and apologise but didn't have the balls.
Superb We were closing the A12 for a weekend to replace a bridge, and diverting everything through Colchester. We did a letter drop to over a thousand properties giving the mobile phone number of the traffic officer responsible for when the closure was on.
Closure went well, no complaints recieved.
It was about 3 weeks later we noticed the mobile phone number was wrong. Some poor bugger had been taking the brunt of all the calls. My colleague was meant to ring him and apologise but didn't have the balls.
Fairly minor compared to some of the stories above but as an apprentice in a British Leyland dealership in the early 80s I was given the job of part numbering up a major repair on an XJS that had suffered an interior fire.
Back then this procedure involved a large grubby catalogue the size of a phone book and took ages. Anyway I wrote a part number down incorrectly and instead of a 50p bag of 10 trim clips, 10 electric drivers seats in biscuit leather arrived!!!!
Back then this procedure involved a large grubby catalogue the size of a phone book and took ages. Anyway I wrote a part number down incorrectly and instead of a 50p bag of 10 trim clips, 10 electric drivers seats in biscuit leather arrived!!!!
Not quite the same but
When my old man was in the army in his early days 17/18 ish he went to lift a lynx helicopter but missed the jack point and put the jack straight through the Kevlar/ally bottom of the helicopter. He spent the next 48 hours straight in work bodging it with fibreglass and paint. A hell of a bodge but no one noticed Monday morning or for years.
25 years later my old man has moved up the ranks traveled the world and now manages engineering for the whole fleet of gazels and lynx helicopters and other bits. A few aircraft are due a long service overhaul as per normal, a lad knocks on my dad's office door and says your never going to believe this, weve stripped down one of the lynx's and someone has only bodged the bottom with fibreglass.
When my old man was in the army in his early days 17/18 ish he went to lift a lynx helicopter but missed the jack point and put the jack straight through the Kevlar/ally bottom of the helicopter. He spent the next 48 hours straight in work bodging it with fibreglass and paint. A hell of a bodge but no one noticed Monday morning or for years.
25 years later my old man has moved up the ranks traveled the world and now manages engineering for the whole fleet of gazels and lynx helicopters and other bits. A few aircraft are due a long service overhaul as per normal, a lad knocks on my dad's office door and says your never going to believe this, weve stripped down one of the lynx's and someone has only bodged the bottom with fibreglass.
bazza white said:
Not quite the same but
When my old man was in the army in his early days 17/18 ish he went to lift a lynx helicopter but missed the jack point and put the jack straight through the Kevlar/ally bottom of the helicopter. He spent the next 48 hours straight in work bodging it with fibreglass and paint. A hell of a bodge but no one noticed Monday morning or for years.
25 years later my old man has moved up the ranks traveled the world and now manages engineering for the whole fleet of gazels and lynx helicopters and other bits. A few aircraft are due a long service overhaul as per normal, a lad knocks on my dad's office door and says your never going to believe this, weve stripped down one of the lynx's and someone has only bodged the bottom with fibreglass.
OK, close the thread, we have the winner When my old man was in the army in his early days 17/18 ish he went to lift a lynx helicopter but missed the jack point and put the jack straight through the Kevlar/ally bottom of the helicopter. He spent the next 48 hours straight in work bodging it with fibreglass and paint. A hell of a bodge but no one noticed Monday morning or for years.
25 years later my old man has moved up the ranks traveled the world and now manages engineering for the whole fleet of gazels and lynx helicopters and other bits. A few aircraft are due a long service overhaul as per normal, a lad knocks on my dad's office door and says your never going to believe this, weve stripped down one of the lynx's and someone has only bodged the bottom with fibreglass.
Not me, but two f
kwits I did a Royal Navy apprenticeship with caused a major fire on a nuclear submarine by winding back in an industrial sized main circuit breaker onto two live, out-of-phase, 440v 3 phase busbars.
Big bang, big fire, bloody lucky they didn't kill themselves or their colleagues and an operational submarine out of action for a very long time.
kwits I did a Royal Navy apprenticeship with caused a major fire on a nuclear submarine by winding back in an industrial sized main circuit breaker onto two live, out-of-phase, 440v 3 phase busbars.Big bang, big fire, bloody lucky they didn't kill themselves or their colleagues and an operational submarine out of action for a very long time.
I spec'd up a motor for a manufacturing plant and it went wrong which resulted in a line being closed for 72hrs at a cost of £1200 per hour.
I took the spec off the current kit, changed a few things and so on and it turned out I input a couple of numbers incorrect, new motor came, engineers fitted it. Failed within a few hours but by this time (Friday evening) our work was closed until Monday.
Put it that way the customer was not happy, we got a VERY large invoice. My boss was in on it aswell so he couldn't really give me all the blame.
Lesson learnt.
I took the spec off the current kit, changed a few things and so on and it turned out I input a couple of numbers incorrect, new motor came, engineers fitted it. Failed within a few hours but by this time (Friday evening) our work was closed until Monday.
Put it that way the customer was not happy, we got a VERY large invoice. My boss was in on it aswell so he couldn't really give me all the blame.
Lesson learnt.
Jamessd said:
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.
winnerAs an auxiliary nurse on an elderly care ward, I would often have 4 patients in a ward and 1 in a side room that I would be responsible for. On a late shift, this would often mean I had a student nurse to help me. On this particular afternoon the chap in the side room had died and I needed to give him a wash and shave, so that he looked presentable for his wife to come view him and say her goodbyes. I asked the student to give me a hand but soon got called out of the side room. I asked her if she would be OK and said for her to just give him a quick wash & shave, comb his hair and change his pyjama top. She said fine, so I left her to it.
Half hour later the student comes up and says ''all done'' just as this chaps wife arrives on the ward. I give her my condolences and walk to the side room with her, so that she can see her husband. We walk in and their lies a man she barely recognised. The student had indeed given the chap a quick shave but instead of just shaving his cheeks, she had shaved off the goatee beard the fella had had for the past 30 years!
Half hour later the student comes up and says ''all done'' just as this chaps wife arrives on the ward. I give her my condolences and walk to the side room with her, so that she can see her husband. We walk in and their lies a man she barely recognised. The student had indeed given the chap a quick shave but instead of just shaving his cheeks, she had shaved off the goatee beard the fella had had for the past 30 years!
I piled through a fire hydrant main outside Royal Liverpool Hospital A&E department flooding it within minutes, that was fun, as it was a fire hydrant main around a hospital the fire brigade wouldn't let us turn it off to repair it. Needed my wellies that day!
Also I set fire to a brewery during a demolition project. Stopped the canning production of Fosters lager for 6 hours. I was surprised I didn't get sacked following that one!
All good fun!
Also I set fire to a brewery during a demolition project. Stopped the canning production of Fosters lager for 6 hours. I was surprised I didn't get sacked following that one!
All good fun!
A friend of mine was a REME Sgt in Bosnia, was setting up a new workshop and asked his Cpl to order some nuts and bolts etc for the expense, a few weeks later 4 containers full of nuts, bolts and washers turn up.
Seems the Cpl got the D of Q wrong. Apparently they started leaving a box in every vehicle they worked on!
Seems the Cpl got the D of Q wrong. Apparently they started leaving a box in every vehicle they worked on!
A couple of years ago I was sat at my desk, idly watching the workmen building the new extension for Gatwick south terminal, when I saw one of them start yelling a lot, just as all the power went out. And not just in my office building, but in quite a lot of the south terminal, causing all kinds of disruption and delay for thousands of people.
I wouldn't want to have been that guy.
I wouldn't want to have been that guy.
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