Work f*ckups...whats your biggest

[stephenkatsea]

Getting a new 190’ vessel ready to transit from San Diego to Seattle. I asked how much chain was on each anchor. No one knew. Not even our corporate engineering division. Typically it is 10 - 12 shots of chain. One shot = 90ft or 15 fathoms. We were doing ops one day in very deep water, so I decided to take that opportunity to lower one anchor and let all the chain out carefully to the bitter end. Making note of each shot as it came out of the chain locker and over the anchor windlass and into the water. Due to the water depth the anchor never touched bottom. The windlass was a new electric/hydraulic unit. The chain handler was the correct size for the chain. As soon as we attempted to begin hauling in the anchor we blew a hydraulic line on the system. 2 more tries produced the same result. So, here we sat with an anchor and 900’ of chain hanging in the water. A call to the windlass manufacturer was made. The manufacturer said there was no way that windlass could hoist up that much weight. They expected scope of about 4 to 1. So, when hauling in you’d never need the ability haul the entire weight of the all the chain and the anchor. So, we brought cutting equipment up to the bow. I backed down as hard as possible, which made the chain and anchor lead out in front of the boat. Then we cut it with a torch. Leading it out made the length of anchor and chain stretch out across the bottom and not fall in a pile. I was attempting to make it easier for one of our other vessels to drag a large anchor chain grapple across the area and snag the chain, then retrieve it in sections. I got good GPS coordinates of the exact location. The vessel dragging for the chain got it on the first pass. But, for years my boss used to kid me and say, When you say drop the anchor, you really mean it!! Turned out none of the other captains with our company realized these new windlass’ were incapable of hauling the entire weight of our typical anchors and chain. Lesson learned.

 

[Flatsix66]

I was invited to play golf at The Grand in Del Mar with our sales director, customers were two Microsoft VPs. We all tee'd off at a 205yd par 3, it looked like all our balls landed on the green and close to the pin. When we got down to the green only 3 balls were on the green. One of the VP's thought his was in the hole...they started celebrating...hi fives...chest bumps....everyone was on cloud nine because the customer had a hole in one, so they thought. When they pulled the ball out they found out it was mine, the VP's emotional high turned deflated, they were so bummed. At the end of the round everyone just took off, pissed off. Back in the office everyone was pissed at me for bumming these guys out. Only good thing is at least I didn't have to buy everyone a round of drinks.

 

[monkeyswrench]

First 6 figure job I bid 6 years ago(I’m self employed) I missed by 20k. Worked 2 months for free.

Guess who checks everything 4x now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

When the last fuktard was in office, I was kind of new at how to word bids and such in relation to market pricing and how long I could honor that bid...
You know when diesel hits 5$ a gallon, other things are made of petroleum...like tar for hot mopping, and shingles. I did a few jobs as a "volunteer".

Lessons learned the hard way are not easily forgotten.

 

[CLdrinker]

Trusted an apprentice to help guide me and a scissor lift between live sprinkler lines. After him not saying anything I asked how we are doing on his side.
He responded,” well how far can these lines bend”?
Right about then pop!!! Oil water everywhere! And we were Atleast 12’ up and the water tripped the safety and we couldn’t go down.

BTW unit was dam near ready for move in minus carpet and desks.

The apprentice was the bosses kid.
Guess who got fired...

 

[Riverbound]

Getting into business with a friend was my biggest one.

 

[coolchange]

Getting a new 190’ vessel ready to transit from San Diego to Seattle. I asked how much chain was on each anchor. No one knew. Not even our corporate engineering division. Typically it is 10 - 12 shots of chain. One shot = 90ft or 15 fathoms. We were doing ops one day in very deep water, so I decided to take that opportunity to lower one anchor and let all the chain out carefully to the bitter end. Making note of each shot as it came out of the chain locker and over the anchor windlass and into the water. Due to the water depth the anchor never touched bottom. The windlass was a new electric/hydraulic unit. The chain handler was the correct size for the chain. As soon as we attempted to begin hauling in the anchor we blew a hydraulic line on the system. 2 more tries produced the same result. So, here we sat with an anchor and 900’ of chain hanging in the water. A call to the windlass manufacturer was made. The manufacturer said there was no way that windlass could hoist up that much weight. They expected scope of about 4 to 1. So, when hauling in you’d never need the ability haul the entire weight of the all the chain and the anchor. So, we brought cutting equipment up to the bow. I backed down as hard as possible, which made the chain and anchor lead out in front of the boat. Then we cut it with a torch. Leading it out made the length of anchor and chain stretch out across the bottom and not fall in a pile. I was attempting to make it easier for one of our other vessels to drag a large anchor chain grapple across the area and snag the chain, then retrieve it in sections. I got good GPS coordinates of the exact location. The vessel dragging for the chain got it on the first pass. But, for years my boss used to kid me and say, When you say drop the anchor, you really mean it!! Turned out none of the other captains with our company realized these new windlass’ were incapable of hauling the entire weight of our typical anchors and chain. Lesson learned.

How deep was it. Sounds like grappling is fairly common?

 

[CLdrinker]

Getting a new 190’ vessel ready to transit from San Diego to Seattle. I asked how much chain was on each anchor. No one knew. Not even our corporate engineering division. Typically it is 10 - 12 shots of chain. One shot = 90ft or 15 fathoms. We were doing ops one day in very deep water, so I decided to take that opportunity to lower one anchor and let all the chain out carefully to the bitter end. Making note of each shot as it came out of the chain locker and over the anchor windlass and into the water. Due to the water depth the anchor never touched bottom. The windlass was a new electric/hydraulic unit. The chain handler was the correct size for the chain. As soon as we attempted to begin hauling in the anchor we blew a hydraulic line on the system. 2 more tries produced the same result. So, here we sat with an anchor and 900’ of chain hanging in the water. A call to the windlass manufacturer was made. The manufacturer said there was no way that windlass could hoist up that much weight. They expected scope of about 4 to 1. So, when hauling in you’d never need the ability haul the entire weight of the all the chain and the anchor. So, we brought cutting equipment up to the bow. I backed down as hard as possible, which made the chain and anchor lead out in front of the boat. Then we cut it with a torch. Leading it out made the length of anchor and chain stretch out across the bottom and not fall in a pile. I was attempting to make it easier for one of our other vessels to drag a large anchor chain grapple across the area and snag the chain, then retrieve it in sections. I got good GPS coordinates of the exact location. The vessel dragging for the chain got it on the first pass. But, for years my boss used to kid me and say, When you say drop the anchor, you really mean it!! Turned out none of the other captains with our company realized these new windlass’ were incapable of hauling the entire weight of our typical anchors and chain. Lesson learned.

How much is that chain and anchor worth?

 

[endobear]

Doing a warehouse exterior paint job on a weekend and was in a hurry and not paying attention and ran over my spray hose with the lift. By the time I got the lift to the ground and shut the pump down it had pumped about 4 gallons of blue direct to metal paint all over the lift and blacktop. Spent the next 8 hrs cleaning that mess up.

Not my screw up but my bosses. We were doing Homw Depot new construction paint jobs. Told my boss the prints call for blockfiller and paint on the walls in the storage area. He says nope. Ok. Racks go in. Sure enough he gets gigged on it. 6 guys working 20 hrs each on a weekend to do a half ass save.
Same boss made the call to spray epoxy paint on the inside of a dealership 12 bay service center with no roll up doors or dropping the door openings off. Oversprayed 200+ cars in the parking lot. Not sure what that one cost him. He send a bunch of day laborers out there with buckets of gasoline and rags to clean the cars. He got popped.

 

[hallett21]

Alright I got a funny one.

Once upon a time I was an EMT. Well in training you do a shift on 911 and an ER shift.

During the ER shift the nurse explains to me that I need to take vitals etc. Vitals include
Temperature and hospitals typically have 2 thermometers in the rooms.

A blue one and a red one. Red is for your ass. With about 5 mins of my “shift” left I wasn’t paying attention and grabbed the red for an oral reading.

I didn’t recognize my mistake until I read the temp

Edit: they have a plastic cover you use every time so 99% no harm no foul


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bobby V]

Trusted an apprentice to help guide me and a scissor lift between live sprinkler lines. After him not saying anything I asked how we are doing on his side.
He responded,” well how far can these lines bend”?
Right about then pop!!! Oil water everywhere! And we were Atleast 12’ up and the water tripped the safety and we couldn’t go down.

BTW unit was dam near ready for move in minus carpet and desks.

The apprentice was the bosses kid.
Guess who got fired...

We get a lot of emergency calls from scissor lifts and fork lifts hitting the fire sprinkler pipes.

 

[teded]

Drove a tow truck for AAA. 3rd day on the job rush hour I-5 flat tire call.
Pull over in front of caller, radio-in
that I have arrived, while talking to
dispatch open my door holding it with my elbow and a Big rig with doubles goes by close. First trailer blows the door out from under my elbow. Second trailer hits it and sends it over the hood. Dispatcher asked “ what the heck was that”.
My answer “ could you send a tow truck to get my tow truck.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Paradox]

Although not me, I was in charge of an OT shift at a big site in 2001. About 65 guys working. Mostly Electricians but running a crane crew moving steel from the bone yard for use the following day. Crawler with a 220 ft boom and 200 ft. luffer. I was standing right next to it when it came down.

.

 

[HTTP404]

Put a backhoe bucket through a (marked) telco trunk line.

Made a screwup on a routing table and knocked 20k+ users out of our software in an instant. Only took 30 seconds to fix it but wow did my phone light up and you couldn't have driven a nail up my ass with a jackhammer afterwards.

 

[DILLIGAF]

My biggest fuck up was hiring family to work at my company. What a disaster that turned out to be. Jealousy, envy and entitlement. Not good

 

[DWC]

Getting a new 190’ vessel ready to transit from San Diego to Seattle. I asked how much chain was on each anchor. No one knew. Not even our corporate engineering division. Typically it is 10 - 12 shots of chain. One shot = 90ft or 15 fathoms. We were doing ops one day in very deep water, so I decided to take that opportunity to lower one anchor and let all the chain out carefully to the bitter end. Making note of each shot as it came out of the chain locker and over the anchor windlass and into the water. Due to the water depth the anchor never touched bottom. The windlass was a new electric/hydraulic unit. The chain handler was the correct size for the chain. As soon as we attempted to begin hauling in the anchor we blew a hydraulic line on the system. 2 more tries produced the same result. So, here we sat with an anchor and 900’ of chain hanging in the water. A call to the windlass manufacturer was made. The manufacturer said there was no way that windlass could hoist up that much weight. They expected scope of about 4 to 1. So, when hauling in you’d never need the ability haul the entire weight of the all the chain and the anchor. So, we brought cutting equipment up to the bow. I backed down as hard as possible, which made the chain and anchor lead out in front of the boat. Then we cut it with a torch. Leading it out made the length of anchor and chain stretch out across the bottom and not fall in a pile. I was attempting to make it easier for one of our other vessels to drag a large anchor chain grapple across the area and snag the chain, then retrieve it in sections. I got good GPS coordinates of the exact location. The vessel dragging for the chain got it on the first pass. But, for years my boss used to kid me and say, When you say drop the anchor, you really mean it!! Turned out none of the other captains with our company realized these new windlass’ were incapable of hauling the entire weight of our typical anchors and chain. Lesson learned.

Oh shit, but also.. Thanks, i now know what a shot is when I’m watching Below Deck

 

[JDub24]

If this story is true… you sir win the internet today!! Job well done…

something my first boss when i was 16 working in a hot rod shop and had to tell him i cut the hardline for the brakes too short, was the only guy who never messes up is the guy who isnt doing anything. i try to keep my mistakes to a minimum, but i do think there is a fair amount of truth to that.

I was a delinquent at 21, working as a service tech for a Porsche repair/resto shop, in Burbank. One Friday night, me and another mechanic borrowed a customers 911 convertible for a dbl date,!we drove shit boxes at the time, wanted to impress our dates. We had a great time, after we dropped our dates off, at end of the night, we picked up a buddy that was sober, to drive us to Vegas. My buddy decided to see how fast the Cabriolet goes on the 15 freeway outside of Barstow, for 20-30 miles . long story short the coppers finally caught us, thanks to the Truckers blocking us in. The Porsche got impounded, buddy went to jail for the night. We had to call my buddy’s mom to come pick us up at the cop shop. The cars owner lived in NY and was in NY when the cops called him to pick his car up in impound Lot in Barstow.

On Monday morning at work, shit hit the fan, of course, that was the last time I turned a wrench for pay.

Hindsight we shoulda picked a faster Porsche to get the mission to Vegas accomplished!
The Cabriolets 911 were dogs,158 w the top up.

Buddy still has the ticket framed in his house.

 

[stephenkatsea]

How much is that chain and anchor worth?

Don’t recall the exact number. But, that 4,000 lb anchor and 10 shots of 3 1/2” chain was worth a bunch. Thousands.

 

[Captain Dan]

I worked at a Chevron station in San Diego when I was 16-19 years old around 1977 to 1979. I closed one night and the valve for one of the lifts had been acting strange, (it was going up on it's own). When I shut down the compressor, I released the pressure and it went to the floor, as it should. We kept a 56 Chevy work/station truck parked over that lift at night (and not positioned to go into the air). I forgot to mention this to anyone and when the boss came in the next day, he fired up the compressor before getting the truck out of the way and walked into the office. Up the lift went, with his 56 Chevy truck hanging onto the lift sideways and It fell to its death from about 6 feet to the ground on its side. I never fessed up to it, and nobody ever found out..

 

[DWC]

My biggest dollar “f’ up” was working at HomeBase. I was 22ish and got moved from the stores to the office. First job was ordering Fans/AC’s. For some reason i ordered another $2mil to hit late August. (Why the hell no one had to approve it is still funny). Typically, every retailer tries to get out of the category by mid-July, even more so when interest rates are near double digits. I got hammered every week until there was a miracle late heat wave and we sold most of it. Things went from bad to pretty good back to bad. I got a call into the VP’s office on a Friday for a semi-pat on the back/don’t do it again. Friday was casual day in the office. Still remember, I had crappy sweats and a UCSB tank top on. Meeting didn’t last long, shook his head and said i took casual Friday too serious.

 

[TITTIES AND BEER]

One of my guys managed to do this... View attachment 1044309 View attachment 1044310

I've messed up some stuff pretty good. Knocked a header and roll up door off a warehouse, I got my ass chewed pretty good for that one.

Rolled one of these into a track house ready for drywall with 50 sheets on 12’ 1/2” on it

 

[monkeyswrench]

Although not me, I was in charge of an OT shift at a big site in 2001. About 65 guys working. Mostly Electricians but running a crane crew moving steel from the bone yard for use the following day. Crawler with a 220 ft boom and 200 ft. luffer. I was standing right next to it when it came down.
View attachment 1044570 View attachment 1044571 View attachment 1044572 View attachment 1044573 View attachment 1044574 View attachment 1044575 .

Two things:
One, I'd have shit myself! Not too proud to say it...in the portajohn before people hit the deck.
Two, I think @Nordie may have hire your Gradall operator

 

[stephenkatsea]

How deep was it. Sounds like grappling is fairly common?

That was quite a number of years ago, offshore San Diego. It was over 900’ for sure. Dragging/grappling for anchor chain is not that common. But, due to the cost of anchors and chain, grappling gear is normally held at area shoreside bases.

 

[Ace in the Hole]

Early in my career is was a very green estimator, and missed and entire floor of a building.

I have to limit what I say, but I had to deal with a property manager who had way too much power over a project...he "forgot" to add the labor lines into a 2.5 mil job. Loss was in excess of 1 mil. He got fired...we got paid by the RE firm. He had the numbers..just was an idiot. People always ask why I prefer email/text vs a call..this is why..I want you on record.

When I was 18, I was waiting for a ship out date with the AF. Mil career was my plan+college. Electrical and boats has always been my thing. I was working on an unmanned "rescue" boat on Sand Island, HI for a MIL contractor doing rigging. Electrical has always been my thing..im good at it. Scaffolding collapsed..I fell 10'+ my head hit the mounting bolt of one of the electric motors... I was out. Woke up at kaiser Oahu...lucky to be alive with a ton of staples in my head. I really wish I knew the names of the USN divers who saved my life...I will forever be in their debt. My mil dream was over..tried again at 30 for reserves..got the nope at meps. That deal sucked. One of the only regrets I have in life was not getting to serve over that. It's probably why I am so involved in the legion and giving back what I can. I have a handful of issues from that injury but nothing most people would notice...1 inch over and I would have had different outcome (aka dead).

 

[Icky]

We get a lot of emergency calls from scissor lifts and fork lifts hitting the fire sprinkler pipes.

How about forklifts into PIV valves? I didn't know what one was till I hit it with a skid of equipment

 

[Bobby V]

How about forklifts into PIV valves? I didn't know what one was till I hit it with a skid of equipment

Usually truck drivers hit the PIV's. Did they have to replace the underground valve or just a new PIV body.

 

[dribble]

I once signed a declaration in black ink instead of blue so I had to print another one. I wasted a sheet of paper and about 2 cents worth of ink.

 

[Water Romper]

Ha, All you guys in construction etc with big equipment....I'm a corporate purchasing guy, aside from RFQ's SOW's proposals etc, I also draft PO's, So I generated a PO to a vendor, no big deal, it was supposed to be for $30,000.00 not big at all, a no brainer. I get a call from the accounting manager a few days later about "a PO that threw the budget out of whack" apparently my "no brainer" PO was generated for $30,000,000.00 That's thirty million dollars.... um-opps. <insert deer in the headlights look> I felt like an idiot, here is the kicker, the PO got past all executives and upper management, no one noticed the error. Fortunately, the "system" raised a red flag and I just cancelled the PO and generated a new one. To this day, I always double check my numbers.

 

[Icky]

Usually truck drivers hit the PIV's. Did they have to replace the underground valve or just a new PIV body.

No comment as I know what company came out to repair it

 

[riverroyal]

Played the wrong song for destinys 5 dollar dance. Threw a shoe at me

 

[OkHallett270]

Turning wrenches in a dealership in my 20s I dropped an F-150 lightning off a two post lift. I had set a safety stand under the hitch and was working on the starter. After I finished I hurried up and got to the controls without thinking about the stand. It pirouetted on the stand and did about 7k in body damage to the bed and back of the cab. I did the same damn thing to an F-550 about 3 years later. Different Ford dealer this time, rack caught that one and all it did was dent the exhaust pipe and scare the shit out of me and everyone around me. I stopped using safety stands under the receiver hitch after that.
Back to the first dealership me and a good friend of mine who also worked there almost burned the building down once. I was melting Teflon out of a GM driveshaft to change a u-joint. I had the torch kinda facing a trash can that my buddy had just used as a brake clean parts rinse container. He had a part on a cardboard box in the can and doused it with a full can of brake clean. As I heated the joint the vapors in the can lit off into a huge fireball. It actually singed my eyebrows and blew my hat up a little. I yelled at him and he was laughing his ass off and drug the trash can down to the washbay and hosed it out. It was steaming like crazy so he opened the back door to the shop and slid the can outside. It was like 23 degrees and snowing so he shut the door and we went back to work. As I was reinstalling the driveshaft I hear this noise like someone is washing the building with a power washer. I look up and I see yellow light flickering in the shop door windows. I just started yelling “call the fire dept!” When I opened the back door there was a fully involved 500 gallon tote of used ATF right in my face! Running out of that fireball was a flaming trail of ATF headed for a customers truck parked out back that just came out of the body shop. Behind the tote there was a small storage building we used as a night drop for parts, all the cardboard in it was on fire. It burned a lot of paint off the back of the main building as well. Somehow between the three of us in the shop that day we got it put out right as the FD showed up. The trash can my buddy wheeled out back was a melted plastic donut with a fuel filter body all burned out right in the middle. I think we were 19 or 20 at the time. It was a small town dealership and we were literally the whole service dept. team at the time, just me my buddy and one guy in his 40s. We had to help the FD clean up ATF for the rest of the day in the cold snowy weather. For whatever reason my dumbass didn’t have a jacket that day. Our boss was wayyy too nice of a guy. He basically just said “ boys let’s do a better job of taking out the trash in the future!” Goodtimes!

 

[4Waters]

Put a backhoe bucket through a (marked) telco trunk line.

Made a screwup on a routing table and knocked 20k+ users out of our software in an instant. Only took 30 seconds to fix it but wow did my phone light up and you couldn't have driven a nail up my ass with a jackhammer afterwards.

Ok, so there was another one, ^^this reminded me of it.

Just popped the sidewalk and needed to grade. The water service and meter was about 18" deep and I only needed to grade about 3" of dirt off the top for base. I reached the backhoe bucket in between the driveway and the meter but not across the service (we clear over the service by hand, usually only about 12-14" wide) I dropped the bucket in about 2" and pulled the dirt, second time I drop in the same spot not quite 2" deep and pulled slowly. I didn't feel a damn thing, ripped the meter and service off the curb-stop valve. I hooked the copper service by an inch, it went from 18" deep to 3" in less than 2' and curved towards me 1'. The curb-stop valve was frozen and we couldn't get it to shut off. Luckily a Gateman was driving by and saw us struggling, took us about an hour to shut the water off at the curb-stop valve. It's my understanding that it was about 10k to fix that. Since that was my first water service I had to buy the crew Burritos. I still get shit about it. LOL

 

[Bowtiepower00]

Great thread. Couple of mine:

1: Worked in a Custom Big Twin shop in the early 2000’s, had a tank bolt snap off, so had to drill it out to use an easy out. Drill bit dug in hard, through the frame and through the main wiring harness. Had to fish it out and repair it, took the better part of a day on my own time, lol.

2: Worked for ADOT in the Interstate sign department. The signs are made of aluminum extrusions bolted together (think stadium seating) and covered with sheets of aluminum with a fancy reflective coating (the green you see on the sign face,) super expensive per sheet, and no defects can be on the sheets or they are useless. We had these sheets on dolly type a-frame trailers (like the back of a glass truck) and pulled them with a yard tractor like you see pulling luggage wagons at an airport. I hopped in the tractor to pull them inside after work, and made a sharp u-turn. Felt the trailers get light, and looked back to see the dollys tipping over and the sheets sliding across the parking lot like a deck of cards from a black jack dealer, lol. Called my supervisor out to help me pick them up, the look on his face was priceless. They were pretty much all junk.

 

[MOUZER]

fell asleep driving 18 wheeler slammed into back of a almost stopped nissan pick up on freeway at 60 mph..i will leave it at that.....

 

[707dog]

1. not technically work but my grandpa was teaching how to turn wrenches. 17 bought a 69 cutlass "s" blown engine we went out and yanked a 455 out of a olds station wagon and installed it. it was in just a few things to do gramps goes in the house to get us a soda, I get froggy fire up the car put in gear tap the gas to see if it would spin the tires well it did that and kept doing that until i hit the back of the garage that BB was in full burnout mode which seem like for ever. he comes diving trough the window shuts it down, WTF kid... took about a hr for the garage and house to clear from the smoke but the smell lasted forever. cost me a new front clip for that car and a ass chewing from grandpa.
*one of the last few things to be installed on the list was the new throttle return spring

2. when i was youngster had a career doing fire alarm, fiber optics/data installations. one of my first jobs was this secret data center build out for a unknown client we could only work at night. so we would do our 8 hrs else where then hit that for a few hrs at night. project manager calls us and they are adding more drops in the back room need to run wire and do single gang cut ins for the data plates need that done by the AM data racks will be installed first. iv never done this before and i let him know that lead say trace the cut in on the wall and cut it out. after cutting out the first 3 i tried out the cut in and it fell through the wall …wtf... he comes in and loses his shit on me i didn't know why until he pointed out i traced the outside of the ring not he inside to be cut. we almost get into a fist fight 3am nobody there with us. much more to the story but the end result was me at home depot waiting for them to open, sheetrock, mud and matching paint was my new job. repaired the 2 walls while project manager and lead watched what a fn horrible 24 hrs

 

[Melloyellovector]

Iv got so many, usually my guys fault at my expense.
1) my guys, gave him a side job while I left on vacation. He drained a pool into sewer clean out on side of house.
For acid wash on pool, house in escrow closing following week. Seller was doing as nice gesture for buyer not required.
So I get a call hours later, HEELLLP! water is coming through our hardwood floors downstairs.
Pumped 40k gallons of pool water into the basement. The clean out was actually a vent for water heater in the basement, ran in abs to side of house.
In the basement was a early 1900s oil heater converted to nat gas and blower venting. Luckily that was a semi easy fix, as most parts duplicate to pool heater. Igniters, ignitions control, fan module etc...
water heater destroyed
Wait for it,
In the basement was an entire wine cellar. With thousands upon thousands of dollars of wine, multiple single bottles in the thousands alone. The labels when under water came off the fucking bottles. Making all the, look at my collection useless.
Luckily they were a couple that were long time customers that adored me, lol
If house wasn’t in escrow the lawsuit could have been astronomical. We got house fixed and moisture smell gone before close of escrow. And they had a guess this wine going away party.

2) had a pool we dug dig alert marked utility lines but didn’t mark them all, we were days past the expiration date of their lay out. Excavator hit main lines under ground 4ft down not in conduit with tractor, boom, oh shit. Took out power to an entire block for like 2 days before they could figure out and Re route the mess. Edison lawsuit wasn’t as bad as anticipated ( dig alert skated by showing past expiration as if the lines Re routed them selves , lol )

3) had an rdp member refer me to a shot caller for a certain red wearing gang. Only to get burned for I don’t even know now 20k plus.

4) Iv got tons of em, mistakes a far less quantity then they once were. But when they do happen now they tend to be 10k plus minimum.

 

[rrrr]

We get a lot of emergency calls from scissor lifts and fork lifts hitting the fire sprinkler pipes.

In the 90s, my company did in house repair and refurbishment of large UPS systems for data centers.

I had a 500 kVA unit running in the warehouse, had just finished two weeks of work replacing all of the DC filter capacitors and cooling fans. I had also done full function testing and calibration of the logic and control PC boards. The exterior panels had been repainted too. I was letting it run to charge the four battery cabinets, a total of 120 AGM batteries.

My warehouse was 15,000 SF. The lease next to mine was being built out for a new tenant. An electrician on a scissor lift hit a 3" sprinkler line and pulled apart a victaulic coupling.

The sprinkler system was an ESFR type with a 125 HP pump, and when it came on, the water blew a 24" diameter hole in the demising wall above my test bay. When the water hit the running UPS, all hell broke loose. Smoke, fire, explosion.

The insurance claim for damage to the UPS was $52,000.

 

[jet496]

Early in my career is was a very green estimator, and missed and entire floor of a building.

Yea, but you got the job didn't you LOL

 

[jet496]

I bought $10,000 of Bitcoin when it first came out & held it until recently. The coins were like .01 each at the time. Problem is I bought the stock & not the coin itself. I'd be worth $500,000,000 if I knew what the hell I was doing LOL.

 

[CarolynandBob]

Early in my career is was a very green estimator, and missed and entire floor of a building.

Got the plans for an apartment bldg. Estimated the job and the stairs were wood. They sent a revised set of plans and said to update our bid. Stairs were changed to steel. 100k plus screwup, however the GC was someone we worked with a lot and and cut us a break.

 

[farmo83]

Two of them come to mind.

1. I was an accountant and accidently wired 50 million dollars to what is now my current company twice. They returned it both times and got it all sorted out, this got me on the list for the next round of layoffs though.

2. When I was a student I worked in the projection area of a movie theater. We would switch all the movies around at shift change(I.E. move the adult movies into bigger theaters at night, kids movies into big theaters into the day to maximize available seats). Anyway I got my wire crossed and put in a movie where the opening scene was some guy getting his head blown off instead of a cartoon. That went over real well with all the pissed of parents downstairs and the managers.

 

[HB2Havasu]

When I was first working as a machinist many moons ago I read a blueprint wrong. The parts I setup should have had a 30 degree chamfer but I made them 60 degrees by mistake. Then my inspector signed off on them for added measure. Then I proceeded to make about 25 parts the same way and ended up scrapping the whole lot and pissed away about $50K in material and time in 1990 dollars. Don’t know how I didn’t get fired for that fuck up, lol

 

[floatn turd]

I cost the people I work for maybe $200 hundred dollars a year in simple mistakes.

My boss on the other hand, legitimately costs the company around $100,000 on average.
Some years a $150,000.

People think he's fantastic but I'm the only one that knows.
Him being the owner brother has it's privileges I guess.

 

[farmo83]

My old man told me one time he was doing a job at NASA on a generator. He said the facility guy was basically like do whatever you need to do. They had to kill the power for test something, tie in, whatever. About 10 seconds later a ton of guys ran in that they had killed the power to mission control.

 

[4Waters]

Iv got so many, usually my guys fault at my expense.
1) my guys, gave him a side job while I left on vacation. He drained a pool into sewer clean out on side of house.
For acid wash on pool, house in escrow closing following week. Seller was doing as nice gesture for buyer not required.
So I get a call hours later, HEELLLP! water is coming through our hardwood floors downstairs.
Pumped 40k gallons of pool water into the basement. The clean out was actually a vent for water heater in the basement, ran in abs to side of house.
In the basement was a early 1900s oil heater converted to nat gas and blower venting. Luckily that was a semi easy fix, as most parts duplicate to pool heater. Igniters, ignitions control, fan module etc...
water heater destroyed
Wait for it,
In the basement was an entire wine cellar. With thousands upon thousands of dollars of wine, multiple single bottles in the thousands alone. The labels when under water came off the fucking bottles. Making all the, look at my collection useless.
Luckily they were a couple that were long time customers that adored me, lol
If house wasn’t in escrow the lawsuit could have been astronomical. We got house fixed and moisture smell gone before close of escrow. And they had a guess this wine going away party.

2) had a pool we dug dig alert marked utility lines but didn’t mark them all, we were days past the expiration date of their lay out. Excavator hit main lines under ground 4ft down not in conduit with tractor, boom, oh shit. Took out power to an entire block for like 2 days before they could figure out and Re route the mess. Edison lawsuit wasn’t as bad as anticipated ( dig alert skated by showing past expiration as if the lines Re routed them selves , lol )

3) had an rdp member refer me to a shot caller for a certain red wearing gang. Only to get burned for I don’t even know now 20k plus.

4) Iv got tons of em, mistakes a far less quantity then they once were. But when they do happen now they tend to be 10k plus minimum.

I was thinking about that red gang last night, that sucks you got burned on that.

 

[Dalton]

My old man told me one time he was doing a job at NASA on a generator. He said the facility guy was basically like do whatever you need to do. They had to kill the power for test something, tie in, whatever. About 10 seconds later a ton of guys ran in that they had killed the power to mission control.

oh......this reminds me of something i did.....nope, hasn't been long enough to tell that story yet lol

 

[johnner58]

Working at Tillman water reclamation plant in Van Nuys on a big piping project many years ago, superintendent says hurry up rigging pipe loads down into the gallery I'll let you guys go home early, I'm operating a truck crane with a couple of buddies, we drop our last load, they pile into the truck cab, I start pulling up the outriggers on the boom side when I realize I haven't swung the boom back over the truck bed and feel the truck start tipping over, I jump off the truck and dive out of the way as the truck comes over and fortunately comes to rest on the handrail. I look in the cab of the truck and my buddies are piled on top of each other, I climb on top of the cab and open the door to get them out. I had to take a couple days off but didn't get fired, my buddies never let me forget that day.

 

[Rajobigguy]

Lots of great stories here. I’m sorry to disappoint but honestly I’ve never had a failure of any real consequence. Birding isn’t it.

 

[jetboatperformance]

Lost my Temper at work, spiked my then "undercontrolled" BP then Aorta dissection and ended up in a Chopper headed to Standford ....

 

[Cobalt232]

I started out as an architectural photographer, primarily photographing model home complexes. Often, we would photograph them just prior to opening to the public. We were doing a shoot for Pardee Homes in Camarillo. Doing an interior shot the day before the grand opening, I got a light too close to the curtains. The curtains caught on fire. My assistant ran to the van to get the fire extinguisher, in the meantime, the fire was running up the curtains, so I had the bright idea to pull down the curtains. When they came down, they lit a chair on fire, and then the carpet started melting. When I got the extinguisher, it took all of it to put it out.

The superintendent was not too happy but was actually really good about it. They got a remediation company in quick, got rid of the smoke smell and did some touch up. I told Pardee and the interior designers to send me the bill but they never did. Pardee was great to work for and I did work for them for many years even after that in So Cal and Nevada.

 

[poncho]

In the 90s, my company did in house repair and refurbishment of large UPS systems for data centers.

I had a 500 kVA unit running in the warehouse, had just finished two weeks of work replacing all of the DC filter capacitors and cooling fans. I had also done full function testing and calibration of the logic and control PC boards. The exterior panels had been repainted too. I was letting it run to charge the four battery cabinets, a total of 120 AGM batteries.

My warehouse was 15,000 SF. The lease next to mine was being built out for a new tenant. An electrician on a scissor lift hit a 3" sprinkler line and pulled apart a victaulic coupling.

The sprinkler system was an ESFR type with a 125 HP pump, and when it came on, the water blew a 24" diameter hole in the demising wall above my test bay. When the water hit the running UPS, all hell broke loose. Smoke, fire, explosion.

The insurance claim for damage to the UPS was $52,000.

When I first started as an assistant engineer on boats I was super anal about washing the engine room deck almost daily. I was scrubbing away and grabbed the garden hose to rinse behind me, when I threw it back down it landed on the trigger and shot a perfect water stream into the air intake of a running 480 volt 400KW generator.

The generator went straight to ground at 1800RPM's and emitted the brightest and loudest thing I have ever been next to, seconds later it's pitch black with alarms going off and enough smoke the emergency lights were dim bulbs.

The Owner/Captain could not get me off of his boat fast enough. Flew home and 2 weeks later he called and said what happened to you could have happened to anyone , everyone wants you back . That was like 25 years ago and the story is still around.