Anyone else have an epic failure at your job that you wouldn’t mind sharing with me? I could really use a story about how you came out of it on the other side and how it’s just a distant memory… plus it would help to not feel so alone and AWFUL.
Anyone lol
I threw away a 23 year career, giving up my amazing retirement, and a ridiculously good salary to drink and be homeless. . . Today, just 22 months sober, I have a new career path with better hours, more money, and less stress. Turns out that my alcoholism was the best thing that ever happened to me financially 
Seriously though, stay positive and grateful. The universe will lead you exactly where you’re supposed to be.
I spent 45k on a college degree I never used, and then worked a bunch of shit jobs for 10+ years to pay off the loans.
At one job I kicked down my cubicle wall and ripped my keyboard out of the computer at 11:30 at night because the rest of the department left earlier and dumped all the work on the new guy. Then I walked out and was ready to quit until my coworker talked me into staying to finish a project.
Another time I fucked up the parts order when using an injection mold machine. The whole machine gets shuts down for repair, and is taken offline. They are huge, like two stories high. I did it three times in a week, and then quit. I can go on and on and on about shitty jobs. Let me know if you need more!
I just keep going. At this point, all I want is to work with decent people.
Lol thanks!!
Happy you keep going though 
I got drunk at work those days used to be waitress in the night club was so drunk than fell down from the stairs twisted my ankle cut myself could even talk properly when help came all colleagues seen this super embarrassing not being able to walk drunk in front of management and friends
Thank you, definitely needed to hear that
I’ve had plenty of the work moments but what stands out in my mind is something even better! When I was 16 years old, I got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt in my grandmother’s pickup. We went to the courthouse to talk to the judge about it but she was in a “high profile” court case. And we had to wait for her to finish so she could come and talk to me and my grandmother. I had just drank a whole bunch of water, in nervousness, on the way there and had to pee so so bad. I asked the clerk where the bathroom was and she gave me some very bad directions. I practically ran down the hallway, I had to pee sooooo bad. I bursted into the doorway hoping to run to the toilet. Instead, I bursted into a COURTROOM (through the door behind the judge where she went in to sit down)!!! I stood there with a WHOLE COURTROOOM full of people, media, jurors and EVEN THE GUY GETTING SENTENCED (who was standing in the middle of the courtroom in shackles) looking at me in confusion LMAO!!! I stood there frozen and the judge asked me WHO ARE YOU? I was like “UM UM UM” and ran out the door again!!! OMG that had to have been one of the most embarrassing moments of my life!!! I was probably on the five o’clock news that night too!
I went out at lunch, got drunk and crashed ny car into a pole. After I was arrested and brought to the police station, I asked the cop to call my office and let them know I’d be late coming back. The cop didn’t take direction very well and told them what happened. My boss shows up at the station but wouldn’t sign me out because he didn’t want to take responsibility for me for the next 24 hours. My niece came to get me. Anyway, I didn’t get fired but they did order me to go into a program. I left that job a month later after they paid me for my time off to go thru detox.
Edit…I forgot to add how I came out the other side. I worked for that company for 13 years. After leaving, I decided it was time for a career change. It was the best decision I ever made. I felt stuck in that job for so long and after I fucked up, it gave me the push I needed to try something different. Had it not been for this incident, I would still be deep into my addiction and working at a job I hated.
I used to be a chef awhile ago. And would work early in the morning, first one to get there to get everything set up and ready for the day.
I had to start getting water in the pots to start boiling, so I set the massive pot down, turned on the water, left it running while I grabbed other things out of the walk in. Well, being hungover and stoned I totally forgot about the water and go caught up doing other things. Came back to the kitchen and its flooded and the ground is covered in water! Panicing i grabbed the mop and rushed to push the water down the drain.
I dont think anyone knew!
When I was in the infantry, we were on an exercise, and I was making my way through the bush, lots of thick trees and brambles and crap like that.
I had just fought my way through all of that brush and crap, and out into a bit of a clearing, only to hear the rat-a-tat of a machine gun, and my sergeant yell “You’re dead, you stupid bastard!” I got lots of fatigue duties and crap for that.
Obviously they were firing blanks, but still… Getting shot at work… now THAT’s a bad day.
Thanks for the stories. It was nice having this community… and seeing everyone continuing. That’s something I list in my gratitude journal often. I am grateful for continuing.
My situation resulted in a million dollar fuck up. Not directly as a result of my actions, but my inaction (is that a word?) added to the gravity of the monetary FAIL. Multiple people added to this but I’m the one at the front line revealing it to everyone and also finding the solution.
I understand it’s just money and I am so grateful to have this job. But the weight of this almost broke me this week. And I had a passing thought that if I could drink during this I might get through it better. But that would be more than a million dollar mistake. It would cost me everything I love and everything I am. And NOTHING is worth that.
Forseable lessons I will learn or have been reminded of from this:
I went to bed early last night, and I woke up early this morning, I walked out the door and saw a beautiful day. I still have SO much work to undo the damage done, but I’m not alone and I currently still have a job so that’s something and if I don’t after this, just like @ChristopherX said, the universe will lead me exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I have faith that you’ll come out the other side just fine Lea. You didn’t pick up and that’s f**king awesome in itself. We’re all here for you. Sending you a big hug.
I once set up a promotion at the Casino where if you earn 500 points, you get to play a game and win some free play.
It was a daily promotion for the month of September. The system that controlled it had to have an instance of the promotion for each.day it ran, 30 days, 30 instances. Each instance was a whole set up and setting parameters, prizes etc. It was time consuming and very repetitious.
Now, 500 points is quite a bit of points, it is equal.to playing $500 on a slot machine, so this promotion is not for everyone! Well, on one of the days, I set it up so that instead of 500 points, it was 0 points. That’s right, EVERYONE was able to participate in the promotion that day. And what day was it? A Saturday, only the BUSIEST day of the week.
I gave away over $30k that day. Turns out the Marketing Director wanted to fire me, but it was my 3rd month on the job and my boss took the heat, he said he should have reviewed my work.
Oops.
Thank you so much Lisa!!!
Uh, yeah. Yesterday. It was a nightmare in the moment and embarrassing in hindsight.
We wasted hours chasing after the wrong technical problem before realizing what actually happened the moment things went sideways. While teams of people waited and specialists were called in. I was there the whole day and felt like the biggest asshat for not seeing it sooner.
In the end it was dumb luck we figured it out at all. To be fair, the thing that set off the chain of events none of us had seen before, so it was easy to miss.
We’re well-trained experts, so swallowing something like that is hard. Yesterday I stepped away from it a couple hours. Cuz I started on that spiral of, “This feels like it’s happening more than it should lately. Is it me? Am I fundamentally an idiot or doing something wrong?” I mean, of course I am, but… 
I’m in a supervisory role, and I spend a lot of time working with crews troubleshooting stuff and often reassuring them that they’re making the right calls, one step at a time. Even if it goes badly. For me, it’s then easy to see all the places we struggle and overlook where we’re succeeding in spite of problems. But this was like some last straw cuz it was such a huge time sink.
In the end I just owned it. Make amends. I f----ed up. “This” is what happened.
Stuck in self-doubt, I went to those I’m responsible to and asked them how I can make it right. I was straight with them, asking their input on what went wrong, how I/we effed up, if they had any advice on how to do better going forward.
Just like drinking! If I’m not sure where things went wrong, am I gonna keep thinking I have the answer? Or invite some criticism and guidance to break out of any potential mental traps I’m stuck in?
So far reactions have been laughter. Along the lines of, “Hahahaha! Yep, that sucks. What we do isn’t easy, and what happened to you guys has happened to all of us. You guys are actually pretty good, don’t beat yourself up about a bad day.”
Anyway, that’s my job f— up for the month. The feelings of guilt from one bad day tell me I feel like I’m missing something in the big picture and wanna powwow with my boss about it. He’s good at spotting where we’re falling down on the basics that keep stuff like this from happening.
But also, maybe it was just a bad day. We all have them!
Yasssss. Actually, the process of recovery taught me I shouldn’t be so dismissive about leadership courses. Drinking I always sneered, what practical stuff can they really teach? It’s not teachable.
Sober, I had to admit I thought that because it seemed as impossible to learn as quitting drink, and that somehow I’d just muddle through it alone. Others had figured it out though. So I pushed to be put into a workshop.
And it was amazing. I was surprised 75% of the thing wasn’t practical stuff, but how to have your head screwed on straight as a manager. It was super helpful and I’m probably due for a refresh.
Thank you @Eke and @Dejavu for sharing… those are definitely shitty situations…and yet here we are on the other side 
Just to update this thread. I’ve been working on average 13 hours a day to put together a report of the gravity of the situation. Hopefully we can hire a temp to take on the extra work once we move forward with the solutions, because I can’t keep going at this pace.
Still sober though! And I hit 365 days of gratitude the other day, and I still have SO many more days to be grateful for…I just need to keep at it…keep focused and try not to let my humility/ego get the best of me.
Omg this is a great story
Hey I would be pleased to share.
Please select from the extensive list of employers I have been fired from or walked out of.
How about the time I got fired from a maintenance job at a fancy hotel in the city. Apparently I don’t fit in with the hotels company values or something. Well they soon found two pockets of screws, tools and other work shit throw accross the foyer and my key card throw into the abyss of the hotel somewhere and I rodey skateboard out of that hotel and didn’t so much as look back at those fauxies.
I also got fired for trying to buy nintendo’s from savers (value village in aus) at a ridiculously cheap price that I made myself. I worked there at the time and the Nintendo’s came in, I priced 3 of them and a few game boys and a huge bag of n64 games, all priced for a total of $20. I got seen in camera on my lunch break trying to buy this huge sack of nintendos for basically nothing.
Instantly fired. I’ve never step foot back in that store out of shame either lol
