20+ Hilarious work fails these employees made on the job: 'I felt like such an idiot'

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Jul 13, 2024 6:00 PM EDT

Have you ever messed up at work before? A lot of us have, whether we let a project slip through the cracks, forgot we had to give a presentation, or even forgot to mute our mics during a video call. We're human; it happens. But what about a fail so bad your coworkers still bring it up years later? Or a work fail so embarrassing you had no choice but to change jobs? These are the kinds of mistakes that become office legends, the stories that get told and retold at every company gathering. Imagine sending an email meant for your friend to the entire company or accidentally deleting crucial files right before a big meeting. Oops! The employees below have shared their most hilarious and cringe-worthy work fails. These stories are sure to make you laugh—and maybe even feel a little better about your own slip-ups. They may never live them down, but at least they can laugh about it now. Read on for a good chuckle and a little bit of second-hand embarrassment.

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  • 01
    r/AskReddit ⚫ 6 days ago Midtown-Fur . What is the dumbest mistake you've made at work?
    via u/Midtown-Fur
  • 02
    shawnwarnerwrites 6d ago Drove a semi truck full of mail from Providence to Boston with the trailer door open.
    via u/shawnwarnerwrites
  • 03
    redmooncat15 • 6d ago Was giving a presentation to 300+ people and rested my arm on top of the podium in a spot where there was a button that turned the entire system off, taking ~10 minutes to reboot and get my presentation back up. 2 minutes into talking again, I did it again.
    via u/redmooncat15
  • 04
    • DryTown • 6d ago Edited 5d ago This one makes me laugh when I think about it: I was sixteen pushing grocery carts outside a grocery store. “Lot attendant" was my title, and my job was to make sure chaos didn't break out in the parking lot. But I also had some other duties, like taking out trash, emptying ashtrays, and doing a few other little odd jobs around the store.
    via u/DryTown
  • 05
    One day a woman taps me on the shoulder in the store and says "I'm sorry, but my kid just threw up over that display." She points at this display of Entenmann's snack cake that was freestanding in between some aisles. And I can seethat this toddler had clearly projectile vomited all over it. There was some on most of the boxes. And I think "I'll handle this."
    via u/DryTown
  • 06
    So I scoop up all the boxes, take them out to the dumpster, and throw them all away. And as I'm dusting my hands off and congratulating myself on being so helpful, a manager was like "what did you just do?" And I said "I cleaned up a big mess, a kid threw up on everything." And he said "yea but you can't just throw a whole display away. There's a process. Inventory. We have to report these losses."
    via u/DryTown
  • 07
    I said "I push shopping carts man. I don't know anything about any of that." And he let out a long sigh and said, "this isn't going to be fun for either of us." Then he lowered me by my ankles back into the dumpster and I had to fish out all the snack cake boxes covered in child vomit and then learn how to scan them through some kind of computer.
    via u/DryTown
  • 08
    Cvillain626 6d ago • Cut grass on a zturn for like an hour before I realized I forgot to turn the blades on
    via u/Cvillain626
  • 09
    Kimchi_Cowboy . 6d ago Was on vacation and my boss told me to push a script another employee wrote before he quit. I was at Disneyland and didn't bother looking at it and just pushed it. Needless to say the former employee locked all our computers, 25000 of them. They tried to pin it on me but in the end my boss got in trouble for forcing me to work while I was on vacation and without anytime to prepare.
    via u/Kimchi_Cowboy
  • 10
    CaptainFartHole • 6d ago I'm an assistant. My second week on the job I took my boss's $2000 personal computer to get repaired. When I was bringing it back to his house, I dropped it and cracked the screen. Thank God it was a small crack and my boss is the chillest person on the planet, I genuinely thought I was going to get fired but instead he just happily started using it again and said it was no big deal since it still worked.
    via u/CaptainFartHole
  • 11
    IcedT_NoLemon •5d ago I needed to cut a 2 inch rubber hose. There wasn't a table nearby so I put the hose on my knee and pushed the box cutter through the hose, directly into my knee. Sometimes the brain just doesn't work.
    via u/IcedT_NoLemon
  • 12
    Salty DogBill • 6d ago Large printer, one of those office units.... Well, it had a manual switch to go between 220 and 110 voltage. Half way around the world and coworker forgot to change the switch to the correct voltage and fried the power supply. It's going to take a week to get a replacement unit but my coworker need to depart to go to his
    via u/SaltyDogBill
  • 13
    wedding. So a week later, I fly out to finish this guys job and install the new unit. I forget to check the voltage and fry it again. Ooops. A lady at work replied to a promotion notice with, “this don't work at all, just takes credit for our work." Sent it as reply all.
    via u/SaltyDogBill
  • 14
    Twinchad 5d ago I accidentally deleted the entire project directory for my company thinking i was deleting a folder called proposals. We lost about 2/3 of the directory before i was able to cancel the deletion. The data was gone as the folder was too big to fit in the trashcan so it was permanently deleting files as it went along.
    via u/Twinchad
  • 15
    Hunnidrackboy8 • 6d ago Taken a new medicine at work then made me act like I was drunk as it was so embarrassing and stupid. I should've tried the new medicine at home first
    via u/Hunnidrackboy8
  • 16
    Sierra419 6d ago Not me but a middle aged female in another department was unmuted while taking a massive dump and loudly taking a personal call on her cell. All 265 people on the call could hear her answer the phone and start talking about whatever while hearing the distinct sound of pee followed by farts and plops. Despite the CEO and the group directors all calmly (at first)
    via u/Sierra419
  • 17
    telling her to please mute before the panic started to set in. She thought she was muted the entire time and had the volume set so low she couldn't hear people yelling at her so she could instead be on her own call. It was almost 5 minutes into the call when we could hear the toilet paper rolling in the dispenser that she went dead quiet and left the meeting a second later. This was also not a work from home position either.
    via u/Sierra419
  • 18
    ruobrah 6d ago Put an adrenaline needle through my thumb. I was basically messing around with returned stock at a pharmacy whilst destroying old medication. Our old fashioned pharmacist/owner would always prime the adrenaline injectors and stab them into the wall to get rid of the liquid before disposing of it. I stupidly tried doing this myself one day but I squeezed the wrong end as I tried to prime it, and it
    via u/ruobrah
  • 19
    ended up going right through my thumb and out the other side popping through my thumb nail. Felt like such an idiot. The needle wasn't actually used, it was just out of date stock that a patient had returned. I still think about what could have happened quite often nearly 15 years later.
    via u/ruobrah
  • 20
    FormerStuff • 5d ago Brand new manager trainee. Had to sit through death by 90's OSHA videos. All stuff I had seen before and I was incredibly bored of it. At the end of the video there was a random guy in our office I assumed was a customer and I sarcastically said "well that was an hour I'll never get back". He goes "did you not enjoy it?" I said "yeah I didn't at all but like, I get it, safety comes first so it's necessary but the videos are so common sense it hurts.
    via u/FormerStuff
  • 21
    Anyway can I help you real quick? I have a meeting to get to, big guy from corporate merchandising team several states away is gonna be here in an hour or two". He goes "I'm filling in for big guy from corporate, I'm the North American safety director. Let's have a chat about your vision of safety at our workplace since you have that all figured out"
    via u/FormerStuff
  • 22
    skummelgutt • 5d ago Forgot to turn the sign to open. Coworker found out after he came out, asked why the place was empty and watched five people come to the door, stop, turn and walk away. I was hungover and stood at the counter like a zombie for an hour and a half having watched many people walk up and away. Coworkers greeted me until I resigned with "Are we open?"
    via u/skummelgutt
  • 23
    IronSlanginRed • 6d ago Ate a cookie a customer gave me. "Oh no, those were for later..." "Yeah, I could tell by the aftertaste. Thanks tho, I'll just go spend the rest of the day on maintenance tasks away from customers."
    via u/IronSlanginRed
  • 24
    Luckily I'm the boss so I just put on my headphones and started fixing around the shop. I let my main manager know the fuckup and he kinda just didn't send anyone my way for the rest of the day. Definitely got razzed for that one every time I brought in baked goods for the team for years though.
    via u/IronSlanginRed
  • 25
    Drove a semi truck full of mail from Providence to Boston with the trailer door open.
    via Mike Bird

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