'I dropped a $2,650 ice sculpture... minutes before its unveiling': 25+ Employees who made colossal mistakes on the job

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 12, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

We all have those workplace mistakes that we can't stop thinking about… the bigger they are, the longer they stay on your mind. 

Some former workplace mistakes still keep me up at night, wondering what would've happened if things had gone differently. Sometimes I think about the time I worked at a clothing retailer, and as a cashier, I constantly messed up people's refunds. There were these odd cases sometimes when people tried to return discounted items. They had bought something for $22 on sale, then wanted to return it. When I scanned the item, it showed that I was going to be giving the customer back $40 (the full price of that pair of jeans). I called a manager over to make sure I was doing this right, because surely the customer wouldn't be profiting $18 just by returning jeans, right? But this manager assured me that this was correct. From then on, I processed returns like that, and you could just see the glint in some customer's eyes when I explained to them why they'd be getting back more money than they even paid in the first place. It's basically an infinite money glitch! I think I was doing the right thing there, but I'm still not sure. At least I got to play a clothing-retail Robin Hood for a while, mistakenly or not. 

The people below made some giant mistakes that cost their companies thousands (and millions, in a few cases!) so check it all out below. 

Next, have a laugh at this very funny story of a dude who's squabbling with his wife over who should be able to use a fancy bathroom soap: "She hasn't spoken to me in 2 days, but I smell amazing." 

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  • 01
    this esthis.Setement fn.button.Constructo Setement.hasCla ata-toggle="button"1" Query),+function(a){"use s "object"==typeof b&&b),g 10:f.interval&&e.pause( $indicators-this.$element ctive-this.$items-null, 'Deleted a huge database file with years of data. No backup. On my last day of work' Used ult: returna.preven Interval(this. interva ousel",.pre terval-setInterval(a.pr wrap:),c.p oren("item"), this. $it and(".item.active")); r arousel", function () {c.t pause=function(b){retu t.transition.end
    via Markus Spiske on Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02
    Maxwyfe Paralegal: I had transcribed a recorded phone call. At home I was reviewing the tape and the transcription when I received a phone call from my husband. Instead of hitting "Pause" I hit "Record" and recorded over the ONLY copy of the phone call. Had to explain to my boss who had to explain to a judge why in the middle of this heated conversation
    via u/Maxwyfe
  • 03
    about a custody dispute they were listening to my half of a phone conversation with my husband about the plot of Lost.
    via u/Maxwyfe
  • 04
    [deleted] Worked at a Barnes & Noble a few years ago and was just sorta bitter about it because I was hired to be a "book seller" and ended up being a "cafe worker". I wanted to deal with books, not bagels. So one night when I closed up the cafe alone, I wiped down the counters and when I got to the disgusting cutting board, instead of cleaning it, I just
    via u/[deleted]
  • 05
    flipped it over. Honestly, it would have been easier to just wipe the tomato slices and crumbs off of it. So the next day the store manager calls me into her office and tells me she has something to show me on her
    via u/[deleted]
  • 06
    computer. Playing on the monitor is a _looping video of me flipping the board while I'm looking straight up into the surveillance camera in the corner, winking.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 07
    thehibachi I dropped a £2000 ice sculpture, just minutes before it's unveiling.
    via u/thehibachi
  • 08
    [….. My first job was in the grocery store. When I was promoted to cashier within the first week I made a $176.00 mistake. They pulled me into the office a few days later and showed me video footage of the transaction that went wrong. It showed me picking up the store phone and trying to figure out what my screen. was saying through another
    via u/[deleted]
  • 09
    manager. She walked me through it and walla Voilà, the receipt printed out and the customer left. I thought nothing of it. Later I found that I accidentally pressed a button that said the customer gave me cash instead of paid with his card. I offered to have them take the mistake out of my check but they let me off with a warning.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 10
    [deleted] Accidentally deleted my company's website when I was trying to create an FTP depository on the web server.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    SentinelMusic When I was an assistant at my current studio, I accidentally cut the front 3 seconds off of a song... --- The record label went ahead and printed the master like 8000 times before anyone realized :(
    via u/SentinelMusic
  • 12
    belonged, not to mention being completely electrically incompatible. Oh and did I mention that the techs had to carry them in sets of three on hand carts up the elevators to the 50- something'th floor? A feat which took nearly seven hours of labor between six guys, each of whom make around $300/hr. All the batteries had to be hand carted back down, the same job, had to be set up for
    via u/SentinelMusic
  • 13
    Sunday, at an even more tremendous expense, and the customer dropped their contract at the next renewal cycle. All told my one digit fuckup cost the company around $14,000 to fix. Oh and about $1.2 million in lost contract revenue.
    via u/SentinelMusic
  • 14
    Salad Phallus I work as a nurse's assistant. When I was brand new to this field, I was working at a nursing home. I rolled a 90- year-old patient over onto their side, away from me, to wash their back. Rolled them right off the other side of the bed. Their head landed in the trash can.
    via u/Salad_P******
  • 15
    Explosivo87 I forgot to get some product tested before sending it out and it cost my company millions of dollars. Still work for them. Basically, they put our glue on airplanes. So they used our bad product to build a plane and had to tear it all apart because of my little mistake.
    via u/Explosivo87
  • 16
    Automatically... OP I once lost a cheque for a decent amount of money (~$7000 IIRC) when I was running errands for the accounting firm I was working for. After travelling extensively throughout the city on foot, I got to the bank and the cheque was no where to be seen. It could have been anywhere, and I couldn't sleep all that night thinking about it. Luckily, I
    via u/AutomaticallyManual
  • 17
    rang one of the government businesses I was at that day out of desperation. Turns out I had somehow dropped the cheque on the floor, and they still had it. When I went to collect it, I don't think I had ever been that relieved before.
    via u/AutomaticallyManual
  • 18
    TL;DR I temporarily lost a cheque for $7000, turns out I dropped it somewhere in the city and was able to deposit it without anyone knowing I had ever lost it.
    via u/AutomaticallyManual
  • 19
    benthook I was working for a datacenter engineering company that handled power backup equipment. We had a contract with the new york fox affiliate that had their studios in the empire state building. They had some massive failure in their power backup system supporting their live broadcast equipment on a Friday afternoon, and I was
    via u/benthook
  • 20
    supposed to get the 3 pallets of product (industrial batteries and equipment totaling well over $100,000) that they needed ordered and delivered to them for first thing Saturday morning. A next day job like this costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, and is a nightmare to orchestrate as there are only 2 small receiving docks in the ancient empire state building and the union guys
    via u/benthook
  • 21
    who run them don't work on the weekends. Needless to say getting a job like this done involves talking to a lot of guys named "Vinny" and a lot of financial greasing of the wheels. Anyway, its Friday night and i finally get this whole deal sorted out around 11pm. It was going to cost a fortune, but the customer, fox, absolutely had to have it next day as it was the only power backup
    via u/benthook
  • 22
    equipment supporting their live broadcast. So i go home, have some pizza rolls for dinner and go to bed, satisfied I had accomplished a hard days work. I wake up late Saturday morning and roll into the office to see how my empire state building deal is going. I call up the techs doing the install and ask them how things are progressing, by this time its nearly 2pm.
    via u/benthook
  • 23
    They tell me that they cannot get the batteries to fit in the racks (this is a string of hundreds of car- battery sized batteries that mount on specially built racks within a closed system) Turns out I had flubbed one number in the 8 digit long item number when ordering the batteries. There were 120 batteries total, each battery was two inches too long to fit where they
    via u/benthook
  • 24
    followthedarkrabbit Overpaid $80,000 when making a payment. Whoops. Boss was cool about the whole thing.
    via u/followthedarkrabbit
  • 25
    Meet_Your_Fate I accepted a promotion as manager, and then had to fire my girlfriend. Let's just say I made friends with my hand after that.
    via u/Meet_Your_Fate
  • 26
    thefractalcat When I was leaving work, I totally didn't see how close I was to my boss's SUV... and when I backed up, my side view mirror made a 2 foot long gash in the door before I could stop.
    via u/thefractalcat
  • 27
    t... I took a summer job in college that had me working the overnight shift at Lowe's on a renovation. For some reason, my coked out manager decided that a 20 year old who had never driven a fork lift before should be given a fork lift license and authorized to use it in the store. Second night on it, I lift a pallet and promptly destroy the first
    via u/theycallmeMrPickles
  • 28
    two side rows of a brand new rack. Luckily there were some ice cream makers (seasonal display item) there, I just stacked them and walked away. Next night, it's pouring rain and she decides that I need to bring in a few pallets of concrete from the yard. I brought the first one in fine, the second one, I miss the holes on the bottom of the pallet and spear the bags. I
    via u/theycallmeMrPickles
  • 29
    readjust the fork and move it out of the way, continued to move the bags thinking I would get back to it later. Well, never cleaned it up and went in the next day to them removing a huge chunk of fencing. A pallet of concrete set around the fence.... I was promptly fired but not before putting the fork through three bathroom cabinets. Good times.
    via u/theycallmeMrPickles
  • 30
    janeeeey For about 6 months after I started I working on a supermarket checkout I scanned all types of pears. as 'conference' pears, rather than the more expensive varieties that they actually were. I didn't know which type was which and didn't want to bother anybody by asking. Pretty terrible, I know...
    via u/janeeeey
  • 31
    nuke505 I was working the cash register, and i mistakenly charged everyone 5 dollars. less then what was the average price of admission. there were over 100 people who i undercharged...
    via u/nuke505
  • 32
    rollcage When I was new, accidentally charged someone at a servo station for not just their own fuel, but someone else's fuel who drove off without paying, as I had the other persons petrol sitting there already on the screen (not realising I was charging the next customer for it).
    via u/rollcage
  • 33
    The other persons drive off was $60. They paid by ~ eftpos and never even knew it was a tad much. I only realised once the drive off dissappeared, then checked the reciept. The manager just laughed and said, "Well, at least it's paid for!" Nothing to follow up on. That was two years ago.
    via u/rollcage
  • 34
    Silvervind I don't know about worst, but definitely the stupidest: I work at a group home for dis ed adults where I work alot of night shifts. One evening when all the residents were asleep and I was alone at the office I was getting myself a cup of tea. When I was going to transport this cup of teal from the kitchen to the desk (without holding the handle)
    via u/Silvervind
  • 35
    I quickly realised that it was boiling hot, so for a couple of seconds I thought it was a perfectly good idea to throw the cup on the floor (not drop, throw with a force) Needless to say the tea splashed everywhere but luckily I managed to get it all off, or so I thought... When I came to work the next day I told this fun story to my co-worker and she immediately replied with "so that's why the wall is so
    via u/Silvervind
  • 36
    spotty?". I then realised that I had managed to throw the cup of tea so hard that it splashed all over the wall all the way to the ceiling. A parent of a resident that stepped into the office that day must have really wondered why I stood on a chair scrubbing the wall for dear life! TL;DR: I THREW IT ON THE GROOOOOOUND!! PS. The cup survived.
    via u/Silvervind
  • 37
    [deleted] Worked at a parts manufacturer in the shipping. department. Had the head of the entire plant tell me if he saw one more of the parts labels incorrectly he'd fire me. Unbeknownst to him it had been my manager who was mislabeling parts and then he blamed it on me.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 38
    So I took a part and ran it though the scanner with "F off" as it's label and walked out.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 39
    [deleted] Lost a kid's file that had all his personal info, financial aid info, records of completion of certain requirements, etc. Pretty much every single important thing from his 3 years in the program and for some reason my boss preferred hard copies and didn't have a backup. Plus it was all supposed to be confidential. I have no clue where it went.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 40
    thealmightyphil Dropped a (then) £2000 camera with £2000 Lens attached.......
    via u/thealmightyphil
  • 41
    Iwanttolivein Alaska Deleted a huge database file with years of data. No backup. On my last day of work.
    via u/Iwanttolivein
  • 42
    Chickens_dont_cl... I made a mistake that cost Verizon $176,000. Was building the database that charged for various rate plans for pre-paid phones. I left out a modifier that would apply "mobile to mobile" charges to a whole group of call types, instead of one specific call type.
    via u/Chickens_dont_clap
  • 43
    By the time it was discovered, the change was live in the system for half a day and $176k was what we had to credit customers who called to complain about the invalid charges. But you know what, I closed a loophole in their internet access database that saved them $1.4 million over a year, so I don't even feel bad.
    via u/Chickens_dont_clap
  • 44
    Eitaknamyal I used to work at a Meijer grocery store. When I first started they would put coupons next to the register to use as a reference to pick out fake ones. I thought they put them there to use for customers who bought those products. Lets just say, I used them for entire 8 hour shifts for about three days before anyone noticed. :)
    via u/Eitaknamyal
  • 45
    Cheezburger Image 10503499520
    via Nappy For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 46
    knuklz Not me, but somebody I work with shut down a server system controlling a train loader. It's in the coal mining industry and it cost over a million in lost revenue, specialists all sorts of stuff before it was finally functional again. Yes, he still has his job.
    via u/knuklz
  • 47
    KNHaw Swapped power cables on prototype hardware that was the only one of its kind on the planet, smoking it. It was the front end of a $6 million program. Years later, did an interview on NPR's "The Story" about it (slow mp3 link here).
    via u/KNHaw
  • 48
    drshmoo I committed incorrect code (compiles but runs with error or produces unexpected results) to the subversion repository. The automatic regression tests send a public shaming email if this happens.
    via u/drshmoo
  • 49
    [deleted] I work at a car dealership in the reconditioning department. One time I had this huge box truck that I was supposed to be working on...had it made it through the bay door. Well, box trucks don't fit through the garage doors at my work. I found out the hard way after getting it stuck.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 50
    Die_Luis I emailed the boss about a colleague with the subject line "The nightmare that is "said colleague". However instead of just emailing the boss I copied in the colleague I was complaining about. It was not a good day.
    via u/Die_Luis
  • 51
    Johndamon77 Not that bad, but as a pizza delivery driver I left to the house I was delivering too without there order. Worst part is it was relatively slow and in the morning. Didnt live that one down.
    via u/Johndamon77
  • 52
    elektro4life Doing an update in a database (on production) and forgetting to put the where clause. Thank god for regular backups.
    via u/elektro4life
  • 53
    Nunbarsheguna I work in construction as a drywaller. Last year I was putting ceiling wires up for acoustical/dropped ceilings at this brand new massive building. I ended up making a noob error and accidentally screwed all the wires up through the finished roof. This guy came up flipping like it was the end of the world. An hour later, I walk upstairs to find
    via u/Nunbarsheguna
  • 54
    water leaking through the entire top floor. I thought this was the end, until some kid laughing tells me that the dude who yelled at me pushed a load of plywood across the roof, destroying the rubber. All in the same day.
    via u/Nunbarsheguna
  • 55
    Probablysleeping I used to bag to-go orders at an Italian restaurant. One night I accidentally forgot to put a lid on a spaghetti and marinara meal. The woman ran back screaming after five minutes complaining she got sauce all over the white leather interior of her car.
    via u/Probablysleeping
  • 56
    Gneissisnice I work at a college bookstore, and after working solely in the textbook area for 6 months, the manager decided that I needed to learn the register and put me in merchandise for a few weeks. Unfortunately, my register training was "scan things, and that's it". So it took me a while and lots of
    via u/Gneissisnice
  • 57
    mistakes before I actually figured out what I was doing. The worst mistake I made was probably incorrectly processing several rental refunds (they refunded the books by the first week of class) so that they never actually updated in the system. Whoops, they're not gonna be happy when they get emails about rentals that they don't have anymore.
    via u/Gneissisnice

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