What was your worst work mishap, accident, or oopsie?

There were three women who were best friends, took their breaks together, etc. And in the Christmas season they wore matching knit sweaters and would walk down the hall side by side so it would read "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

But one day when I was leaving the break room, they approached... and one was out sick. Before I could stop myself I asked "Where's the other Ho?"

Might've gotten a visit to HR from it if I hadn't looked so shocked at myself.

Nice try, HR.

Worst thing in the office place was when some idiot left their window open in the middle of Winter, temps fell below 0F with high winds, and froze the 2" sprinkler pipes running over their office. Flooded most of the 2nd floor then started running through and raining out onto the 1st floor (and then into the basement). And it happened during covid lock-downs so it was fortunate anyone was even in the building to report it.

My own personal oopsie was checking network cabling in a small room, bent over to check things low and then wandered out to check elsewhere... Then noticed there was a LOT of commotion on the sales floor. Turns out I hit the power switch on one of the phone cabinets with my ass and shut down half the phone lines.

Accidentally hitting reply-to-all on a company wide email and more or less stating that I wanted to be transferred to another team.

There was a new team forming elsewhere, and in fairness, it was a great opportunity in a lot of ways. But... I didn't get the transfer until another batch of jobs opened a few months later.

That... was a long few months.

I didn't actually delete the data but for a solid 1min I thought I had deleted an entire production db of data.

I made a delete then I hit refresh and nothing came. I refreshed again and no records panic started to set in and I refreshed again and still no records. I knew that changes replicated over to our quick backup every min so I picked up the phone and when the guy answered I said I need you to turn off the replication right now I think I just deleted the ministry of health.

After a bit of troubleshooting it turns out the data was fine and my delete worked as intended. The issue was in my client and we checked a few things then gave up. I went for a long lunch after that.

The biggest actual mistakes I've done were all caught by a really good manager i had and so I can't even remember them because they never blew up.

Permanently Deleted

1. Alt tabbed once too many times, clicked drop database and yes. Deleted the live authentication DB for America's Army: Operation video game.

2. Missed the word "add" in "switchport vlan add" on a switch, overwriting the list instead of appending to it. Took out the only connection between two datacenters we were in the process of migrating between. Took me 14 minutes to run to the datacenter, plug in a console cable and fix it.

The one I still feel guilt over was a time when i found out someone had left an animal trap loaded when they left for vacation. There was a live raccoon in it. I know I shouldn't've carelessly opened it, but I should've done something. Even killing it would've been kinder. I carry that one with me, to remind me to act when I can. I'm still bad at it, but I try.

The other day I told a customer I could smell gas in her apartment, and even though I feel like a dumbass because it wasn't a leak (probably lingering smell from them moving an appliance and hitting it on and off by accident), I don't regret mentioning it. Sometimes I just am going to be an obnoxious jackass about that stuff.

Many years ago, I worked in a call center. I was sitting with someone who was new helping them take calls and both of our headsets were plugged into the phone. The trainee was helping a store employee and she was just being awful to him. While she went to get something from the customer, I muted the line and said, "God, what a bitch!" except my finger was hovering over the button and I hit it just in time for her to hear me say bitch. I fully panicked and hung up on her. Nobody ever said anything to either of us and this was back when landlines would occasionally cross, so hopefully she thought that's what happened since she hadn't heard my voice up until then.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's the origin of why I still don't trust mute or hold to this day. I'm not talking shit until I know that call is disconnected.

Worked, after hours from home, on a Windows Server and fixed and issue with the Database on there. After doing so i thought I'd go to bed and shut down the machine... only I hadn't yet left the RDP connection and shut the server down by Accident. Had to drive to work and start the server up again.

Tripped and dropped a box, worth approximately $220,000 today, of extremely precise tooling meant for a cutting die. I was on my way to my bench to wrap them up safely. Boss was not pleased that day.

Pushed to prod

1. Put down a bottle of bleach a little too quickly, a little spurt splashed exactly straight up out of it when it hit the floor and somehow hit me right in the eye. Washed it out in the sink and finished my shift with my eye bright red, instead of, IDK, going to the fucking doctor like I probably should have, because I was young and exploitable.
2. Not me but a coworker: Found a handgun in our customer's stuff, started messing around with it. You know the punchline. The bullet went through a few walls, cops got called, he made up some story about how it went off on its own while still in the cabinet which no one believed, somehow still didn't get in legal trouble. He got fired over the phone before he had even left the customer's premises.
3. Got hired to a startup to fix the intranet slowness, started work as everyone was leaving, instantly fucked the router and broke the network completely for the whole floor, couldn't fix it for hours and stayed there in a panic until about 3-4 in the morning when I finally figured it out, and fixed the network and the slowness both. Never told them anything except the ending, and they liked my work and hired me full time.
4. Fucked the partition table to the main production server and my boss who was sitting right next to me had a mini panic attack while I reconstructed it from my notes and all the filesystems came back. Keep a notebook, it'll save your ass.

Years ago, when projectors were common in conference rooms. Someone was giving a practice presentation before the real deal in front of 80+ audience members. It was just our team of 8 or so the room for the dry run. In the middle of the presentation, there was a terrifyingly loud POP sound as the bulb blew out in the projector. It scared the shit out of everyone in the room. We all laughed after the initial shock wore off.

One of my coworkers stepped up on a table to take a look at it. I was near him and I waited for silence in the room while he was fucking with the thing, and clapped my hands together very loudly, simulating the previous scare. He let out a shriek of terror and clutched his chest. Everyone laughed. Eventually he laughed as well, but said something like "damn, that scared me." Within a week he had a legit heart attack.

He was ultimately okay, but I still think about it. I know I didn't cause it, but for a long time I couldn't shake the guilty feeling that I contributed to it. Oops. Sorry Ken.

A put a hole in the side of a helicopter that left it grounded for a week.

I accidentally tapped it with another piece of the helicopter. I'm happily working on helicopters that are made of metal now, so no more of that nonsense.

Edit: also, honorable mention because it wasn't my fault, but I made a helicopter drop an external fuel tank when it took off... by replacing a light bulb. It was on the button that makes the helicopter drop the external tanks, but there are failsafes so it will only do it in the air. Apparently the internal switch got stuck, so the second the weight was off of the wheels CLONK... and a tank was laying on the active runway. Excellent.

Although this wasn’t the worst, it most certainly could have been, and always comes to mind when questions like this are brought up.

I was on a job site. A half dozen houses were being built simultaneously. I walked too close behind an excavator, which abruptly turned. I nearly got hit in the head by the back end of that thing - which is all ballast and has tremendous mass. I almost got myself sent to the emergency room, and it would have been 100% my fault.

At the moment, I was just glad that none of the guys on my crew saw me pull such a rookie move. I didn’t think about it seriously until I got home that day. That excavator would’ve shattered my cheap plastic construction helmet like it was an eggshell. I could have died.

Was relocating a $10k piece of networking hardware and dropped it into another 10k VM server. Server was fine, network hardware was not. It was during a project that was a real mess, thought it was a stupid mistake though.

We were able to work around it, though we did lose the contract we were trying to make. Honestly though given how rushed and panicked that whole three months was though, we were lucky nobody suffered anything worse. Real shitshow.

Missing my first shift at a large retail store because of a misunderstanding. When I showed up the next week, the manager was furious. Not the best start

Tripped and hit my arm on the maple syrup canning machine that heats a water jacket to 200 f and got a 2 inch diameter blister.

Was working in a deli department of a grocery store. I think it was my second or third week there, and i was slicing balogna for a customer. Went to peel some of the casing off and got the tip of my thumb instead. Still think the lady who unkindly yanked my stitches out at the urgent care caused the lil flap to come off. It was 2009 and I'm actually impressed i got some tactile feeling back through the scar. I swear it fucks with the touch screen though.

Way back as a line cook I was on saute and it was the season for soft shell crab. I had a full rail of tickets, and 2-14in. saute pans with oil heating up on full blast while I knelt down to grab the crabs from my prep cooler across from the range.

The 'roided up chef stepped over me to get to middle to expedite the rush, and grabbed one of the pans with now very hot oil in them...realizing that they had oil he stopped his motion but Newtons law kept the oil flowing, down onto my bare forearm, hand and how I was positioned my ankle.

The grill guy immediately took a pan of water and splashed my arm with it, rolled down my sleeve and soaked it....and as a bonus being a dumbass I finished the shift before driving myself to the ER. Some good blisters but fortunately no scarring, very little pain because it was kept covered.

Bonus bits: The hotel/golf resort just implemented a drug policy, and if you were injured or did 200 USD of damage you needed to take a drug test, which I did. Policy also stated that you wait 3 days not working for the results. This was the start of a very busy weekend with a car show on the golf course, etc, and every warm body was needed, I went in to work the next day and if they wanted to send someone else for a drug test because they caused the accident, I suggested the ill tempered redheaded café chef...my results were discarded later.

Bonus bonus, right after the policy was put in place, a manager dropped a chandelier & walked away from his job after 5 years working there instead of taking the drug test.

At 7 years of age I was collecting the grass coming out of my neighbours lawnmower. I was tossing it in the air at my dog who was having great fun jumping into the air catching it.

Cue my neighbour running over my foot with his lawnmower. I didn't feel much pain as it shredded straight through my runner and skin.

I was rushed to hospital and somehow they saved my toe. It took about five years for me to regain feeling in it.

Edit: oh I missed the word "work".

Nothing major. In my country when people are fired they are entitled to recieve some money based on how long they've been an employee. One time I overpaid a dude who was fired by some 5k USD or so (converting from my local currency) which is nothing major but my boss was pissed. Luckly I just called him and asked him nicely to return the extra money and he did without being rude or anything.

Edit: just as a comparison at the same company once one of our (corporate) clients sent us the payment for a service twice by mistake, some ~200k USD that they had to pay 1x we ended up recieving twice. By comparison 5k is nothing.

A couple of things come to mind. Nothing really happened with either, but I can't think of anything worse:

First, years ago, when I was active duty army as a 15B Aircraft Powerplant Repairer (in the guard now), I was clipping blades on the first stage of the compressor due to damage. There's 20 blades in the first stage, and you have to clip the one opposite as well to maintain balance. Well, I counted wrong and clipped the wrong blade. The GE rep (representative from General Electric, who makes the engine) was right there and must not have been paying attention. It ended fine, though, just extra work I had to do.

Second, less years ago at my current job as a Diesel Technician, I was doing a warranty repair for a service bulletin. I was still pretty new here, and warranty jobs pay less time, but this was like the third one I had done and was making good time, so I was trying to hurry. It was cold that day, and people complain when you have the bay doors open, so I had it just open enough to raise the cab, which meant the door was almost all the way open anyway. When I had done as much as I could do with the truck in the shop, I lowered the cab so I could pull it out and use our forklift to remove the part. I had forgotten about the door and ran into it. Didn't get in any trouble though, just had to take a drug test per policy, and the door doesn't close right to this day.

My job currently has two locations and I regularly miss my ride back from the farthest place when I'm done there.

Shutdown -P now in the wrong terminal window and a server at the other side of the country went down.

Electrical work and blacked out the entire 500m level in the mine.

I worked for an online money exchange company. On one occasion I made a wrong operation: I chose the wrong bank and although the account did belong to the client, it was blocked and there was no possibility (supposedly) of reactivating it. I ended up making the company lose the equivalent of 3 times my salary (the equivalent in, say, Dollars is not much, but here in Venezuela it was more money than I ever had in my whole life). After paying half of the debt (since the other half was charged to my supervisor, even though I proposed that I would assume the entire debt) I resigned immediately, I did not want to deal with the stress of making such a mistake again and that it would get worse.

Permanently Deleted

say the word "oopsie" in my office and you're fired

Had a VM that batch processed files but some reason a couple of the files comming in was causing the procedure to crash and Gigs of files to get clogged.

I was moving big chunks of those into the host tmp Dir (only place I knew was ok to throw rand stuff) to try and catch the offending files. TMP was actually a RAM disk, so I filled all availability memory and crash the HOST system (including multiple other critical VMs) and lost weeks of data (because you know I put it in a RAM disk ...).

I work in a grocery store meat department, and part of my job is breaking down the newly-delivered pallets in the morning.

Ground beef was on sale and the warehouse had allocated (i.e., sent us extra on top of what we ordered) way too much. Each box has a production date and a use by date, but the text is very small, so I am supposed to write the day of expiration (excluding the month, since ground beef gets only 20 days on the shelf anyways; so a box that expires July 5th would get "5") in larger size and circle it.

I was very sleep deprived and on some of the boxes accidentally wrote the day of the production date (last month) instead of the expiration date, making it seem like they had 10 extra days. So the butchers ground other boxes before those ones, and the mistake was only discovered two days after the last two remaining (roughly 80-lb.) boxes had expired.

A funny mistake that's not mine is when a new hire, on his second day, was told to run our cart of fresh pickles. When he pushed it over the threshold from the backroom to the sales floor, the too-large, precariously-stacked cart completely collapsed, causing dozens of jars of pickles to smash (and to be clear, I did tell him how to push carts backwards over the threshold so that exact thing doesn't happen - he just didn't do it).

And to top it off, he wasn't wearing his slip-proof shoes (even though he had been told to multiple times), so when he was carrying a box of sauerkraut to the department to be written off, he slipped in the pickle juice on the floor and dumped sauerkraut all over himself.