As an editor, I am not just in charge of proofreading and correcting style and format. I am also in charge of making sure all the contact information provided, such as phone numbers and emails, work.
After working for 10 hours straight a few months ago, I forgot to check the phone numbers and let a brochure go to publication with a phone number that did not work.
Luckily, a similar mistake had actually happened before with another editor for another client a year prior, so contact info on print materials like this brochure were checked by every department rather than just editorial, and the mistake was caught.
Since I didn't know this, when I heard the phone number was wrong, my heart dropped to my stomach and I thought I was sure fired. Luckily, I was just told to make sure this never happens again. I was relived that there was no fallout, but when I first heard what happened, my only thought was. 'I totally f**ked up!'
Redditors are no strangers to this feeling, as they've made egregious mistakes themselves. They are only too eager to share their experiences.
It all started when Redditor Puzzled_Assistant_ asked:
"What was your "I f**ked up" moment?"
Wires Crossed
"I managed to destroy a $4k piece of test equipment by connecting the wrong leads. For the briefest of moments the screen showed an overvoltage warning... That's when I knew."
– frank-sarno
Let's Write It Off
"If it makes you feel better my husband bought a bit of software to test and forgot to cancel it. A year later and 70k he had to fess up to his boss. Luckily his boss said don't worry I'll spin it as efficiency savings..."
"He is usually a massive d*ck so I can only presume it saved his a*se too. There was a lot of anxiety in my house when my husband realises so very grateful for how it turned out."
– ernieb33
Dumpster Diving
"I threw away a cashier's check for $50,000. I didn't think it would be a big deal, didn't understand the difference between a cashier's check and a regular check. We had thrown the trash in the dumpster at work, so my dad and I went down around midnight and tore open all the garbage bags in the dumpster before we found it."
– LordBaranof
Five Second Rule?
"I worked in a commercial kitchen. I had just finished making and plating hundreds of deviled eggs. As I moved them into the walk -in, the cart wheels caught on the lip and sent ALL OF THEM straight on the floor."
"Edit. Forgot to mention, this was the first day with the new head chef"
– Calligaster
"I was carrying a huge tray of Mac and cheese for dinner for 62 people (besides some salad the only dinner) and spilled all of it on the floor with everyone waiting in line watching me, plates in their hand waiting for food to arrive."
– fdedfgfdgfe
Ouch, Ouch, Ouch!
"Used to downhill skate pretty regularly, took my time and had some safe spots away from traffic. Took a tumble once and popped up on my feet but my right leg crumbled. Looked down and my right foot was doinked 90⁰ to the left. "I done f**ked up" was running through my head 100x every second for weeks"
– dglaw
"Almost happened to me, no helmet and smacked the pavement. Broke my skull but miraculously survived, 4 days bleeding out my ear in the hospital, 6 weeks of triple vision, years of recovery but I have very few ongoing issues. That was my “I f**ked up” moment, boy did I get lucky"
"Edit: since I’ve had several questions about the triple vision I’ll elaborate. I don’t understand why or how it worked but I was seeing 3 of everything. Neurologists told me my eyesight could go back to normal in a couple weeks, months, or maybe even a year. They said after a year if it hadn’t gone back to normal then it would most likely be permanent. It was lucky this happened when I was 19 because my brain was still developing so it was able to create new connections. If it had happened 10 years later then the damage certainly would have been permanent"
– bridoogle
Cut Off
"My first marriage. First day of the honeymoon. We are at a nice sightseeing spot. I take a photo of him in front of a memorial. After taking the photo, I say: “Oh, I think I cut of your feet in that shot.” He throws a total fit about it. That’s when I realized, I f**ked up marrying him."
"I stuck it out eight years with him. I don’t take my promises lightly, so I tried to make things work one way or another. Eventually, I realized that ‘till death do us part’ could be some fifty or sixty years more of this and I filed for divorce. One of the better decisions in my life."
– Tempus-dissipans
Take As Instructed
"I was a lead in a play for a theatre company, came down with an intense cough, decided to see a doctor, they prescribed me a cough suppressant, I figured if the recommended dose worked then more than the recommended dose would work even better. Drank half a bottle of DXM syrup two hours before going on stage and accidentally had an out of body experience in front of a full house. I was young, naive and very high. Director wasn’t too happy about it."
– WooWooInsaneCatPosse
Follow The Recipe
"Let's go back to my first kitchen job. I was a prep cook for a bakery / coffee shop. One morning, I was making cinnamon rolls and following the recipe, or so I thought."
"I pull my first batch of 30 out of the oven, and the owner comes by for a taste. She takes one bite, spits it out? And asks me what my process was. I told her I doubled the recipe as she requested, so you know 14 TBSP of cinnamon. Problem!!!! That number I thought was a 7, was in fact a 1."
"Ooooops."
– _Tranquil_Dude
"This is only tangentially similar but when I was in like 8th grade I tried to treat my parents by making meatloaf. We were eating and they said it tasted weird and asked what I put in it. I listed off the ingredients including garlic, and they asked where I got the garlic. Well, from the shelf at the bottom of the pantry of course!"
"It was not garlic. It was tulip bulbs."
"That was the day I learned tulip bulbs can be poisonous if consumed 😀 we were all okay tho. Just me being a silly goose."
– Jessie-yessie
Time To Get Rid Of It
"I decided to scrape out old, stale brownies that had hardened to the pan with a knife."
"The thought flicked through my mind a fraction of a second before the knife slipped out of the pan and plunged into the center of my palm."
"Side note: after that, the knife was always darker where it had been inside my hand. Anyone know why?"
"Another side note: 5 years later, guy broke in my house and tried to kill me with that very same knife!"
– Mellopiex
"This was quite the rollercoaster read"
– SourTaco
"This is like final destination! Get rid of that knife!!!"
– BabyStace
"He escaped with it, so it’s no longer my burden to bear."
– Mellopiex
Yikes!
"I f**ked up. I locked myself in an empty jail."
"I was reviewing a jobsite at 5pm on a Friday, and I was the last guy there. My cell phone had just ran out of battery. It was a new county courthouse in the USA and it was nearly complete. I was checking door functionality, mechanical function only. The whole building had electric security on each door but it was turned off. I had a master keycard and an actual door key to override the door locks, just incase. At one point I mindlessly walked into a side chamber of the main courtroom. I realize it’s the detainee lobby. As I turn back I hear the door click shut. I tried the electric keycard that I had. It didn’t work because no electric 😤. I tried the regular key that I had, and the lock didn’t work properly. I tried again. Nothing. And again, nothing. And again a few more times. It still doesn’t work."
"I bang on the door and shout for help for a few minutes. It’s useless, no one’s there. I try the door lock a few more times. It doesn’t work. There is approximately 62 hours until anyone was supposed to be at the jobsite again."
"I f**ked up."
"I didn’t want to but I ended up kicking the door and after a few minutes it broke. It broke around the lock with the lock staying connected to the frame, 😆. Everyone laughed at me on Monday."
"Edit: the door between the detainee lobby and the courtroom was a heavy solid wood door and not as secure as the detainee cell doors. That’s because the policy was always to have a sheriff with the detainee when in that room."
– Willbily
Ugh.
"Step 1: go make lemonade in the 5 liter tank, it was summer and there were 6 of us in the house so we needed it"
"Step 2: the sugar and the salt are in two identical containers"
"Step 3: regret existing"
– Zaln_The_HUN
Such a simple (and rather common) mistake, but still one the most horrible!
We've all done things we aren't proud of.
Be it saying something behind someone's back, a prank that went a little too far, or a heated exchange with a friend or family member, everyone has crossed the line at one point or another.
Thankfully, more often than not, these mistakes can be salvaged with an apology and a little contrition.
Unless you've done something that goes well beyond a simple "I'm sorry."
We’re talking about actions that can only be described as "f*cked up."
"Redditors, what is the most fucked up thing you have ever done?"
Duplicity Never Pays Off
"I’m a recovered heroin addict (9 years sober), and I have a lot of stories of how much of a sh*t person I use to be."
"I really can’t gauge what my worst moment would be, but I can post a story or two definitely."
"One day, I was flat broke and on my last bag of dope. My 'neighborhood pharmacist' just recently was arrested for a dui."
"Brainstorming, I came up with an idea to try and get some pills at the e.r. I still had med insurance at the moment, so I thought this was my best option."
"My buddy came by and we were hanging out outside smoking a cigarette and trying to figure out how to get hurt, just enough to get some pills, but not enough to actually have permanent repercussions."
"There was this big cinder block beside my garage, and I decided to drop it on my foot in hopes of just breaking a toe at most."
"I stood outside on the concrete patio for about five minutes with the cinderblock trying to hype myself up enough to drop it on my foot."
"I couldn’t do it, psyched myself out too much."
"I told my friend that he would have to do it for me, and he said OK."
"He held it about waist high and dropped it on my foot."
"I knew it wasn’t enough damage so I told him that he needed to put it up higher and drop it again to which he did."
"So go to the hospital tell them that I was carrying boxes downstairs to the basement and dropped them when I slipped on the bottom step so I go back, get x-rays, and I am in the waiting room."
"Dr comes in and tells me that I’ve torn numerous ligaments in my foot and probably would hurt less if I had just broke my foot."
"Hearing this I was excited thinking yes I just scored."
"I Didn’t care about the pain at the moment just happy that I just potentially scored."
"They release me, and hand me a script."
"They wrote me a script for ibuprofen 800mg."
"Defeat."- GrouchyProduct2242
When Pranks Stop Being Funny
"Was night manager at fast food establishment during college."
"There was a bitter prank rivalry between our establishment and the Subway next to us."
"After months of prank escalation, I crammed a rotting hamburger patty in the handle of the Subway manager's trunk lid so he went knuckle deep in rotting burger when he went home."
"That was the end of the prank war and I've never forgiven myself for crossing the red line."- Quivum
How Ironic This Happened At A Therapists Office
"I’m gonna rat my little sister out."
"During our parents’ divorce & custody battle, we were forced to sit in on family counseling sessions."
"I was 12 & she was 8."
"We thought my Mom was acting funny & might have been banging the counselor on the side for her own personal testimonial interests (still not confirmed)."
"So we were pissed off because we loved our Mom and our Dad."
"It seemed like the counselor favored our mom over our Dad, and it got rough sometimes watching him become outed by the only 2 adult forces who didn’t love him in this world."
"ANYWAY, my little sister and I were left alone in his office, and she decided she was gonna take a sh*t in his little trash can to assert dominance."
"It was asserted."
"We never went back."- Pleasant-Security831
When You Gotta Go...
"Ugh this was an embarrassing one that I hope no one ever finds out."
"One night a few years ago, we (my boyfriend and his family) get Chinese food from our favorite little place."
"For some reason this night it doesn't sit well with me."
"An hour after eating I get that intensely sick feeling, like you have to poop so bad that you want to throw up."
"Whatever, I go upstairs and destroy the bathroom."
"It's important to note, there's two bathrooms upstairs and none downstairs, which is like a little apartment where my boyfriend and I stay."
"After I'm sure my bowels are empty, I go back down to lay in bed."
"Thought I could nap it off."
"Nah, about 30 seconds after laying down I get the urge to go again."
"I run upstairs and to my horror, both bathrooms are occupied. His sister is refusing to get of the shower even though it's an emergency and his dad is blowing up the other toilet, presumably suffering a similar fate to mine."
"I begrudgingly go sit in bed and contemplate my options as the bubbling in my gut grows worse."
"Bust down the bathroom door and traumatize his sister?"
"Make the 30 minute drive home?"
"No, it was urgent."
"I even thought about sh*tting my pants (against my will) and dealing with the embarrassment."
"God I don't want to subject my future in-laws to that."
"I begrudgingly realize my only option is to go outside like nature intended."
"Their yard is very open and it was a super bright-moonlit night, so there was no place to do it without feeling super exposed."
"Except for under the trampoline."
"My thought process was: no one has used the trampoline for years, and it's out of sight/ walking range so no one could accidentally step in it."
"Great. I do my business, get soaked in the process ( it was slightly raining and the trampoline was POURING water on me), clean up with napkins and wet wipes, come inside. Immediately throw up in the trash can from the shock/embarrassment/anxiety/sickness."
"Clean that up and immediately go to bed."
"Everything was fine for a few days, until my boyfriend's dad lightheartedly tells me how he was late for work that morning."
"The dog had rolled in some shit and he had to get a bath."
"I felt like throwing up all over again, but thankfully everyone just suspected it was some type of animal poop."-WeirdConnections
Revenge Is Seldom The Answer
"My hometown is generally pretty middle-class to poor."
"There's a bunch of rich people that live in the woods and one of them had a kid that went to our high school and bullied the f*ck out of the kids that weren't as wealthy."
"That sh*t head grew up and bought a Camaro last summer and removed the muffler so it would be the loudest thing in town."
"On new years eve of 2021, he decided to ruin a town tradition and lapped the town common with it during the tree lighting ceremony. while people were caroling and giving thanks."
"Summer of last year, me and a friend decided it was time to get revenge because nobody wanted to do anything about it."
"My friend's dad owned a junkyard and they recently got an old train horn from a busted diesel that ended up there."
"We spent a good week getting it set up in the back of his work truck and decided to wait on it for a little while."
"A month or so later, we found out he was having a party of some kind with other rich folks and his family but we didn't know what it was about, so we carefully parked outside his house on the opposite side of his fence."
"Right as it was starting, we blasted the train horn and peeled out before anyone knew what happened."
"News got out later and we found out the party we bombed was actually a wake for his late grandfather."- G4rg0yle_Art1st
Seemed Harmless At The Time...
"You know how people bag up their leaves and leave them out by the street?"
"As a teen we used to go out at night and dump them back out on people's lawns."
"Thinking about it now I would be so pissed if someone did that to me."- Toastbuns
They Didn't Have ANY Doubts?...
"When I was about 15 a neighbor of ours stopped us in the road and chewed us out for riding our go-carts in the road."
"This despite the fact that it was a dirt road in a rural area which was the perfect place for riding go carts."
"He was a complete a**hole about it too."
"I don't know where I got the idea from but I promptly went home, called the electric company, pretended to be the neighbor, and told them I wanted my electricity turned off as we were moving."
"It was the eighties so they just looked the account up by name and address and promptly entered my request in the system."
"I'm sure it was just a minor inconvenience for them but they deserved it in my opinion."- BaconReceptacle
Personal Demons Are Hard To Fight
"The day before I stopped drinking alcohol altogether, I was in a really dark place for a number of reasons."
"And I was ABSOLUTELY using alcohol as a crutch."
"One of the reasons why I was in such a bad place, emotionally, was because my cousin was in decline due to glioblastoma."
"I was actively seeing this person, that I loved dearly, lose his sense of self and ability to understand conversations and situations."
"And he was young—just turned 50."
"There was a lot of light in the beginning, but considering that glioblastoma is effectively a stage-less brain cancer, it was almost guaranteed he would lose the battle."
"The day that I stopped drinking altogether was the day that I was supposed to drive him to a research institute for his monthly treatment and check-in."
"It was the only time I was asked to take on that level of responsibility, as his wife would normally take him."
"I helped in a bunch of different ways, like hanging out with him when he’d otherwise be alone, but this appointment was pretty big."
"I depressedly drank myself into a stupor the night before and missed our meet-up time."
"I’d said that I’d be there no matter what, and I wasn’t."
"The appointment happened, and he 'reassured me' everything was okay as he knew the battle was over anyway."
"But I will never forgive myself for that."
"Even typing this out makes me feel like the biggest piece of sh*t."
"I wish I were sober then."- ssssskkkkkrrrrrttttt
Credit where it is due, just about every one of these people admitted to doing something wrong.
Even if it doesn't excuse their actions, as knowingly doing something you know is wrong might make it even worse...