"What is the most expensive mistake you have ever made?"
Housing Market
"Wouldn’t budge from $62,500 for a downtown loft. Owner wanted 65k."
"Unit sold for $275,000 1 year later."
- EMH55
"Same backed out of buying a house for about $400k about 10 years ago, now worth about $3 million."
- reubenmitchell
Grad School
"For me, grad school. Realized I went for the wrong reasons about half way through the courses and decided that I should keep going so I wouldn't waste any money."
"I had a hard realization a few months after graduating that I could only survive paying my loans back and not thrive. I relocated to the oilfield and have been working a niche job of a niche blue collar job ever since. After working in Temps from -43f to 105 I can finally say that I paid off my loans."
- roustajoe
"The old sunk cost fallacy. Seems to be wired into our DNA as a species."
- SeraCarina
Day Drinking
"Getting day drunk with a friend to celebrate me getting a new job, the day before I started the new job. Decided to go for a walk, blacked out when it started raining."
"Woke up in the hospital handcuffed to a bed with a felony charge for assaulting an officer because apparently I fell asleep under a storefront to get out of the rain and kicked the cop who tried to wake me up in the shin, so he did the cop thing and slammed my face into the concrete while he handcuffed me."
"Had to pay thousands of dollars in attorney's and other legal fees to get the charges dismissed, went to my first day at my new job with a cut-up face that I had to figure out how to explain, and now I'm stuck at that job because despite it being dismissed, the charge still shows up on background checks so nobody else will hire me, and I can't get it taken off my record until it's been 8 years because it's a charge for a violent offense against a police officer."
"Yeah, I don't drink anymore."
- ErikPanic
Hiring Movers
"Trusting a moving company...cost me $1000, was a straight-up scam. The grand was my down-payment on a contract that accounted for all my stuff. A guy from a different company showed up and wanted a new contract with an extra ridiculous charge for my gun safe, and when I turned basically a random person away BECAUSE I HAD NO REASON TO BELIEVE WHO HE WAS, the first guy stopped answering calls, claimed I turned away service, and kept my down-payment on those grounds. Their company said "yep" and my bank couldn't get the money back on a fraud claim. I fully believe that if I'd let the 2nd guy take my stuff, they'd have extorted me for thousands of extra dollars."
"Mitch from Roadrunner Movers in Florida is a giant piece of sh*t, and I hope he loses an equivalent to what he's stolen from people."
- onebatch_twobatch
"In my first real move after residency the company tried to hold my stuff hostage for double the money. Luckily most of the stuff we had was crap and I told them to keep it and I’d see them in court. They miraculously were able to cover the 'overweight fees'"
- BladeDoc
Not A Glitch
"I was around 8 when I thought I discovered a cheat/glitch that gave me unlimited gold in a mobile game. Turns out I was just buying the gold with money.. I costed my family $800 that day."
- Badilol
Insurance Lapse
"Not paying my car insurance on time. Then proceeding to slide through an icy intersection and hit another car. No one got hurt, just my wallet. Almost $7000"
- sews4dogs
Fried Circuit
"Was troubleshooting an windshield de-icing test set used for F/A18's and had made an error in my set up. The error caused me to fry a non-procurable circuit card; leading to the entire test set, which was around $180k, to have to be replaced."
- squid1891
Calculation Error
"Made a calculation error at work during my first few months there which led to the firm undercharging ~$130k on a project...how I wasn't fired/written up I'll never know"
- zombiehitler_
Should Have Gotten The Insurance
"Didn't get insurance on a Polaris Razor. Side by side off roading vehicle. Had it less than 3 weeks and someone stole it from my driveway Christmas night. Had taken out a loan for 5 years.... Making the payment every month hurt knowing I didn't have it anymore."
"Only took it out once. 14k for the trailer and vehicle. Still hurts a decade later."
- lastone23
Co-Signing
"Signed onto a mortgage with my ex when I was 21 because he 'just needed a little signature, it’s not a big deal!' Spoiler alert….. it was a very big deal."
- noodlemom72
$13 Million Wrench Drop
"Not me thank God, but a new hire I fired his first day out of training for 3 safety violations. The last involved dropping a wrench from 100 feet up on a work platform onto the left OMS pod of Atlantis. 13 million in damages and inspection/launch countdown time lost. Xrays, borescopes, replaced the cracked tiles, etc."
- Bobmanbob1
Gotta Turn The Freezer Back On
"At my old job, I forgot to turn back on the freezer after cleaning it (I got pulled mid clean to go do something else) so I didn’t notice. Neither did my three managers."
"Over $10,000 in frozen product lost 🤷🏻♀️ but that place was the worst place I’ve worked so f**k Freddys Frozen Custard"
- suhryna
"Freddy's defrosted custard"
- tills31
Wrong Vendor
"I transferred $500k to the wrong vendor."
"I practically had a heart attack, but the 'wrong' vendor was another huge one so it was more like we paid an invoice a day early. Also, my boss was more in a 'everyone makes mistakes mood' and not her usual 'I'll yell at you for 30 minutes over a one penny error' mood."
- webhick
Laser Destruction
"I destroyed a $250,000 laser by shorting the capacitor bank (charged 50,000 V) to the control electronics (5 V)."
"Flash of white light, instant smell of ozone and burnt plastic, a bunch of smoke, and that was that."
- Aeolian78
"I shorted 65vdc to the 5v bus one time but only did about $8k in damage. That was an awkward phone call to make."
- Grat54
Not Buying Bitcoin
"My cousin works in finance and has been interested in investing since he was like 10 years old."
"When we were both fresh out of college (2009) I asked him what he thought about investing a bit of some money I had come into in bitcoin, which was $1 per coin at the time."
"He talked me out of what would potentially been over $100,000,000 in profit, assuming I had cashed out at the peak. I still rib him about it."
- sam_neil
Mistakes happen, that's a fact of life, but let's all hope none of ours end up being the expensive kind.
Ever feel like no matter how hard you try, you don't quite measure up to your own expectation, even if you've had successes in life?
You're not alone, and that notion of feeling like a failure is referred to as Imposter Syndrome.
People wanting to avoid being associated with Imposter Syndrome, or "perceived fraudulence," try even harder to succeed but never achieve their impossibly unattainable benchmarks in life.
Seeking advice from strangers online, Redditor FossaRed asked those who might be familiar with the phenomenon the following question:
"'Impostor syndrome' is persistent feeling that causes someone to constantly doubt themselves and their abilities, despite evidence, and fear that they may be exposed as a fraud. Reddit, do you feel this way about work or school? How do you overcome it, if at all?"
Although everyone has different strategies, there were good points made that could apply to one's specific mental hurdles.
Helpful Tip
"One of the best advice I have received about imposter syndrome is that it all comes from comparing yourself to others. Don't compare your blooper reel to someone else's highlight reel."
– kitskill
Powering Through It
"Haha, f'kin daily, my dude."
"I don't know if I really overcome it. I power through it and ignore it, but that self-doubt is always there. Any misstep reinforces it."
– Keksis_theBetrayed
Accentuating The Positive
"Jesus, that's my entire day in a nutshell."
"One thing about imposter syndrome for me is that I end up working twice as hard as anyone else. The sense of not feeling like I deserve this just pushes me to work harder and submit higher quality work when compared to my peers. So I suppose there's an upside to it , since I never take what I have for granted, I never slack off and submit bad work."
– jhwyung
Jumping to conclusions when being called by a boss for a meeting was common among these Redditors.
Prepared For Termination
"I had to tell my boss to text me that I wasn't in for discipline when he sent those messages. I always think I'm gonna get fired when I'm called there. Never happens. Haven't had a discipline meeting in 10 years."
– pnwinec
The Surprise Twist
"I got a call telling me that I needed to come down to headquarters two hours away to have a talk. What was the soonest I could come?"
"I made time to go down that week. Stressed. Mentally preparing for the worst."
"They wanted to thank me for all of the great work I had done and wanted me to become an owner along with the two of them."
– Lifesagame81
Confusing Review
"Whenever I have a review or some such at work (yearly, quarterly, whatever) I think 'this is the day they drop the axe' but they always tell me I'm doing good and to keep it up."
"Like, really, you're sure this is my review? Do you know who I am? So they give me another client and a raise. I don't get it; of all the f'ked-up things management does, this is the most inexplicable."
– TheBelhade
These Redditors recalled thinking they had no business being in an enviable position.
Shaking Hands With A Legend
"Without going into details, I found myself at a small private event shaking hands with Paul McCartney being thanked for the work I did getting the event off the ground, so to speak."
"I'm standing in the room with the fruits of my labours (objectively I know I did a good job looking back on it) and all I can think is sir I am a poor dude in an ill fitting suit, what business do I have shaking your hand."
– ayoungtommyleejones
Meeting A Prime Minister
"I also experienced this impostor syndrome a few times before. Once, I met the Prime Minister of Peru, some cabinet ministers, senators and high ranking Generals."
"The whole time I kept thinking: what the f'k am I doing here? i post memes in Reddit."
– NuevoPeru
A Leading Expert
"I'm the same."
"Professionals in my field contact me regularly to ask me questions. Each time I think 'This time, someone is going to figure out that I have no idea what I am talking about.'"
"It turns out that in my field I am one of the leading practitioners, but half the time I am wandering around in dazed bewilderment wondering how the bloody hell I got here."
-- UncleHeavy
Altering perspectives seemed to be an advantageous tactic.
It's Not Real
"I took the horseshoe approach: I realized everything is fake. It came back around to normalcy."
– DrinksPondScum
Minimizing A Stigma
"I think people have a really negative perception of 'fake it till you make it' as some how being disingenuous or deceitful. But as you point out realizing everyone else is faking it while you are faking does help the world to feel normal."
"It does begin to become terrifying when you realize that like everyone is faking it to a degree, but it is a comforting terror."
– Nrussg
According To One With A PhD
"Worked with a PhD holder a few years ago that once said, 'when you get your Bachelor's Degree, you think you know everything. When you get your Master's, you discover that you don't know anything. When you go for your Doctorate, you realize nobody else does, either.'"
"I try to keep that perspective."
– just_some_a--hole
I haven't personally experienced Imposter Syndrome but I understand how perfectionists are especially hard on themselves when they think they haven't reached a benchmark in their lives that should be much higher, according to them.
I would offer that they should take a moment and look back and realize how far they've come to get to where they are now.
Not everyone's accomplishments are the same, which is why I believe comparing yourself to others on social media is a dangerous trap.
Focusing on the accomplishments thus far might be the best motivator without exerting too much pressure on yourself.
Ambition is a good thing. It keeps us motivated and gives us purpose.
That doesn't mean everything goes as planned.
Just because it looks good on paper—or in your head—doesn't necessarily mean success is a guarantee.
But kudos for trying.
Curious to hear of all the things that started off not with a bang but with a whimper, Redditor glizzyMaster108 asked:
"What surprised no one when it failed?"
Certain businesses like the following never really took off.
The 3D-Enabled Smartphone
"Anyone remember Amazon's 'Fire Phone?'"
– EmbraceableYew
"They put out the hardware before the (augmented reality) software, restricted the phone to a tiny app ecosystem, and charged premium prices for a very-late-to-market product centered around shopping."
"The phone itself wasn't the problem; it was all the business decisions surrounding its roll out. The Echo was a far better play, even though attention was focused on the phone."
– NoTeslaForMe
What YouTube Attempted
"Youtube trying to force Google+ Accounts on everyone."
– Xaviniesta27
Forever Floating
"When the guy in Florida (I think that's where it was) tried to walk across the ocean in his home made floating hamster ball and was marooned at sea."
– RKT0710
Lost In Translation
"taco bell in mexico."
– the_brain_gamer
The following people thought these tactics would save or improve one's status.
They Can't Fix It
"Having a kid to save the relationship."
– imyourcaptainnotmine
"Me and my ex-wife got married to 'save the relationship.'"
"I bet you can guess how well that worked."
– temalyen
Multi-Level Marketing Opportunity
"Any time a friend, coworker, or family member invites you to their mlm party."
"Yes, Molly, I'm sure this will be like a full time income where you set your own hours. People will be clamoring to buy overpriced kitchen gadgets from you that they can get on amazon."
– JMCrown
"When a friend you haven't seen in six months asks to come over and hang out randomly. You see it coming Everytime."
– logannewbanks
Serial Groom
"My brother in laws fifth marriage."
– claire0
"I work with someone who is watching his fourth marriage going down the toilet. He blames the women. SMH."
– Isheet_Madrawers
In entertainment, there's not an audience for everything.
Rapper To Gamer
"Didn't Soulja boy try to create his own video game system?"
– pbirdman
Short-Form Service That Ran Short-Term
"Quibi."
– _try_another
"I'm friends with a relatively known B actor who was in one of their shows; the amount of money they were throwing at talent was INSANE. As an actor, he didn't care what platform it was or if it would last. It was acting, he got a barrel full of money, and got to act in a decent show w other fine actors. It was such a vanity project for Katzenberg and Whitman."
– beigemom
Lost In A Memory
"The movie, CATS. With every trailer, everyone commented how much a trainwreck it looked like it was going to be. Sure, some people thought it would be in the 'so bad it's good' fun stage. But, nope. It's just bad. When it failed at the box office, no one was surprised."
– inksmudgedhands
There's nothing worse than a big fail resulting in death.
Plenty of people with their heads up in the clouds have attempted ambitiously dangerous stunts and found their one-way ticket out of this world.
Perhaps one of the most famous exits was made by professed flat-earther, "Mad" Mike Hughes, who wanted to fly to space in his homemade rocket, allegedly to prove the earth was flat.
He died on February 22, 2020, when piloting the rocket he built, and the parachute failed to deploy at the right time.
Companies can either thrive or falter under the constraints of capitalism, especially during an economically devastating global health crisis that was only a short decade after the 2009 recession.
There are a few signs that can tell you when a company is on its last leg. Sometimes they can limp along for a few more years, but it might not be a bad idea to dust off that good, old resume.
We went to Ask Reddit to hear about those red flags and hopefully we can learn a few things from these horror stories.
"As somebody who's been involved at a senior leadership level and had to execute lay-offs/reductions/downsizing, I'll add this; there are markers that come way before it gets to employee cuts. First it comes from top-down communications that start to talk about declining revenue or profit. Then, when senior leadership starts talking about saving, you know 'tightening the belt' it's a sign that leaders are thinking about how to cut spending, but that in it of itself doesn't mean a RIF (reduction in force)."
"The real thing to look out for is if leadership is talking about reducing cost but at the same time are not communicating a vision for innovating or changing the business model in a significant way. If their plan is to save money while doing exactly the same thing then this is the biggest red flag. A company rarely saves its way to profitability without innovating and generating new value to offset the decline. Penny pinching essentially just slows the decline and delays the inevitable."
"Pretty futile, it might buy some time but if your market share is on the decline and the company's products are not really that competitive anymore (and ownership/leadership isn't innovating/pivoting), than no amount of Black-Belt Six Sigma Consultant stuff is going to turn a dying business around. It's like trying to save yourself by going on life support when you really need a heart transplant. It's only a matter of time."
"In a similar vein, be on the alert for what might be termed 'musical chairs' behavior among lower and middle management: blame is going to land somewhere and so each little team leader and department head scrambles to cover their a**."
" If you don't have the vantage to see that dynamic firsthand, then be on the lookout for nonsensical expectations, which get followed by different pie in the sky initiatives that seem to be at cross purposes with the last set of orders (which were never really rescinded). Meanwhile your boss looks stressed and dodges questions when asked for clarification. Maybe the boss mutters this place is so f*cked up."
"That's the time to look for other opportunities, before the axes start to fall."
"Yep, 'merger' usually just means 'acquisition' and their ways imposed on you."
"Happened near me when two hospitals 'merged' with the usual puff of management and PR bullsh*t. All that happened was a load of Hospital A's outpatient clinics started closing and moved to Hospital B. Hospital A was the only hospital for 25-30 miles around and people were also travelling long distances from rural areas to get there in the first place, now they're expected to do another 20 miles south to Hospital B. Woohoo."
"Happened to me. It was announced as a merger but it was an acquisition. Six months later our management was walked out the door. We were placed under new managers who then stripped our responsibilities and our access."
"You forgot the cheerful chatter about 'synergies!' How could you possibly forget about how the merger is going to make everything so much better because of all the new opportunities for 'synergies'????"
"Lol. I went to this meeting the #2 said he was taking a pay cut. One of the research drs raised his hand and asked if it would help if we all took a pay cut. Every head turned and gave him a death glare."
"In that moment I would be contemplating a 100% pay cut... By updating my resume and passing it on the the competition. See I can be a team player too, once hired I just saved my old company some cash by not having to pay me anymore."
"I once worked for a company that rented medical equipment like pulse oximeters and defibrillators to hospitals across the US. Branch offices in every major city. I worked in IT, helping to run the mainframe. This was the late 1980s/early 1990s, and desktop PCs at the office were just becoming a thing."
"Anyway, we were extremely leveraged and one Saturday my boss calls me at home and asks me to write a massive report basically summarizing the total sales of every branch office, by hospital, in descending order of revenue. For the last five years."
"To put that in context, the physical output of such a report ended up being a stack of wide-carriage pin-fed computer paper that came up to my waist."
"I'm six-two."
"I knew this when I took the call and closed my eyes and said to my boss, 'We're being bought, aren't we?'"
"He swore me to secrecy."
"About 300 people worked at that HQ. We were informed we were losing our jobs by... [drum roll please] ... a voice mail."
"We came back from lunch on Friday to a company-wide VM telling us we were 'merging' with our next largest competitor. Of the 300 people in that office, maybe six got jobs with the merging company."
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Pinching pennies.
"A really subtle one is when Purchasing suddenly starts thrashing around looking for 'new' vendors for basic things like copier paper, pens, staples, sh*t like that. That means they've burned their existing vendors by not being able to pay bills. I've seen it happen at least twice. Both companies ceased to exist within 12 months."
"Could also be a sign they're trying to pinch pennies on office supplies. If how much you're paying for a ream of paper matters for your company, you're probably in trouble."
"Light bulbs are different colors or brightness. When the maintenance department is using lightbulbs that are a different color temperature of the existing lights it is because someone isn't paying attention or because they are using old stock and not re-lamping whole zones at a time due to inventory or labor constraints."
"This is especially true of retail stores. Once the regular vendors start demanding cash on delivery, well-known names start disappearing off shelves, and they are being replaced with Chinese knockoffs called 'La Croisiet,' 'Bakemister' and 'Cuisine Art,' well…springing for the store warranty on your blender is an even dumber idea than usual."
"Yeah I once worked for a company where the CEO had previously gotten in trouble with a state board of labor for not paying out employee wages after going under. Shame I didn't find that gigantic red flag before I took the job, because they went from aggressively building a software team to firing all of their engineers in like 8 months."
"I was going to mention the consultant thing. Its a sign to watch for when there are other concerns. Obviously consultants can be used for a whole host of things, but when its a last ditch effort to overhaul the organization, you're on thin ice."
"When the top level management, right under senior management are replaced with management consultants. Been working in corporate USA for over 30 years, all they do is sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the current staff, try to stay as long as they can to suck the company dry."
"Our consultants were from Accenture at my last company, yes the same company that worked for Enron."
"At my former employer HR would hassle you into interviewing and hiring absolutely useless internal candidates just because they had applied. You have told us you want a role opened, so you will fill it."
"And if it went on long enough unfilled, or someone else had 'held the fort' for long enough, HR decided you didn't need that extra body and pulled the post. Therefore you could hire nobody and anyone holding the fort had to continue doing so."
"If you're in sales and they start messing with the commission structure every couple months, that's a pretty big sign. Especially if they start doing stuff like, 'If you sell $x of accessories on a ticket, then your commission rate changes to this other arbitrary number.'"
"That's a clear sign to bounce. Messing with pay is a deal breaker. Not necessarily a sign of the end of the company though, sometimes it's undervalued sales team by a greedy management. Or if the company suddenly thinks the stuff will 'sell itself.'"
"I'm in the Midwest and I see the 'distrust of digital' far too often. If company leaders are simply unfamiliar with a lot of digital tools and resources out there that's one thing (that's how I get hired), but if they're full-on against making use of digital tools and resources that's when you walk away because they are on a downhill spire."
If any of these things are happening at your work place, it might be time to start checking out LinkedIn and Indeed.com.
This is a strange time for job hunting as record numbers of workers are quitting. It's up to you when you want to jump ship, but make sure you're keeping your eye out for those red flags.
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Risk is inevitable. Falling in love, making a career move, merely crossing the street is all a gamble. We can try to analyze and prepare but the guarantee is fantasy. All we can do is try and breathe deep. There are even people who make 'risk management' a career, but that just seems like a limp option. Nobody can ever truly factor the unknowns. Life is going to happen as she sees fit. When the plan goes haywire, you reflect and learn how to implement better next time.
