We all make mistakes.
It's simply human nature.
But that doesn't mean we don't often find ourselves frustrated when other people make mistakes.
Particularly if these other people are our colleagues, resulting in having to clean up the mess they created.
Redditor xk543x was curious to hear about some of the worst, or most inane mistakes made by unreliable co-workers, leading them to ask:
"What's the dumbest mistake you've seen an incompetent co worker make?"
There's a reason we keep the boys away from the girls
"At a Petco all the Guinea pigs were in a big plexiglass enclosure with a center divider."
"Boys on one side and girls on the other."
"An employee decided that all the long haired Guinea pigs should be on one side and short haired on the other."
"It took forever to sort them out and all the females were pregnant."- PumpkinsDad
Dangerously negligent
"Social worker here."
"We’re supposed to see clients who live with families once a year."
"A mom of a kid kept calling her worker but got no answer."
"Mom called the on call worker who discovered the assigned worker had logged the visits in and made thorough notes."
"The mom said she never saw her in two years."
"This led to her whole caseload being audited and then they found she had logged a visit with a client who’d been dead for months."
"While being audited, her supervisor decided to do a surprise visit to the client she was supposed to see."
"She never showed up and logged in the visit the next day."- ShiroHachiRoku
Slow and steady... gets you fired
"Had a guy take a cover off the base of a radar unit which had like 40 bolts holding it on."
"Gave him a ratchet wrench to do it."
"Half hour later I go check on him, only had about 10 off. "
"Watched him a bit."
"He would take it off each time to move it for the next turn!
"Showed him how a ratchet works."
"Never assume people know stuff." - User Deleted
Sloth Dmv GIFGiphyOld Faithful!
"Tried to cool down hot oil, in a chute, all ready to be emptied, with a nice big bucket of water."
"I heard 'THOMAS NO' only to turn around and see a GEYSER of hot oil shooting towards the ceiling before it hit and splashed down around him."
"Nobody was hurt some f*cking how."
"The chute that the oil was in was on wheels and had a wooden handle, it absolutely didn’t need to be cooled lol."- Ohiolongboard
How to make a bad situation even worse
"I worked on a golf course during the summer."
"Area with lots of poison ivy."
"Two of my coworkers were instructed to weedy a river edge area."
"If we encounter poison ivy, we either stop what we are doing or go get full suit protection with respirators."
"These dumba**es were weed whacking in the thickest poison ivy I had ever seen."
"No protective suit or glasses or respirator."
"I roll up and notice what the hell they're doing and point out all the poison ivy everywhere."
"They were aerosolizing the oil."
"They both ended up in the hospital on steroid to prevent their death because of the oils they inhaled."- Onwisconsin42
"30 days has September..."
"The designer, creative director and head of production all missed that there was an eight day week on a calendar."
"We sent 10000 copies of a useless calendar to a client."
"Rightly so, they refused to pay for it."- atot806
animation domination calendar GIF by gifnewsGiphyIsn't that why they call it long division?
"Not a mistake necessarily, but I once witnessed our chief accounting officer, and our only accountant; it was a small company, type in values into two Excel cells, pull out a calculator, add the two numbers together in the calculator, and then type the answer in a third cell."
"She had apparently been doing this for years, with sheets consisting of thousands of rows."
"I explained how to use formulas and copy them but she apparently forgot because I saw her doing the same thing again months later."- zachm26
Isn't that what these pockets are for?
"When I worked construction, there was a guy who showed up with nothing in his tool belt except a small bag of peanuts in one pocket."
"He didn't stay around too long."- Incredible_mango
eat season 15 GIFGiphyThis is how much I care about my job.
"I used to work at a dealership."
"I was the guy who parked all the cars on the lot and made it look organized."
"I had access to every car on the lot, as long as the key for it was not lost."
"Attached to the dealership was a very small parking lot just big enough to hold about 5-6 cars with room to maneuver."
"As long as you knew what you were doing, you should be able to maneuver our CX-9, 3 row SUV, with relative ease in and out of its parking space even if there are a few extra cars in the lot, which happens from time to time."
"One day, towards nearing the end of my shift, a saleswoman went to borrow one of the test drive vehicles, a midsize sedan, for a reason I can’t remember."
"The job allows us to use just about any car to travel between lots, go for lunch, etc. but it is kind of encouraged to take a used car since it’s not as big of a deal if anything were to happen to them."
"Some time goes by and the saleswoman returns to the lot and attempts pull into the parking space."
"Virtually every dealership backs their cars into parking spaces so that the front of the car faces the public, this saleswoman did not do this."
"What’s more is that she turns too wide and scrapes the adjacent car and the damage is visible."
"She gets out of the car and walks inside like nothing happened."
"Normally, I’d be livid at the amount of extra work she just gave me, but seeing as I clocked out, I figured that was someone else’s problem to deal with before the dealership closed in 2 hours."
"Fast forward to the next day when i show up for work and I kid you not, the car is still there as she left it."
"I thought that was shocking until I realized that the saleswoman LEFT THE CAR ON the entire time."
"The real kicker is that I got replaced maybe a month or two after this happened."
TL;DR: Car Saleswoman crashes test drive car and leaves it as is for 12 hours.- SuccessfulRoad5574
car turn GIFGiphyHad he ever been in a kitchen before?
"Working in Hospitality, new worker around 23 yrs keeps to himself , but doesn't seem to understand how everything works."
"He's cooking in the kitchen and decided to grab a cooking tray from the oven without gloves and then burning his hands."
"He did these two more times, before eventually realizing hospitality not for him."- Lamoose2018
Never a dull moment...
"This will probably get buried but too good not to tell."
"When I did my internship at a hospital, one of the administrators was working her last week before her pension."
"In this last week she left candles on her desk burning after her shift and the whole wing burned down."
"Luckily nobody got hurt."
"Not a great way to end your career."- CalvinWeirFields
Let's hope he washed his hands again...
"I was a temp at a factory and we got a new batch of temps with some real dummies partway through the summer."
"My best exchange with one of said dummies came after he said he was confused by 'those fancy weirda** urinals in the bathroom'.”
“'What are you talking about?'”
“'I mean it’s like the communal birdbath thing and everyone pisses at the same time'."
"'It was weird man'.”
"Birdbath… the sink!?"
"'You pissed in the sink?'”
“'Ooooohhh, well that explains why that guy was washing his hands in it'.”- jmradus
Wash Hands Health GIFGiphyPump first, pay later... much later...
"A guy went to fill the work van up with the fuel card."
"We said just check they accept that card before you fill up."
"He went and asked if they took the card and they did so he filled up and drove off thinking all was good."
"Anyway police were called and he had to go back to pay."- Past-Squirrel8286
Oblivious arson?
"At a corner 24 hour fast food restaurant with an expensive cardboard box bundling machine."
"The machine was inside a chain link fence with the dumpsters, general garbage, cooking oil, etc."
"On truck day a new employee was tasked with taking half a semi’s worth of boxes out to the cardboard recycling machine."
"He was supposed to break the boxes down flat and slide them into a slot so that they would lay flat ready to be bundled up."
"Instead he forced opened the top of the machine and tossed the unflattened boxes in."
"The dumpster was quickly overflowing and he just kept tossing up boxes on top of the pile until there was a mountain of boxes covering everything."
"The fenced area was soon full and as it was just a few feet from the side wall of a fancy furniture showroom on one side and a 6 foot high privacy fence for a residential area behind garbage area the the boxes were then piled between the showroom and the wood fence as well."
"Seeing this manager sent the new guy back out to 'clean the boxes up' properly only to have to call the fire department a few minutes later."
"Yes the guy set fire to the pile."
"We had a spectacular grease fire, black smoke from the melting dumpster lids looked like burning tires."
"The area had to be evacuated, and the cross streets were closed for hours."
"The fire department was able to save the furniture store though its wall had heavy damage."
"New guy was arrested for arson."
"He said 'How was I supposed know that was not a burn pit'.- Crazy-Hippo6299
Fox Tv Fire GIF by Bob's BurgersGiphyExtra thrilling, thanks to incompetent employees
"I used to work as a zipline tour guide."
"Our weight limits were between 50lbs and 300lbs, but at 220lbs we switched you to a magnetically limited trolley to control your speed."
"I was working with a newer guide, who was currently sending people down one of the fastest lines, where I would catch and detach them at the bottom."
"On one of the last sends in the group, I notice that one of the customers (around 285lbs) was going way too fast."
"My coworker had put him on the wrong trolley."
"That man fully compressed the spring bank meant to slow down any larger riders, which usually compressed halfway at most, causing the spring to all detach from one another and sending the man a quarter of the way back up a 1500ft line."
"He eventually rolled back in and I apologized profusely and proceeded to cuss out my coworker over the radios."
"Eventually he sent down the next group, he sent a 60lb kid down on the mag trolley meant for 220+, instead of his 200lb self."
"This resulted in the kid stopping 200ft short and me having to climb out and kick him in."
"It was a miracle he didn't get fired after that, but he did go on to continue f*cking up, and continue staying employed."- UpstairsSilly1738
Maybe a little guidance and help was all it took to put these colleagues on a better path forward.
But one imagines the only path these less-than-star employees found themselves on was right out the door.
Do you ever use a product and wonder... "Who in the world thought this would work?"
That seems to be an issue with a lot of items in life.
Like, who designed all these extra dinner forks?
It's all too confusing when you just want to eat a salad and a steak.
Let me keep my fork.
You're wasting water on all the cleaning.
Think before you create.
Redditor DongLaiCha wanted to discuss some products that may need more in-field research, so they asked:
"What products are clearly made by people or companies who never actually use them?"
Remember CDs?
It was easier to break into the Pentagon than open that plastic wrapping.
Who thought that idea up?
Too Dry
Hair Bathing GIFGiphy"I swear that people who design some shampoo and conditioner bottles have never tried to use them while wet."
danarexasaurus
Assessments
"Elementary state assessments. They are the most obtuse, poorly written, unrealistic questions on earth. They enrage me. They are clearly written by people who either have zero experience in elementary education or haven’t had any in a decade or so."
meadow_chef
"I have a BA in English and couldn't figure out one of the answers to my child's third-grade ELA state test practice. I spoke to the teacher about it and she sounded so defeated about the testing. There's no way to prepare children for a test when the questions and answers are so poorly written that the students, their teacher, and the parents can't pick the correct answer."
DistractedHouseWitch
Cheap and Expensive
"A few years ago we wanted a coffee maker with a slightly larger carafe. The only 14-cup one we could find at a reasonable price was branded with Drew Barrymore's name. Whatever, we bought it. It was the worst kitchen device I've ever owned. The interface to set the clock, program it, etc. was absolutely baffling to use, never seemed to do the same thing twice."
"The instructions were apparently written by whatever guy at the factory had a cousin who'd seen an American TV show once. And when it actually did somehow make coffee, it came out shriekingly hot, to where I would put a couple of ice cubes into my travel mug when I left for work just to get it down to drinkable temperature."
Fabulous-Quality-282
Flip It
"Those who make the 'pull this flip to open' on plastic packaging of cold cuts."
MissNatdah
"Similarly, the people who make 'resealable' packages of food products where you have to cut it open in a certain place, but cutting there either results in: A) the package still being sealed closed, or B) ruining the internal sealing zipper. I have this issue with the frozen dumplings I buy and no matter what I do, I have NEVER been able to reseal the package as advertised and have to resort to a chip clip."
pls_send_caffeine
Punch a Hole
Mac And Cheese Eating GIF by Megan BatoonGiphy"The 'push here to open' spot on Kraft Mac and Cheese."
coop_doop
"Whenever I get a different brand I just punch a hole in the same spot out of habit. It’s about exactly as hard to do as with the Kraft ones. So they might as well take out the perforating step and save .001¢/box in the production process."
Reaper_Messiah
Why do they want to keep our Mac and Cheese from us?
Give me my meal!!
Tearing Sheets
office paper GIFGiphy"Those toilet paper holders in public toilets that cut off at two sheets."
theshortlady
"Same area: those paper towel dispensers that require a two-handed pull, commonly leaving you with two little torn-off triangles of paper in your hands."
repowers
Useless
"Zebra printers. I swear Zebra customer service is useless. I've had to call the help desks for the specific companies I've worked for because the Zebra CS is just like 'Huh!?'"
monotoonz
"We wrote our own internal manuals for how to setup, manage, and troubleshoot Zebra printers. It includes helpful information like 'Do not call Zebra about this issue, instead, see Appendix A' (which is screenshots of conversations about how it is is a known issue and the resolution should be coming shortly (dated 2016))."
001235
City Life
"Maybe a bit off-topic, but in a meeting with a former colleague of mine, the person in charge of the metro for a nearby city admitted that he had never used the metro. Not that he didn’t use the metro, but that he had never used it in his life, even once. I suspect that this kind of thing isn’t uncommon for government services."
KireGoTI
"Similar story. A lifelong friend of didn’t even know we had a Metro until a recent expansion meant she had to drive a different way into her office. She works for the city council."
TheKingMonkey
Warn You
"Hospital beds. From the standpoint of the person who has to push it around and mess with rails that get caught in the mattress and plug it in with a long dirty cord that gets mixed up with another random cord that no one knows its purpose. No retractable cords so they constantly drag on the ground and try to trip you when pushing the bed."
"Brakes that are in the most awkward position that you have to invert your knee to reach with your foot. And worst, the screeching, ear-piercing alarm that they emit to 'warn you' that the bed is not locked. Hospital beds are obnoxious."
Agitated-Effort3423
Help Please
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno CalypsoGiphy"Customer-facing software. Developers should be required to hire grandmas under the explicit condition that if grandma can't look at a menu option and decide what to click without giving up and calling the help desk your functionality has failed."
Puzzleheaded-Bat8657
I can't even begin to get into software options.
It brings back too much PTSD.
