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.
Kids say the cutest things, don't they?
Their unfiltered observations about life's many mysteries can be downright hilarious and serve as reminders of their pure innocence.
But it's less forgivable when adults make naive comments because, well, shouldn't they know better?
That's not always the case, however.
Curious to hear ridiculous examples of the things grown people say, Redditor Automatic_Hedgehog71 asked:
"What is the silliest statement you have ever heard someone make?"
Some people should really think twice before opening their mouth.
Work Of Art
"'How did they get the paint all the way up the sides?' -Middle-aged woman touring the Meteor Crater in AZ."
“'That’s not paint, those are the actual colors of the rock' -Her husband, giving her a long stare and walking away."
– ghostbungalow
For Trial And Error
"I had a boss say 'oh you don’t want kids, you should just have one to try it out.'"
"Really, and what happens if I find out that I truly don’t want kids? Can we just put it back where it came from?"
– tyintegra
Confused Soldier
"I worked at a place that gave a military discount."
"Family (mom, dad, adult son, adult daughter) walked in. Dad was reading the prices and pointed out to the son that he could get a discount!"
"This kid takes the sign, reads it, and says, as God is my witness:"
"I'm not in the military. I'm in the Army."
– JustMeerkats
To Live Or Let Die
"Someone once told me that paramedics/nurses/doctors are not allowed to do CPR on someone they know because it’s 'a conflict of interest.'”
– corviknight2259
It's a wonder how some people manage to live in the real world.
Know Your Audience When Using Big Words
"Sat down to eat with a friend. I said 'I'm famished' she looked at me, laughed and LOUDLY she said to me 'I swear you make up words sometimes.'"
– NotBadSinger514
"Oh man people say this to me all the time! Why did I read books and learn so many words, when no one understands them, and I really didn't think they were so pretentious, words like Famished."
– Person_Letter_629
Not Icarus
"A friend of mine said she got more tanned when riding her bike than she did when walking because on her bike, she was 'closer to the sun.'"
– Five_Star_Amenities
"This just reminded me of a time I was out on a boat with a big group of people and one of them said 'I’m so glad it’s windy, I won’t get sunburned' they thought the wind would push the light away from their skin. I was the only one to say it definitely doesn’t work like that and I could tell they thought I was wrong."
– Thbbbt_Thbbbt
The Symptoms Indicate Otherwise
"Earlier today I offered a cough drop upon my flight’s landing to the lady wet coughing right behind me the whole flight."
'Oh, no thanks, I’m not sick. I just went to Oregon and have felt awful the whole time since.'
"Okay…so…sick"
– ACaparzo
Completely Lost
"A friend once said she couldn't take Southwest Airlines because she was flying east to Florida."
– ProudCatLadyxo
"How do they get the planes back? Do they repaint them as Northeast? Or do they just push them?"
– ch4m3le0n
"They just keep flying south until they come back around."
– frymeyourpoop
A Silly Sports Spectator Said
"I was at a baseball game in Cincinnati and the teenage girl behind turned to her friend and said 'this is so cool, it's almost like we're watching it live.' I think about that a lot."
"EDIT: based on the look of the girls and their other conversations this was no joke, there was no laughing either. Don't remember the exact year but flip phones were the most common cell phone and we had seats in the outfield so she didn't appear to be watching the game thru her phone. This also wasn't the first time that day where I heard them say something and I stopped what I was doing and stared straight into space, just the most memorable. They seemed like nice enough girls, no malicious or rude conversations, it just appeared like they lacked some basic intelligence for some relatively simple concepts."
– Michael_With_An_M
You can't be difficult and clueless at the same time, can you?
Observe exhibits A, B, & C.
Unpalatable Texture
"A woman tried to send back a dish. She didn’t understand the components of it and tried to tell me that she couldn’t eat it because she was allergic to crunchy. Like yeah the texture. Not the ingredient that we had made crunchy."
– BuckleupBirds
"LMAO. Makes me feel better about the guy who asked a friend (server) for ‘Mushroom risotto, but without the rice’."
– Mavises
I'll Have The Pie And Ice Cream With A Side Of Ice Cream
"Had an older family member that back in the day went to a diner and ordered the 'pie a la mode' from the menu. He then proceeded to ask the waitress if they could put a little ice cream on top of that. : )"
– Fluffing_Satan
My husband and I were walking around a gift shop in Solvang, CA, and marveling at some of the various tchotchkes.
One of them was a MOVA globe.
MOVA globes are usually about the size of a softball held up by three small supports, and they rotate without the use of electrical wires or batteries.
Instead, they're powered by the combination of solar cells and torque from the earth's magnetic field. We didn't know this at the time, however.
When a worker nearby saw us being mesmerized by the shelf of spinning globes, he commented, "Cool, right?"
And I replied, "Yeah, how does it work?"
The dude gave a sly smile and said:
"It's an optical delusion."
Or illusion...