Confess your worst day at work - where you should have just stayed in bed

ICBM

Deadman said:

Mate after 31 years working in and around aviation I've seen a lot worse than that. I couldn't put it on here!

Actually this is the worst one I can think of...

A brand new, never flown, quarter-billion-dollar Airbus A340 destroyed by some incompetent technicians, seriously injuring four people.

http://www.aviation24.be/website/who-remembers-this/a-brand-new-etihad-airways-airbus-a340-600-destroyed-after-an-engine-test/

Now *that's* a bad day at work.

p90fool

I think one of the worst was during a gig in a casino an 18-year-old kid getting stabbed to death in front of me and the casino manager telling us to keep playing until the cops arrived. 

They took ages too, but funnily enough appeared almost instantly the following night to cut the power when our singer started telling the crowd how useless they were. 

We did a gig in one of the towers at the harbour entrance to La Rochelle a week later - I went outside for a cigarette during our break and just managed to grab the wrist of a girl who was throwing herself off the tower. She was half over the edge, screaming, while I was yelling for someone to come and help me - the boyfriend who'd just dumped her glanced back up from street level to see her hanging there and just kept walking. 

Some touring bands are easy, some make you feel like you're fighting a war and none of my straight jobs have had days bad enough to give a shit about really, apart from being made redundant a few times. 

Paul_C

jonnyburgo

When I was young and foolish I worked for Scorpion vehicle security this was back in 1989 and we would regularly take recreational drugs to make the long hours of being hunched over a bench repairing fried car alarms skip along. Sometimes we would have to demonstrate alarm functions to clients. One day I thought it would be good to drop 2 acid tabs thinking that I would be safely ensconced in our little cupboard tech room. Cue a tap at the door and the M.D. walks in and asks me to demonstrate our latest alarm to some clients from Italy. To this day I don’t know how I got through it, to my ears the alarm played the theme to Dr Who and one of the Italians moustaches kept slipping under his chin and then coming back into position. my mate who was also in the room and in a similar state bailed out after 5 mins he couldn’t handle it. I was convinced that I delivered the demo in a cod Italian accent, whether this is true or not I don’t know. There were other similar days spent there, god we were reckless but it was the times I guess. 

Blaendulais

Working in an A and E where I had to remove a lady of the nights sponge after she had finished her (obviously busy) shift.

I was prepared for removing it but when I saw she had scabies, large shit skids on her knickers and quite a lot of sperm all over the sponge I confess sick filled my mouth.

Emp_Fab

Sponge?  ...and was it a hospital in Wales ?

Kebabkid

The day I didn't feel too clever but still went into work.

About 3 hours later, I had, what turned out to be a Kidney Stone attack. I'd never had one before and didn't know what was happening and was seriously scared and in so much pain and ended up collapsing onto the office floor in front of colleagues. And apparently, in my delirious state, as a fever and the toxins had kicked in, I was calling out for my wife and.........my Mum, something they never let me forget!

When the Paramedics came, and being on 5th Flr of an office block, they had no choice but to strap me into one of those upright trolley things that they put Hannibal Lecter in. I had an oxygen mask over me and looked grey and I was wheeled through various offices and the main reception with everyone looking and thinking I'd had a heart attack or died, so my colleagues told me.

Well, at least I didn't soil myself as one colleague did after getting paralytic at the office party!

Blaendulais

Emp_Fab said:

Sponge?  ...and was it a hospital in Wales ?

No Emp! Paddington in the heady red light days....probably welsh involved in some way tho...

Emp_Fab

I’ ve got to know what this ‘sponge’ is..  !! @Blaendulais ;

EricTheWeary

https://goo.gl/images/Te7sGm

Blaendulais

Emp_Fab said:

I’ ve got to know what this ‘sponge’ is..  !! @Blaendulais ;

@Emp_Fab - When the Sussex Gardens prostitutes, female anyway, were having their period they employed a natural sponge that they inserted to stop the blood flow for their customers and still have intercourse.
They were commonly trapped.  It was like the Heads of the Valley road on a rainy day with a multicar pile up and lots of egg white thrown in

Emp_Fab

Oh FFS...  I should have known better than to ask....   That’s put me right off my taramasalata.

thermionic

Emp_Fab said:

Sponge?  ...and was it a hospital in Wales ?

Wis if you remember the “spongeworthy” episode of Seinfeld.

Tone71

When I was an apprentice we were constructing a new building in a college and had a large timber building (5x3m - and probably 3 meters high) about 50 meters away from it which we used as a tea room and stored bits and bobs.

So this week I was asked to come in on the Saturday morning and dismantle the building, strip the felt of the roof put it in the skip and have a bonfire to burn as much timber as possible, easy days work I think, I would be on my own as the foreman was away carp fishing for the weekend and this was before mobiles but that wasn't an issue.

So the next morning after the usual pissed and stoned Friday I wandered to the college and thought about the days work and hatched a fantastic time saving plan, why break it down and remove the felt roof when it could burn in-situ, I could then sit down and have a smoke whilst it burnt to ashes.

So off I went and managed to find the cans of petrol, poured it all inside the building, stood back and threw a match.

Well within 20 minutes the flames were almost twice the height of the building, there was acrid black smoke from the burning felt and this was all wafting over the main road next to the college grounds, I had no water or hose and absolutely no way of controlling this thing, next thing I hear "you ok there" and turned and there was a guy in his pants holding his home phone down the bottom of his garden "its ok" I said "it`ll burn out in no time".....yet the flames got bigger.

Within another 5-10 minutes I then heard sirens turned around and the bloke (also others that had seen the thick black smoke and  flames) had called the fire brigade who had turned up with the police to control the arson, well I`ve never shit myself so much.

All I can say is that luckily the building firm was shut on Saturdays and the foreman was away, the police did their thing but soon realised that it wasn't arson just a foolish move from a young kid.

The best thing though was that no-one ever found out, I didn't get sacked.............. and the fire brigade pulled the building down and put the fire out !!!!!!!

boogieman

This goes back to the early 90s. I worked in building maintenance as a sparks. We used to get weekend overtime occasionally and would try to knock out most of the work on Friday so we could book the whole weekend but only actually work on the Saturday. 

A bloke called Smithy and me got a job to install some high level halogen lights in a storage yard, so the forklift drivers can see what they’re doing after sundown. We go in on the Friday and run all the cabling and junction boxes. Smithy says he’ll come in on Saturday and fix the actual lights on the lamp posts so I don’t have to come in at the weekend at all. Result! 

Monday comes around. Smithy has the day off and I’m called in to see our manager. Did we do the weekend work? Errr, yes. (I’m starting to sweat a bit, hoping Smithy actually did finish it off). Well, he’s had complaints from the yard manager, so I’d better get back there to sort it out. Turns out Smithy is frightened of heights and has installed the “high level” lighting about four foot off the ground. At at least our manager saw the funny side of it and we still got the overtime. 

LuttiS

I've had a few bad days, usual shit though..

One time a colleague of mine was asked to take some pictures of some new products. He had no time as he was in purchasing and was currently being audited so he asked if i would mind doing it. Made more sense anyway for me to do it since the pictures would always come to me for editing and stuff.

No problem by me, i have the time and gets me away from desk for a little bit.

Ops manager and service manager are told that i'm doing photos now.

Ops manager comes and lets me know that the products are ready in the board room for me so i go and take the pictures, all done in 20 mins. 

A little while later i'm chatting to purchasing guy about stuff and the service manager comes in and asks when photography happening. I tell her that it's all been done and i'm just editing the pictures. This gets a funny look and a huff before she leaves.  

About 30 mins later i'm called to her office, i see purchasing chap just coming out, and he gives me a bemused look and whispers "Remember you know nothing"


I go in, wondering what i've done wrong.. I'm then told to stand infront of her desk and a printed email is passed to me. A line at the end has been highlighted and i'm told to read this out loud. By back is up at this point as don't really take too well to being treated like a little schoolboy...

I look at the line which says (in massive font, capitol letters) something like "Tell me when pictures are being taken so i can be there as i like to look down the lens" 
I also look at the list of people copied into the email, it's a big list and i'm not on there. 

I read the line out as requested. She asked what i understood by this in a properly condescending manner. In an equally condescending manner i proceed to read out the "to" list on the email and then point out how it had been difficult to comply with her request as she had mistakenly not copied me into the email. 
This went on for a little while, with helpful suggestions including me offering to delete all of the pictures and work i had done so that she could then take some pictures. 

Not a particular "bad day" as such, like some of the tales of woe here, but just an example of some of the daily shit with a paranoid manager.

This was part of a long saga if issues with service manager vs my team. Few months later we're all in a disciplinary hearing which i got to recount this particular tale (among others). She had a file of shit on every one of us, almost all of it complete bollocks which we disproved. Our return file of shit on her was bigger. She lost her job. 

Phil_aka_Pip

This one's from a very long time ago when I had a schoolboy weekend job in Sainsbury's. Clocked in, went down on the shop floor and some young "manager" bloke in a suit acting like god almighty told me to check over the biscuits, work out what was needed to refresh the shelves, go up to the warehouse, bring down a pallet with biscuits on it and restock the shelves. So I'm upstairs in the warehouse stocking a pallet, and some other young "manager" bloke, also in a suit and acting like he's god almighty tells me to get a brush and sweep the warehouse floor. On being told that I was on a mission from Mr <forget-his-name-now-it-isn't-important> to restock the biscuit dept, the response was "Don't take any notice of him, you do as I say". So half-way through sweeping the floor some other "manager" bloke, likewise in a suit and acting like he's god almighty tells me to perform some other task (can't remember what now, I'm sure it doesn't matter). By lunchtime I had 3 managers in suits screaming at me for not completing their jobs. I was up before the personnel woman for "insubordination" that afternoon simply for saying that I didn't mind who I was working for I just couldn't work for 3 people all at the same time.

I quit soon after.

This was in the early 1970s. I quoted the story about 10 years ago to a lady who worked on the checkouts at Tesco. She said: "Nothing's changed".

Paul_C

That reminds me of a time as a motorbike mechanic - usually I was the third mechanic, mostly getting new and s/h bikes ready for sale, but for one week I ended up the only one there, with one day in particular sticking in my mind as I had one job in progress when the boss told me to leave it and get another one done and then his son telling me to leave that and do a rush job - all of which resulted in one guy leaving on a bike which hadn't had its rear axle nut tightened correctly

Fortunately it didn't cause an accident, but when I was bollocked for my failing I gave as good as I got and nothing more was said.

munckee

Emp_Fab said:

Oh FFS...  I should have known better than to ask....   That’s put me right off my taramasalata.

That story has made me feel really sick, taramasalata is rancid...

ICBM

Paul_C said:

That reminds me of a time as a motorbike mechanic - usually I was the third mechanic, mostly getting new and s/h bikes ready for sale, but for one week I ended up the only one there, with one day in particular sticking in my mind as I had one job in progress when the boss told me to leave it and get another one done and then his son telling me to leave that and do a rush job - all of which resulted in one guy leaving on a bike which hadn't had its rear axle nut tightened correctly

Fortunately it didn't cause an accident, but when I was bollocked for my failing I gave as good as I got and nothing more was said.

Someone I know had her car serviced at a main dealer. When she was nearly home - probably about six or seven miles away - one of the rear wheels fell off. (Doing substantial damage to the car, as you would expect.) When the AA man came to recover the car, he pointed out that there was one bent and stripped wheel bolt near where the wheel had come off, and the other four were nowhere to be found. Presumably the garage had failed to tighten them, and they were scattered at intervals somewhere along the road...