Despite the fact that I desperately want to quit my job, and am 99% certain my supervisors hate me, I don't particularly want to give them any ammunition to use against me in their quest to get rid of me. But I really f*cked something up on Friday:

Background: My company hired this website company to build a website where teachers can write lesson plans and upload them, and discuss how well they work with other teachers. One of the main reasons my boss was hired was for her expereince in educational website ideas, and my co-worker, "B." has been the main point person for this project for almost two years. We also paid some other company $$ to write 150--200 lesson plans for us. So even everyone in my department knows the website is full of bugs, a piece of crap, and desperately needs to be rebuilt, it is sort of the 'raison d'etre' for my boss and my co-worker, B.


What Happened:

Another department needed a list of everyone who had registered to use this website, but b/c the website was poorly designed there was no way for us to just run a report with that info. So B. had to literally open each account, copy each field (one at a time) and paste the info into an Excel spread sheet. There are 30 pages and each page has 25 accounts... She worked all day on Thursday on this. I helped her on Friday for about 4 hours. (It takes about 25 minutes/page.) Our other co-worker helped for awhile, too, and by 5pm on Friday we had copied and pasted 27 of 30 pages worth of info.

Now some of the accounts were spam accounts and test accounts that were clearly made up by people in my company or the website company so I was deleting them because I like a clean database. I notice one that said the Name of my Company and I thought---well that's dumb, it's a fake account so I deleted it. (Very bad idea.)

Our fourth co-worker offers to help so B. goes to log her in and the whole system locks all 3 of us out. So B. calls our webmaster and as she's talking to him on the phone I hear, "Wait, Name of Company account is gone?? That's so weird." ..."Wait, what? All the lesson plans are gone too?"

I'm sitting at my desk thinking: fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. For a split second I wonder if I can just play dumb and pretend I don't know what happened, but I know that is not the right thing to do and also, chances are they'll figure out that I am the one that messed it up.

So B. gets off the phone and I tell her that if the master account and all the lesson plans that were uploaded through that account are gone, that there is a 99% chance it's because I deleted it. I basically deleted 85% of the website content, which she spent 2 years writing html code for AND my company paid thousands of dollars for AND my bosses already hate me (want to fire me/make me miserable enough to quit). fuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK! I apologize profusely and timidly ask if they can just restore it using the most recent back up.

B. says she is not sure there is a back up because the company that built it did such a shitty job that my company basically wanted nothing to do with them, so the official line is that they do not back up that server since we are not paying them to, and my company does not have a back up because the website lives on the other company's server. Our webmaster calls them to see if that is really true...he calls back and tells B., yes, they do have a back up from a day or two ago and hopefully by Monday morning the website will be back.

But I just checked it tonight and it still looks like all the content is still missing. Thank god my boss is out of the office this week, so if they can restore the back up there is a chance she won't have to find out. (B. totally covered for me to our assistant director when she asked how it was going.) But I am sweating bullets because if they can't restore the back up I am going to be in deep, deep shit. I didn't do it intentionally, but for the past 5 weeks, my bosses have seriously been riding my ass about everything because they want me to quit (firing requires collecting too much paperwork). I cannot do anything right in their eyes, so this is definitely not what I need right now.




So, what's the worst mistake you've ever made at work?

maybe this is the Pope getting back at you for making fun of his hat and car.


the worst fuck up i've ever done was inject an antibiotic IV that was suppose to go subcutaneously into a three day old goat. Usually that causes death instantly but fortunately the kid lived and was 100% better by that afternoon.

I still feel horrible about it, though.

Fuck ups happen and even if these jerks do fire you for it, it's probably a blessing in disguise. Breathe deeply...in the long run it's not a huge deal.

Devoted puppy...for goodness sake if u want to quit that bad why do u care? Do ureself a favor and start looking for another job

i doubt my heart would still be beating if i were you.

JasmineFire said:

Umm, doubtful, since I'm not Catholic, and thus don't believe that the Pope has any "magical powers" of retribution.



I'm just hoping the website will be back by tomorrow... My friends are like, Who cares if they fire you, then you can get unemployment. I would prefer to leave on my terms and with another job lined up.

Which, Chilli, I have been applying for a different job for several months. But I work in a field where there are hundreds of candidates for few jobs so the competition is very tough...and the US economy is getting worse by the day.

DevotedPuppy said:

Neither am I but there are some things you just don't question.

my worst fuck up? i set my boss's wife's dress on fire

PricelessHo said:

Was she okay?

I can't have any worst fuc_ ups. That is dismissal. Probably a blunt one.

DevotedPuppy said:

Yeah I have to admitt that even here its not that easy to find another job...keep trying and good luck with it all

JasmineFire said:

ooh no she wasn't in it, THANK GOD

he got her dress from the laundry on his way to the office and hung it on the storage room.

i went there to shred some papers but the shredder wouldn't work so i decided to burn the papers?

the bin was right beneath the dress and i thought i put out the fire already.

i just thank the lord EVERYDAY that's not on my record.

PricelessHo said:

Thank goodness she wasn't wearing it! That story would probably have a different outcome.

I'm glad everything turned out okay, though.

JasmineFire said:

i'm actually glad i was still in the room or else the whole place would've probably been set on fire.

my brain cells must've been dead that day

PricelessHo said:

happens to all of us from time to time.

Iwas night manager at a restarant...i was closing one nite & FORGOT to LOCK the front door. luckily...no one robbed us~~~

whan i was 14 i worked at the SPCA...i was cleaning the cage of a very angry pussy & she clawed the shit outta my hand...had to go to ER for tetnus shot...arrgghh!

sonic said:

Ouch! I have always wanted to work with animals, but coming across a nasty/angry animal is like one of my biggest fears.

Someone pulled out pacing wires, something went wrong, patient died (baby).


EDIT: Not my worst fuckup

My worst fuck up: Leaving something in a patient, we retrieved it though, no harm done.
[Edited 6/9/08 17:00pm]

GaryTheNoTrashCougar said:

WOW!!

As far as my worst fuckup, I'm sure there has to be one. I seem to be good at it, for some reason.

The website is still not "restored." Our webmaster said the company that built it is still checking to see if they have a back-up. I'm sure we are low on their priority list and they are probably laughing their asses off.

The other thing that sucks is that if/when they restore it, we will lose any updates regular users have added since last week.

I can't think of one. Have I made mistakes? Absolutely. (One of the best pieces of advice I received from a mentor right before I became a lawyer was: "You will screw up from time to time.") But all of them were either of no meaningful long-term effect or fixable.

However, at a law firm where I used to work, one of my coworkers made the mistake of not filing a case before the statute of limitations deadline. This error happened despite a system in place to prevent this very thing from happening -- at the beginning of each month, every lawyer/paralegal/clerk received a report showing the earliest possible statute of limitations date for all potential lawsuits that had not yet been filed with the court.

In the practice of law, blowing the statute of limitations is the one thing that's pretty much automatic malpractice. (It's like a doctor amputating the wrong leg.) And sure enough, we got sued for it. The attorney who screwed up left the firm shortly thereafter... officially, it was a resignation and on good terms, but the timing was awfully suspicious.
[Edited 6/9/08 23:42pm]

matt said:

Matt! THE M A T T ! Long time no see my friend. I want you to know I forgive you for allowing a certain orger to give me a 24 hour ban in Minneapolis. and I thank you for privately moderating the org whilst in said house allowing me to run out into the smokers pavilion announcing I was now a mod, falsely. Causing grand pandemonium...and wooden floor earthquakes.

Muse2NOPharaoh said:

Somewhere I'm got that pic with me and Anx imposing the ban.

I've gotta do another one of those MPLS Invasions -- that was a great trip. Also, my brother and sister-in-law live in Minnesota, so I can kill two birds with one stone when I visit.

matt said:

This do you mean... Damn mods!