Making costly mistakes at work.

[_MementoMori_]

I don't know how many of you are in industries where you have the opportunity to make tragic financial errors, but I'm a high end kitchen and bath designer with the average cost of a project ranging between $100,000 - $175,000. I'm the new guy in the firm (going on a year and a half), and I sometimes make errors that end up costing a LOT of money. It's horribly embarrassing and demoralizing, but I still have a job so I must consider myself blessed. I think to an extent there's a "hey, mistakes happen" attitude, but I'm always worried that my next mistake will be the one that costs me my job.

I don't know if any of you can relate. I just felt like venting. It sucks fearing for your job. I guess it's normal in this economy though.

 

[the_edski]

I can relate. I used to work as a field engineer in the oil and gas industry. We had a tool downhole while a natural gas well was being drilled, if our tool malfunctioned and/ or we lost comms with it, the drilling had to stop. It cost at least $100,000 a day to operate the rig, so any downtime that we caused was a pretty penny. And if we bungled or broke something with or on the tool, it was $300,000 to replace and that was the cheapest, oldest model!

 

[troymclure]

i was a commercial diver, the dive boats cost the oil company $65,000.-$125,000. a day.

you have a bad dive and thats $5,200. an hour. if you mess up badly enough it could take several dives to fix.

 

[rajagra]

Maybe improved procedures should be adopted if they are the kind of costly errors that can be avoided by cross checking.
i.e. If you aren't continually making schoolboy errors, the problem may be systemic.

It's a very basic management principle: never evaluate an employee based on the performance of the system. (See Deming's red bead experiment.)

I work in IT. I have seen the wrong server turned off a couple of times in a datacentre in financial services companies. Can cost a lot. Usually your job too.

 

[slugg77]

I sell cars. I have goofed stuff up many times, and it always costs money. I have been successful in not making the same goof twice, just finding new and improved goofs to make.

 

[heybatter]

Does a $15 million error count?

(Wasn't me!)

 

[Mick]

Bout the only thing I can mess up is making coffee and I have not messed that up in a while now.

Love a low stress job where I am the boss and workforce all rolled into one

 

[Beerhunter]

I deal with chargebacks & vendor new prodt returns. I knew a girl who made a 10 million error. To the op Just be careful and watch what your doing step by step. But the again I am not sure how your bussiness errors happen.Cheers.

 

[Doc4]

I think that any industry has a "learning curve" expected of new hires, and an ultimate "human element" expectation. You can screw up a few times as the new guy; it's the cost of training the new guy. Everyone screws up a bit ... we're human ... but ... as long as you are improving ... working your way toward the acceptable level of competence ... and reach that level within a reasonable amount of time ... you should be fine.

"I knew I shoulda taken that left toin at Albakoy-kee ..."

 

[professorchaos]

Mistakes happen. The higher up the ladder you climb, the costlier - and less frequent - your mistakes become.

 

[Legion]

We've had a few folks at my work miss a decimal place. That's when stuff gets expensive.

 

[cb91710]

Mistakes happen. The higher up the ladder you climb, the costlier - and less frequent - your mistakes become.

Bingo.
Mistakes happen at fast food places. They are often not even noticed, other than the customer thinking there might be too much mustard on his burger, and even when noticed, they rarely result in a firing.
Mistakes happen in factory production. QC generally catches it.

Working with traffic signals, it would be possible for me to make a mistake that results in an accident causing serious injury or death, as well as costing my city millions in litigation.

An airline pilot or tower operator could make a mistake that would destroy a 100 million airplane and kill 300 people.

 

[SalvadorMontenegro]

I'm a boxer with prosopagnosia. I once punched out the referee thinking he was my opponent. Whoops.

 

[BLAKK]

I can relate. I used to work as a field engineer in the oil and gas industry. We had a tool downhole while a natural gas well was being drilled, if our tool malfunctioned and/ or we lost comms with it, the drilling had to stop. It cost at least $100,000 a day to operate the rig, so any downtime that we caused was a pretty penny. And if we bungled or broke something with or on the tool, it was $300,000 to replace and that was the cheapest, oldest model!

MWD?

I am an MWD in the oil field.. sitting in my chair right now watching as we drill.. we are running an EM Tool..

 

[RondeB]

I guess the consolation is that you can do everything right and still end up with a less than desirable outcome. I do agree that not making the same mistake twice is key.

 

[-dave-]

I used to work for a company in a different country, during my first trip to head office I had to have a play with a sensor for one of our machines, it was new to all of us, but I had to know all about it in order to fit it.
well during my play with it, not being familiar with this foreign country's power supply, I wired it up wrong and significantly over powered it, it took me a minute to realise why this $30,000 sensor was throwing sparks everywhere. Lucky for me I didn't kill it though

 

[Haggises]

I used to work on oil rigs too as a mud logger.
hated the mistakes those MWD guys would make.....

 

[Toothpick]

only thing my mistakes cost is time. Time to redo it. But technically it costs us some payroll to fix the problem. Most mistakes in my field (retail, store level) result from poor communication and lack of training, which is the bosses fault.

 

[mistercitizen]

I can relate a bit to the fear. I am a civil engineer/bridge designer where sometimes a simple math mistake in a set of plans could potentially cause a change order during construction costing tens of thousands of dollars. Our firm has a system to check and review work, but we are still human and mistakes can happen. We have insurance for such drastic circumstances, but you don't want to go there either unless it's the last resort. I agree that there is an attitude in the office that it could happen to any one of us.... so there is alot of understanding.... but still. There's the embarrassment and potential of rubbing the wrong person the wrong way about it. I try to keep a humble attitude and if things go right..... I don't gloat..... if things go wrong.... I quietly accept the blame or understand for the person who is at fault. In the end, we all make mistakes, but some occupations have more of this type of pressure associated with it.

Ben

 

[cb91710]

I guess the consolation is that you can do everything right and still end up with a less than desirable outcome. I do agree that not making the same mistake twice is key.

No kidding. In my case, timing traffic signals, there are a couple of issues:

1 - Balancing the laws of physics, the laws of the government, and the laws of politics in a way that don't cause an accident, get me fired, or create a quantum anomaly.
2 - Too many cars, not enough lanes.

I can only get so many cars per lane through an intersection in an hour.