The Worst Thing...
NaeNae55
3,243 Posts
Paul mentioned on another thread about an article he read. It suggested asking, "What is the worst thing that you ever did?" as an interview question. That got me to thinking about what my response would have been, which led me to remember a most embarrassing Oops. I'll bet there are some funny stories out there. Here is mine:
One clerical position I had required me to 'clear' a massive amount of checks every month off of our system. At the end it would ask me if I wanted to purge the files. The first time I had no clue, but chose 'yes' and it all worked out fine. Every month thereafter I was asked the same question, and every time I answered yes.
One day our staff accountant was given the same question on a program she was working on. Feeling very smart, I told her the answer was yes. "Are you sure" she asked. I confidently replied yes.
Minutes later our I.T. department came running in to see what we had done. An entire department had to shut down and stop work while the system purged files (4-5 hours). Fortunately for me, it was only 1/2 hour until quitting time. The 20+ employees I kicked off the system were only standing around getting paid to do nothing for 1/2 hour. The I.T. department had overtime though. They had to wait for the purge to finish before they could begin the nightly shut down and back up routine.
1-2 years later I got a promotion to the staff accountant position. Soon I was busy doing that same program the prior staff accountant had done. To my surprise towards the end a new screen came up that said, "Do NOT answer NO to the following question. That means YOU Renea!" Then the program went on to the regular screen that asks if you want to purge. Some scrappy programmer had put that in there clear back when it all happened since he knew I was going to school nights and would probably one day have that position. I was able to laugh quite hardily by then about my 'shutting down the business' so I got a kick out of it.
What stories do you have to tell?
Nae
One clerical position I had required me to 'clear' a massive amount of checks every month off of our system. At the end it would ask me if I wanted to purge the files. The first time I had no clue, but chose 'yes' and it all worked out fine. Every month thereafter I was asked the same question, and every time I answered yes.
One day our staff accountant was given the same question on a program she was working on. Feeling very smart, I told her the answer was yes. "Are you sure" she asked. I confidently replied yes.
Minutes later our I.T. department came running in to see what we had done. An entire department had to shut down and stop work while the system purged files (4-5 hours). Fortunately for me, it was only 1/2 hour until quitting time. The 20+ employees I kicked off the system were only standing around getting paid to do nothing for 1/2 hour. The I.T. department had overtime though. They had to wait for the purge to finish before they could begin the nightly shut down and back up routine.
1-2 years later I got a promotion to the staff accountant position. Soon I was busy doing that same program the prior staff accountant had done. To my surprise towards the end a new screen came up that said, "Do NOT answer NO to the following question. That means YOU Renea!" Then the program went on to the regular screen that asks if you want to purge. Some scrappy programmer had put that in there clear back when it all happened since he knew I was going to school nights and would probably one day have that position. I was able to laugh quite hardily by then about my 'shutting down the business' so I got a kick out of it.
What stories do you have to tell?
Nae
Comments
Probably the worst thing I have ever done as an employee was quit a job when I was 19 with no notice. I made up a story about my dad being "sick" and how I needed to go take care of him.
I think technically he was sick at the time with a cold but nothing serious. I just wanted to quit and was too immature to give proper notice.
I think about that everytime an employee quits here without notice. I have always regretted not handling that better.
So I walked in to the IT Department and asked them to fix it, with my help of course. We pulled up the atomic clock and decided that would be the time we would use. Well as we began correcting the clocks in the organization, we got to the punch clock. Without thinking I just moved the time back the 7 minutes it was off.
Within a milla-second the phones started ringing in HR and IT....what the heck was going with the punch clock? That day I found out exactly how many staff members were clock watchers.
Long story short I had to manually put back the 7 minutes and get back on the good side of many staff members.
We make the corrections at night now!!!!
An ee had purchased life insurance, put his wife (at the time) as his beneficiary.
He later gets divorced, completes form to update beneficiary with new girlfriend.
Not knowing any better, I filed his new beneficiary form instead of sending it to the insurance company.
Employee has cancer, goes on FML, dies.
Insurance company still had old beneficiary info on file. When the ee's girlfriend files the claim, she is advised that she is not the beneficiary, the ex-wife is.
I had to show the ins company that the ee did in fact change his beneficiary, and I had the form on file all along.
Even though everything was ultimately fixed, the ee's girlfriend had to suffer through all that unneccesary stress and anxiety when her life was already falling apart.
Nae
I am sure there are funny "worst" stories in my history too, but they aren't coming to mind right now. I'll work on that for ya. x:-)
At my last job, I responded to an employee (via voice mail) about her suspension. She was ultimately going to be fired and this was the last step. Anyway, instead of responding to only her, yep, you guessed it, I responded to ALL.
My voicemail to her went to an entire group of employees! I was absolutely mortified, as was the employee. I immediately called her and profusely apologized. She knew that it was an accident, (no malicious intent on my part) but it was terrible. I'll never forget that one!
Anyone else got a story?
Nae