What's the dumbest or most unprofessional thing you've ever done at work?

[Doctor Amadeus]

What's the dumbest or most unprofessional thing you've ever done at work?

Unprofessional, I was dated my boss at work, and a co-worker at another, both ended just fine, but looking back at it and seeing the majority of those around me do the same on top of not ending well, it turned into a nightmare for them at work.


As far as dumb, one of the first jobs I had in security was working for a meat processing facility, and one of the things all guards who worked the overnight were warned about is DO NOT lock your keys in the guard shack. Doing so is immediate termination, yes other guards had been fired for the same thing.

Suffice to say, I fucking locked the keys in the guard shack. Terrified, and really needing the job I kind of freaked, so I decided to use a utility ladder climb on top of the guard shack, walked over the roof and down to the other side that was unlocked.

It was about 3 Degrees Fahrenheit outside.


Thank God nobody saw me, and I worked the graveyard shift.

[Ashnazg]

It might speak volumes about my character, but I find most of the options on the poll are pretty tame. Over the course of the 7 years I've been in my present job, I've done all of them except the "boss" one, since all my bosses were males.

The most unprofessional would probably be banging my coworker during a conference call that both of us were on, and both of us were expected to speak at voluminously. We had to keep the whole thing on mute (obviously), take it off mute whenever it was one of our turns to speak, and do our best to keep our voices even and not winded, lol.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The only thing that comes to mind was singing this way under my breath when I had it stuck in my head. Not the kind of thing that would go over well if some one heard it but didn’t know it was anti nazi propaganda.

[I Push Buttons]

The most unprofessional thing I did was when I walked (rolled) away from the job without saying anything because I was done.

It was when I was in high school, a new movie theater was built in the area and they had a job fair to fill all the new positions; I did an interview, got hired as an usher. They had a big training event set up to train everyone in advance of the actual opening, with all the new people being trained by a mix of new managers they would be working for and other managers from that chain of theaters from the surrounding area. They split the new people up into groups with a manager or two leading each group, the manager leading my group was one of the already established ones, but was transferring to our theater so would be one of our actual manager at work as well.

Despite being hired to be an usher, the manager leading my group insisted I learn how to do all of the various other jobs as well. I am in a wheelchair, however, so I couldn't physically do many if not most of those tasks; I couldn't reach/operate most of the equipment in the concession booths from my chair, I couldn't even get to the projector areas, etc. My inability to do these things was met with the manager constantly complaining/criticizing me and all the other people in my group laughing among themselves as I humiliated myself struggling to do the things I was told to do.

I kept at it for hours and eventually there was a break and the manager told us to meet her in one of the theater rooms to get a presentation about some stuff. Everyone went in the entrance on one side and I followed in that side as well, halfway in though, I couldn't get any farther because the hall was packed full of boxes and other stuff that had yet to be unpacked/moved and my chair couldn't fit past. So I went back out and around to the entrance on the other side. I came up behind the manager as she was talking to the group when I heard her yell "Where's that crippled kid!? I am getting real tired of his shit..."

I just gave up at that point and left the theater room, left the building, and went home. Didn't say anything to anyone. Was just done and had no interest working with or for all of those people who had been miserable to me all day. I got a call a week later from a different manager asking me where I was, I was scheduled to work that night, I said I quit and hung up.

[StillMcfuu]

My best story that extends past typical shenanigans, I technically wasn't an employee;

I applied for and attended a hosted recruitment/interview (3 day) event. The first days are aptitude tests, followed by training facility tours, and final interviews. On the 2nd night there is a hosted dinner and open bar. One of the recruiting managers was pretty damn hot, and me being prime me, and full of free booze, hit on and subsequently slept with her. And then we had interviews the next day, it's a panel of 3 interviewers; she was, of course, in my panel. Long story short, I was given an offer. I accepted it, but wound up turning it down 2 weeks later because I found a better position at home.

- - - Updated - - -

The most unprofessional thing I did was when I walked (rolled) away from the job without saying anything because I was done.

It was when I was in high school, a new movie theater was built in the area and they had a job fair to fill all the new positions; I did an interview, got hired as an usher. They had a big training event set up to train everyone in advance of the actual opening, with all the new people being trained by a mix of new managers they would be working for and other managers from that chain of theaters from the surrounding area. They split the new people up into groups with a manager or two leading each group, the manager leading my group was one of the already established ones, but was transferring to our theater so would be one of our actual manager at work as well.

Despite being hired to be an usher, the manager leading my group insisted I learn how to do all of the various other jobs as well. I am in a wheelchair, however, so I couldn't physically do many if not most of those tasks; I couldn't reach/operate most of the equipment in the concession booths from my chair, I couldn't even get to the projector areas, etc. My inability to do these things was met with the manager constantly complaining/criticizing me and all the other people in my group laughing among themselves as I humiliated myself struggling to do the things I was told to do.

I kept at it for hours and eventually there was a break and the manager told us to meet her in one of the theater rooms to get a presentation about some stuff. Everyone went in the entrance on one side and I followed in that side as well, halfway in though, I couldn't get any farther because the hall was packed full of boxes and other stuff that had yet to be unpacked/moved and my chair couldn't fit past. So I went back out and around to the entrance on the other side. I came up behind the manager as she was talking to the group when I heard her yell "Where's that crippled kid!? I am getting real tired of his shit..."

I just gave up at that point and left the theater room, left the building, and went home. Didn't say anything to anyone. Was just done and had no interest working with or for all of those people who had been miserable to me all day. I got a call a week later from a different manager asking me where I was, I was scheduled to work that night, I said I quit and hung up.

If your fellow employees weren't aware enough to move the boxes so you could get through the hallway, you wouldn't have wanted to work there anyway. You dodged a bullet mate. You'd have a ton of stories about how miserable that placed treated you otherwise.

[Dacien]

When I first got into the electrical trade I started at the bottom, material handling for a solar company. They sent over a pallet of panels from the home office late that had to get delivered pronto. It was well after my 8 hours, and it was looking like a 12 hour day.

I noticed the entire stack of panels was palletized badly, and was an inch or so from the edge. I said screw it, I'll just cinch it down real good. Well, driving up Jamboree Road in Irvine going a bit too fast because I wanted to go home, and I hit a nasty bump. The entire stack lifted, shifted, and spilled out into the trailer.

I spent the next 2 hours re-stacking them (they weigh about 50 pounds each and are very unwieldy). About a dozen were shattered. What saved me is that I took a picture of the bad pallet job and explained there was no possible way to tear the stack down and re-palletize within the timeframe they wanted them delivered.

[Katchii]

Haven't done anything on the poll.

But the worst I've ever done is flat out call my boss an idiot to his face after a rather heated argument about why what he was asking me to do was ridiculous and a waste of time.

It ended up being fine because a couple hours later after he cooled down and had time to think about it (his words) he came and apologized and admitted that what he was asking for really was stupid.

[HeliArc]

Most unprofessional would be getting into a shouting match with a customer, really should have just walked away. Dumbest would blowing up a machine out of curiosity. To be fair I didnt think it would blowup. Oops

[Reeve]

Well I've definitely dated a coworker before, but I don't consider that overly dumb or unprofessional, and it has turned out fine.

More on the dumb and unprofessional side of things, while working in rural Africa, I encouraged my helicopter pilot to show off his aerobatic skills. He proceeded to pull off a "hammerhead" maneuver right over the village. Helicopters are pretty inherently dangerous, and pulling off a dangerous maneuver like that over a populated area was pretty dumb. Oh yeah, I was the Health and Safety manager on that crew at the time.

A quick description of the hammerhead maneuver: You accelerate, and pull the nose of the helicopter straight up and continue forward straight up until you stop moving forward, then rotate the nose down and corkscrew out. It was exhilarating and terrifying and wonderful,and we survived it, so it turned out OK.

[Shadowferal]

Yelled at my boss...and he knew I was furious.

[Daedius]

Trailing a chain of dollies indoors at the airport to clip and drag another company's right in front of the Authority Heads that runs the place.

Got just a warning, thankfully.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Falling into microsleep because I couldn't sleep properly the night before. I don't feel particularily bad about it, I could have just taken a day off but was there anyway to finish up a project. Other's spend half the day with trips to the coffe machine.

I immediately started snoring, which caused some amusement for my collegues though (and the compile process still wasn't done) and is the most note-worthy thing about it.

Checking things on the internet is literally everyone. This isn't even worth putting on there, it's on the same level as "I exchanged more words than neccessary with a coeworker". That just happens.

[draynay]

As far as unprofessional, strictly speaking, I worked for a shipping company and every time I had to package a certain red hat, I crushed it flat.

[Underverse]

Called out a senior investor for lying to me. He threw a 30 second verbal tantrum and then stomped out of the meeting like a 10 year old. Not my smartest move considering he manages billions of dollars. I still wonder if he intended to repeatedly lie to me or if he just forgot what he had told me several months previously. In either case, some things are better left unsaid.

[Flame6]

Slept through the alarm. Woke up 3 hours late with a co-worker friend pounding on my door.

[Tziva]

I've only ever done the first one on the poll which I am sure almost everyone with a desk job has done at some point.

My answer is none of the above, though, because I've done better (worse):

The dumbest thing I've ever done at work by far is the time I accidentally ordered a jobsite inspection for policy number "Reginald Windsor" when I used to work in insurance underwriting. The lady at the inspection company called me the next day because it didn't look like a standard policy number, you know, on account of being a fucking name.

[for those of you that didn't play WoW and/or Alliance in classic, that is the name of the NPC that unmasked Lady Prestor as Onyxia in the Stormwind Keep, the main character in the Alliance attunement quest chain. This would have happened during vanilla when it was actually a relevant name]

Second place is the time I pasted a message about pizza (intended for my spouse) on the internal memo line of an invoice and didn't notice until after I had locked it. That one wasn't as bad though because at least it was internal only.

In conclusion, I need to pay attention when I cntrl+v.

[Shadowferal]

Surfing internet like I'm doing now. Don't have anything to do right now.

[Doctor Amadeus]

It might speak volumes about my character, but I find most of the options on the poll are pretty tame. Over the course of the 7 years I've been in my present job, I've done all of them except the "boss" one, since all my bosses were males.

The most unprofessional would probably be banging my coworker during a conference call that both of us were on, and both of us were expected to speak at voluminously. We had to keep the whole thing on mute (obviously), take it off mute whenever it was one of our turns to speak, and do our best to keep our voices even and not winded, lol.

I always intend for these to be judgement free zones, especially something like this, we have ALL done something unprofessional or stupid, we are humans. I think looking back it helps to learn and laugh.

[Dacien]

Just remembered another one:

Was building a trash chute room for an apartment complex, and had all the conduit and wire ran for the lighting and switch. Nobody told me the line side was energized, but it's really my fault for not checking because we were at that stage of the project.

Bit into the wire with my strippers and got slammed. I've been zapped with 120 volts and that's one thing, this was me biting into an energized wire with my strippers. I just got slammed and couldn't let go for about a second and a half, which felt like an eternity. It was a hand to hand path, and both my arms were numb and sweaty afterwards.

That was dumb.

[Captain N]

I'm not sure if this is considered unprofessional but it was considered insubordination. Also to better understand this story I'll have to explain that as per Federal Railroad Administration rules I'm prohibited from performing any railroad related tasks after being on duty for 12 hours.

Pulling a 4100 foot train into the yard at 11 hours on duty.

Me: Hello Yard Tower -- do you want us to tie down the power with the train?

Tower: Bring the power to the power track after tying down your train.

Me: We're 11 hours old, Tower. By the time the Conductor ties down the train and we cut away we're not going to make the power track.

Tower: Take your power to the power track. Tower out.

Conductor goes back to tie the handbrakes and we cut away from the rest of the train. It's about 11.5 hours on duty at this time. Not more than five minutes later a remote control locomotive pulls out in front of us with a cut of cars for the hump. At this time we're sitting on the lead meaning any trains coming in behind us requiring more than one track won't be able to yard their train and we can't go forward because of the remote job. Needless to say we don't go anywhere for the 30 minute duration.

Me: Yard Tower we're requesting a cab on the North Lead -- our hours of service have expired.

Tower: Shove back and tie back onto your train and leave the power there.

Me: Sorry Tower are you requesting me to continue to work past my hours of service?

Tower: ....

Me: Repeat Tower are you requesting me to continue past my hours of service?

Tower: Standby train a manager is coming to pick up you and your Conductor. A recrew will take your power.



They charged me and the Conductor with being combative and insubordination, and pulled us both out of service pending an investigation. It was 2 weeks of sitting on my ass and eventually getting paid when the carrier couldn't prove I was being insubordinate as their own recordings of the radio conversation worked in my favor.