Not me but a FOF



I never got to test cool software. :-(



He and his team were to test a new pc game. They were given a beta of the US/English release version and told to check several different Eastern European language versions against that.

Thing is, after a couple of weeks, looking at "Do you wish to create a Game Folder?" in Czech gets a bit dull so they opted instead to play the US version in Co-operative play. For three whole months this went on. In fact, they'd got bored with the original game and, having found other games on the build server, decided to 'test' them instead.

The client company eventually found out. The team were disbanded, and their company had to refund the client all the money they'd been given plus they were barred from ever bidding for a contract ever again. When the client company went into games consoles (we'll mention no names - oh alright it was X), the company suddenly realised how much out of pocket they were going to be, thanks to half a dozen slackers, and fired them all.
(Fanta Menace Is tall enough to see over the fence, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:44, Reply)

has no-one mentioned...
... the Millennium Dome?
(happylittletulip helpless and delicious, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:43, 5 replies)

What's wrong with this picture?
This has always made me laugh.. it's the Mancunian way in Manchester. The billboard hides an planning howler, the spur off the flyover, if completed, would meet a one way dual carriageway... going the other way.

So near.. yet so far..
www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ewm/001ewm/024_daffs_quiz/pic07.html
(Countryslicker, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:43, 6 replies)

Bond...
James Bond boxset £119.99

Ordered from web and delivered to wrong address due to my illiterate fat fingers.

House holders refused to send it on as P&P would be too much (obviously I'd offered to pay!!!)

Don't pass through Ullapool often.

Positively shocking.
(Waspard has your wank bank account details, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:40, 5 replies)

not me but my employer, the government
booked my mate and me to work the entire weekend (62 hours total) with a very "violent" patient, all at overtime rates in the penthouse suite, (the entire 14th floor)of a 4 star hotel at the beach - the only room available who would accept us.

$9520.72 in wages
$ 855.00 for the room
$ 420.00 for car hire (which we never actually used)
$ 372.00 in food drinks etc

Total
$11167.72

When we picked up the patient, turned out to be a 76 year old woman who swore at her carer.
(wallynothere rnot without protection, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:25, 1 reply)

My Mate Furious D
Has just started work for Natwest Bank. The most expensive mistake hasn't happened yet...but it will.....and soon.....


Because god love him...The bloke's an idiot

I'd close your account and get the fuck out of there while you still can if I were you.

Hang on a mo...my mortgage is with them...


bollocks
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:08, 1 reply)

Car Crushed
I saw an expensive forklift mistake. I watched a warehouseman use the wrong forklift for a job and lose his load (so to speak)

Instead of getting the correct attachement he used the 30tonne forklifts squeeze motion (brings the forks together) to grab a coil of wire. Not 100m, but somewhere in the region of about 2 miles of wire. the whole thing weighed about 7 tonnes. Usually a couple of forklifts move it aroung until the big fork can get is cable reel attachment to go through the middle of the reel and grip it, before loading up.

This time, they just grabbed it and lifted and drove off. All was well for about 30m, out of the warehouse and across the car park to the loading bay.

Now this is where it happened. Whilst he stopped to work out how to load up, the forks decided to have a little hiccup and loosened for a second (they aren't designed to work like this). The reel shifted and with this new found momentum started to roll out of the forks and towards the car park.

Things like this happen in slo-motion. 7 tonnes of copper on a massive 12 foot wooden reel rolled towards the car park and we were all powerless to stop it.

Even better, it managed to pick out the depot managers new Vauxhall Cavalier GSI2000 (white with spoilers!).
Basically it was destroyed. It was like a cartoon with a flat front end and the reel kinda wedged somewhere about where the back seat started.

The manager simply didn't believe us - he thought it was a another work floor prank to get him outside and laugh at him. 45 minutes of pleading did get him outside and his face was a picture.
All credit, he laughed. And kept laughing, almost maniacally. He got a new car on company insurance, no-one mentioned to the insurers we weren't using the right bits.

i bet he cried when he got home. i would have.
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Fri 26 Oct 2007, 12:00, 1 reply)

Not strictly my mistake but I'd like to share this
during my days at school, the computer studies teacher used to recount this hilarious tale about writing software.

Nasa launched one of their many very expensive washing machines - sorry - satellites, to bugger off to the deepest reaches of space to bother some distant moon with a camera for a few hours.

Anyway, the story goes that the satellite after years of research, money and hard work finally left the launch pad perfectly, and was set on its merry little way.. the team sat back and relaxed on turned on their ZX Spectrum's, BBC B's & Commodore 64, punched cards & paper tape* computers to "talk" to the satellite. Only it didn't work, it wouldn't talk to them. All that money and hard graft for nothing, and they spent many more years trying to get the little bastard to work as it hurtled further and further away..

Until one day, a software engineer spotted the problem. The original programmers had missed a semi colon off the end of a line of code.

A simple ';' that cost millions.


*probably
(Pesky Young Scamp, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:43, 3 replies)

Tom Cruise hates me
I worked for a roadfreight company shipping stuff all over the world. One of these shipments was a trailer full of movie sets and equipment type stuff for the film Mission Impossible 3. The trailer arrived 3 days late, and due to this filming had to close down, costing the studio a fair bit of dough in lost wages etc.

have it!
(bdgr can't think of anything witty to type here, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:43, Reply)

The iraq war.
...
(Vic Flange, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:37, 5 replies)

Crazy Horse Too, Vegas
A couple of years ago I went to Vegas with some mates. Lapdancing isn't really my thing - their eyes are weird and I don't like it when they flick you with their hair, it hurts a bit.

Anyway the others were insistent. While we were watching the main stage, girls were appearing one by one and leading my friends off to the "VIP room". They seemed kind of hypnotised. Finally a couple of girls appeared and invited me to go. I said thanks, but I'd wait for my friends to come back first. I figured I could get the lowdown on what actually happened out there, and then make my own decision.

The girls came back half an hour later and said "your friends are expecting you, please go to the VIP room".
"No you're alright!" I said. "They know I'm here!".

After an hour and a half I decided they were either dead, or were having too much fun without me, so i decided to go back to the hotel.

Suddenly they appeared, ashen faced and close to tears.
"Come on Browser, we're going. We've been raped".
"What!?"
"I said we've been RAPED".

Turns out they were getting personal lapdances and hadn't asked the price. Eventually when they called it a night the girls settled the bill - $2000 each. One of them didn't have a credit card so his mate had to put $4k on his own card.

I make sympathetic noises but was silently punching the air at the total $12 I had spent on three beers.

As we stumbled into the broad daylight, a ferrari screamed up to a halt, one of the lapdancers jumped in, flicked my mates the finger, and the car roared off into the distance. Poor exploited little mite.

The best bit was hours later when my mate looked thoughtful, and said "you know, I don't get to see a lot of tits. I think it was worth it".
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:34, Reply)

Submarine car
Not me, but the wife (who has a bit of a history when it comes to car calamities):

One sunny afternoon, she took a visiting friend to the beach. On the way home, she decided to take a shortcut along a tidal road -- i.e. a road that is partly submerged at high tide. The tide was well on its way to being high as she arrived at one end, but it's quite a detour to go the long way, and when the car ahead of her went on she decided to take her chances.

They made it OK across the first underwater stretch, but the tide rises in quickly there and by the time they'd arrived at the far end, the car in front decided that the next underwater bit was too deep and stopped. She decided to go back the way she'd come, hoping that it would still be shallow enough to get back.

It wasn't.

Engines don't like breathing water: it seized rather violently (bent con rod apparently) halfway across, leaving her stranded in foot-deep water. The RAC eventually arrived to fish her and the car out, but it was curtains for the engine and to be honest, the car never really worked properly again even after it was replaced. Luckily the insurance covered most of the cost.

Even more luckily, we managed to find some mug who was willing to trade it in for more than it was worth and replace it with something less...damp.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:32, Reply)

Shit Holiday
"Come to Russia" they said. "See the beautiful women, sample the local spirits, traverse the wonderous landscapes of this great nation".

So, after I managed to convince a few hundred thousand mates to join me, what do I find when I turn up but a few lairy locals, the whole of Moscow on fire and it's the middle of bloody winter!

AND we had to walk back.

Still, the horse steaks were nice.

Yours,

N. Bonaparte.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:27, 2 replies)

Tech mistake
I was instaling a circuit board to a server and instead of using the recommended DCF-15969049 I used the the less expensive DCF-15969049-B. In a matter of weeks, the whole system went into meltdown and crashed, losing the company £4 trillion. Their operation in Ecuador went belly up and a cholera epidemic followed shortly after that, precipitating a coup and then a civil war. This spilled over into neighbouring countries and a wave of genocide washed over south and central America causing the deaths of countless millions.

The irony? Had I used the DCF-15969049 circuit board, it would only have cost the company an extra £13. As it was, most of the senior management committed suicide. I blamed a Ukranian lackey for the mistake and he was sent back to his own country, where he and his family were executed for politcal reasons.
(frankspencer, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 11:24, 4 replies)

T'other week
I work at the local college, where in these days of paperless offices everything is done on the puter: the databases, exam entry, pretty much all communication, taking the class registers is done online, and even the door locks are done on the same system (ID cards and electric locks).

So imagine my horror as, when I reach over to the door release button to buzz a teacher in (they never remember their cards) I accidentally knock over my tea, and watch as it pours down a crack in the desk directly into a mains socket. Fucksocks!

Panicking, I whip the plug out with my foot. Phew! Problem solved, right? It can just dry out.

Except looking up, my computer (plugged into another socket) is off. In fact, as I test them, all the computers in the office are off. And it's somewhat darker... the lights are off. In fact, absolutely everything had shorted out - the radiators, phones, printers, faxes... even the door locks. Ah.

It could be OK though, my other co-workers were on holiday for half term or currently at lunch. But oh no. I could hear cries of confusion. Looking into the next offices, I'd shorted out them too. And the reception desk, with students waiting impatiently. In fact, I'd shorted out every single office and department on my side of the building. I panicked: my boss, who we shall call Angela (for that isn't her name), would be coming back from lunch soon!

Now, here's the thing about the door locks: they're very sensetive and efficient, so people are used to waving their cards in the general direction of the scanner and walking straight through.

So my pièce de résistance was timidly asking the recepionist "Do you think we can sort it out before the boss notices?" just as Angela herself whacks head-first into the door with an audible *THUD*, her hand still waving her ID card futily at the scanner.

Apparently she noticed.


Length? Fixed after about an hour, but I was still laughed at for days.
(Adamish Time of death, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 10:35, 5 replies)

Chip & pin
I was paying for a meal in Pizza Express (around the time when chip & pin machines were first introduced). The waitress handed me the machine and I tapped in my pin number. Didn't realise that the gratuity option was first. ...I almost left a £8136 tip!

...oops! Now you know my pin.
( skullface, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 10:16, 2 replies)

Getting Married
That was quite an expensive mistake.
Although she didnt get as much money in the divorce as she hoped, haha !
Maybe my solicitor can give a few good tips to Paul McCartneys solictor.
( turb0t, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 9:23, Reply)

Accidental libel of one of the world's largest football clubs (pearoasted)
For legal reasons (and also because I'm still a bit scared of them) I can't actually name any of the parties involved.

I used to work for a company which made one of the most popular cheat code devices for consoles. I worked as a cheat code developer there and one of my duties was to make stand alone cheat/update discs. It was my responsibilty to make the update disc for a new football game which was coming out. This involved correcting all the team names, player names, badges, etc. However, when I was making the badge for one of the teams, instead of their name on the badge (and just as a joke to share with my mate), I put 'Dirty Fucking Scum Cunts'. This imaged was then flattened to a low res bitmap and made unreadable. We had a good laugh about this.

The disc was finished and mastered in very large quantities and shipped across Europe and sold very well. Approximately 2 weeks later the Producer of the product asked me to come and look at something with him. Now apparently an 8 year old boy had got the disc and (being impressed with the job I had done) wanted to see how I had made the badges. So he went into the editor and looked at the badge and zoomed in on it. It soon became apparent that the writing was not quite as illegible as first thought. The boy wasn't sure what it said, but he knew it didn't say his team's name. His Dad had a better idea of what it said.

Angry Dad then took it back to the major High Street retailer where he bought it from. They took all of our products off the shelves (not just the one in question) and soon after, several others did the same. The press were informed and started phoning us asking for questions. The football club in question were informed and started phoning up threatening legal action. The product had to be recalled, re-mastered and re-issued at an initial estimated cost of a quarter of a million pounds. Later, FIFA got onto them and were rather upset, as were a large video games company, who make another popular football game and who happened to pay a lot of money for exclusive rights to team names etc.

They asked me to leave (insisted really). Fascists...
(The Louce, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 9:20, 9 replies)

When I was about 4 years old... (damn my work comp's inability to edit posts!!!!)
...me favourite toy was this walking robot. It stood a tall 10 inches (lol, I typed inches) and had a light display in it's chest. When it was powered up by some batteries, it would march forward, stop, then do this light display and repeat the process. Twas not gifted with great variety, but it made alot of noise and looked cool.

One day, the batteries run out. Robot noise becomes quiet plastic statue to the 4 year old. Obviously the 4 year old wants this resolved, so I bring this to the attention of my father. This was my expensive mistake.

He has a look around the house for some batteries but can't find any. So instead, he decided to test out something else. He opened up the battery compartment and connected a spare CAR BATTERY to the +/- points in the battery bay with some jumpleads and some wire. All is ready, then dad flicks the "on" switch....

Robot noise went beserk. STAMP STAMP STAMP LIGHTS STAMP SMOKE STAMP STAMP LIGHTS STAMP FLAMES STAMP LIGHTS LIGHTS FLAMES FLAMES FLAMES....
Dad disconnected the car battery but it was too late. The robot had run straight into a wall and was currently burning itself to the skirting. He runs out to the bathroom, grabs a cup of water and soaks the melting circuit person drying it to the wall, a lump of disfigured toy with the smell of plastic death emanating from it.

"Oops....errr...sorry son." says dad, who promptly legs it. I loved that toy.

Apols for length? It's 10 inches of fecking fire!
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 8:37, 7 replies)

Accounting for dummies
I used to work as part of a financial systems team, on an IBM AS/400 system. In one of the input fields of our very badly designed fixed asset system, when you put in a value (in dollars), you had to remember to press the 'field exit' key, and not tab out of the field, or it would append zeroes to the end of the value, resulting in a $100 transaction going through as $1,000,000,000,000,000.

Which should be easy to correct right? just reverse it. Nope. In order to reverse it, you need to type the value in again with a minus, and you can't do that as you have no spare characters in the field for the minus. So instead you have to take the whole system offline, and manually remove the original entry from all the systems, doing backups as you go, all of which which takes a minimum of 8 hours. Eight hours in which thousands of accounting staff across the world have no access to their data, and no way to input new data...

And nowadays with Sarbox compliance, it couldn't even be fixed like that...
( calibrax loves teh hamsters (not in that way), Fri 26 Oct 2007, 8:30, 1 reply)

When I was about 5 years old....
...me favourite toy was this walking robot. It stood a tall 10 inches (lol, I typed inches) and had a light display in it's chest. When it was powered uo by some batteries, it would march forward, stop, then do this light
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 8:18, 5 replies)

Commuters?
Being the privatised cash-cow for shareholders that the railway is - everything now revolves around money. If a train is cancelled, short-formed or even dirty (hard to believe!) the operating company is fined.
There is a whole industry that tries each day to aportion blame for each delay.etc between the Train Operating Companies, Network Rail and other 'interested parties'.

This is big business - for each delay minute, the company responsible is fined £110. Now imagine what would happen if you caused 4000 delay minutes by shutting down London Bridge station, in the morning peak. That's around £500,000 in delay payments.

Opps.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 6:47, Reply)

Risky?

(Alexxx It wasn't me, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 6:15, 1 reply)

.

(Alexxx It wasn't me, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 6:14, 1 reply)

bank faux pas
i work for a bank in the proof department. basically, we are in charge of taking the deposits from the teller work and getting them into the system, making sure they balance, and then uploading them to our processing company so they can post to our customers' accounts overnight.

the biggest - and most expensive "oops" - that occurred in proof (and, actually, the bank as a whole) happened one day shortly after i started working there. apparently the closers, who are the ones who upload the work to be processed overnight, well, they didn't balance. our supervisor was at a baseball game instead of being there to close with them, so they panicked and called him; there was a miscommunication but the closers thought the problem had been solved.

cue the look on our supervisor's face the next morning when he tried to look up an item after a customer called to say their deposits weren't posted... the item wasn't there. nor was any single transaction that had been run through the system the day before. $50,000,000 (roughly 24 million quid) was completely gone into thin air. this was a problem that couldn't be contained to just our department - all of our branches were getting angry calls from business customers.

surprisingly, neither of the closers were fired, even though they both should have known better. how they fixed it, i have no idea, as i was literally only there two weeks and barely knew what was going on.

two years later and i'm a senior closer. if we don't balance by even a penny, i make damn well sure we find it and fix it... though i have accidentally missed a corrupted digital transaction, which was only partially my fault since cash management never let on that it was supposed to go through (they made it sound like it had been fixed in another file). it was ~$800,000 of a mistake, but since it was digital they just had to make up a new file and it was memo posted the next day. the customers didn't lose a thing, but the girl from cash management went on a rampage with my name attached when she found out.

the only time anyone notices us is if we fuck something up. i love my job.
( mayonessa, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 4:21, Reply)

not mine but it affected me
When buying our flat we went through all the normal rigmoral including getting the extensive surveyor's report done. All was well and good, we moved in pleased as punch with our new home...and then it happened, less than a month after we moved in.

Mould and fungal spores started to appear around the bath and through some of the knot holes in the floorboards in the kitchen.

Further inspection by professionals exposed at least a couple of years worth of dry rot, damp in the walls, rotted floorboards and so the list goes on.

The upshot of this is that the surveyor hadn't done his job properly and on second inspection from the same company but a different inspector (we refused to let the first one enter our house) revealed all the problems in their full glory.

We had to move out for 2 months while the back of the flat was knocked down and rebuilt and re-decorated.

The cost of the report £750. The cost of the repairs including living out of home expenses for 2 months and a couple of return tickets to Australia thrown in to "help with the pain" £25,000.

All the guy had to do was "his job" for the hour he was supposed to and none of this would have happened. Instead he breezed around the place for 15 minutes with his eyes closed at a
cost to the company he worked for of £1,666 for every minute he spent in the flat.
( bacon and egg roll is going to be big downunder, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 3:46, 3 replies)