Drunken decimal point disaster
A few years ago I worked for a construction consultancy and as a fresh faced graduate I was given the task of looking after the finances of a very prestigious landmark development in the north of England worth several hundred million pounds.

Now there tends to be a hardcore drinking culture amongst consultants so it was normal to have more than a few pints at lunchtime and then the afternoon would be spent sobering up whilst not actually doing any important work.

Unfortunately I had fallen behind on my work one day and had to catch up with the accounts for this project after a liquid lunch. This led to me putting a decimal point in the wrong place, instead of £15million I ended up adding £1.5million and was quite impressed with the fact that the project looked to be well under budget .I then neglected to do the relevant checks that our quality assurance system had in place to prevent such cock-ups and decided to leave early as it was a “nice sunny afternoon and I thought I’d make the most of it.” As “Oh shit” moments go; the next days realisation of what I’d done is up there with the best fuckups in my life.

I have since decided that construction is not for me.
(Rev O'Lucian will unfortunatly age on, Thu 25 Oct 2007, 14:07, Reply)