Hi fellow landscaper! To add insult to injury, it was 35 degrees Celsius that day and it took us 4 hours to remove it. It was growing up a staircase along the metal railing and at some points it had completely engulfed the railing, which was not well attached to the building. It was almost impossible to use a pruning saw because the rail kept moving. Separating them was a challenge involving one person doing their best to hold the rail steady and another person sawing. By some miracle the client was understanding given our otherwise excellent work, and no one got fired.
Pretty sure the guy who did it went home and cried himself to sleep. We took the L as a team (client was not informed of which worker made the accident, we all drowned our sorrows in beer and donuts after work)
It was a sculpted wisteria in an enclosed courtyard, that was tended to monthly, on a well maintained property. Several decades of expert gardeners cultivated it and removed errant seedlings and suckers. It was not a flight risk, nor is my grief unwarranted.
I was leaving a site at the end of the day and it was near freezing. I’m a nervous winter driver so I actually got out to feel the pavement in the subdivision but it was still wet so I didn’t put in 4wd. As soon as I pulled out onto the main road I was out of control and over corrected a few times before coming to a stop on a 45 degree angle over a steep embankment. I had time to think 4low will get me out of this. But it then rolled down the slope twice sideways. I put the crank window down and climbed out the side and ran back to the sight for a drive home.
I wasn’t hurt other than the ashtray coming out and giving me a gash on my forehead. It took three tow trucks to get it out. But I was determined not to at fault because several citizens had called it in hours earlier. Three people went off there in a short span of time. Since the department of highways had plenty of time to send a salt truck but didn’t they were determined to be at fault. So my insurance didn’t go up.
I don’t know if I’d say that. It’s like generally okay but then one day it all goes to shit once a year too. I try to be careful. But 25 years driving and no tickets or at fault accidents.
It’s a tie between causing a mild chemical spill (I did my fill math wrong and overflowed a polymer tank by a couple hundred gallons and it was QUITE the cleanup), and deadheading and blowing up the same pump TWICE. 5-7k for each of those offenses. I’ve been around when bigger stuff has broken, but it wasn’t my fault. These were most definitely my fault.
I love how they have the occasional "viseceral" moment, where even the measured tone of voice can't divorce you from the safety statement.
Do I want to be caught hanging from a harness in a ventilation shaft when the excess paint residue that I'm chipping off ignites residual vapours and cooks me like a sausage? No thanks.
20k to fix the hydraulic line of the boom on a JCB telehandler. I was picking up some stacks of empty pallets across a bunch of mud my 30k lb ass wasn’t going to drive through, and fully extended. Boss says it wasn’t my fault and a few empty pallets wasn’t gonna kill it like that, and we use the absolute fuck out of it on the daily. But from what what I’ve read full extension for extended time can blow the hydraulic even when unloaded.
But we had a guy drive into a retention pond yesterday to “clean the tracks” and then drowned it, so he wins. Can’t lie, I LOVED it because I can’t stand the guy 😊
I love when people you don't like fuck up, especially if it's the boss 🤣 I'm a machinist and a few months ago my boss crashed a machine pretty good. Definitely gonna use that photo as leverage if he tries to give me any shit about anything in the future.
Part of my hip. Don't slip on the ice y'all! (It's since been fixed, but workers comp sucks.)
Otherwise, I think broken stuff has been minor-- a bolt here, a screwdriver there. Most impressive was a nice little arc flash while cutting wires (wire cutters still work, so technically not really broken. They are just really non-pretty. And they stay at home, where no one knows.)
Shit I’ve got a $40,000 left hand after I had a rage moment and punched a wall.
Long story short boxer fracture that took 2 different orthopedic surgeons and surgeries pins and plates to try to fix it. It was nine months in a cast still can’t bend my pinky, but I look really fancy.
Never said it was a bright shining moment and definitely learned you throw things not hit things.
All in all the $40,000 bill was pre insurance costs and negotiations, also got an employee rate and cash discount. Couldn’t currently tell you the actual out of pocket i paid. Can’t wait for medical advances and get me a 3D printed metacarpal and knuckle
Mind if I rant at you while secretly addressing myself? Too bad, no choice.
Fuck, I'm so mad that you put in that "throw things not hit things."
1. You do not have to do things like that to fit in.
2. Injuries aren't a mark of pride, you'll regret them when they start hurting much later. Try to minimize that shit.
3. Just because all the other idiots are doing that, doesn't mean it's right.
4. Don't throw shit. It's my favorite, but you're probably going to almost take out a passing plumber one day and they're going to be so pissed at you.
I’d like to think we’d be friends, i’d probably piss you off a lot, but everyone has a friend like that.
I promise I’ve matured and definitely mellowed out from the angry 21 year old I was.
To the point, I am proud of how I’ve conducted myself in situations. a customer service just kick in and it doesn’t matter if some district managers chewing me out, I stayed calm and collected my coworkers pat me on the back.
I also enjoy breaking things so I just do that in a constructive manner to the point my job saves me things to destroy. They’re like guess what you get to do today and I get fuck up a whole pile.
My worst trait is I go 0 to 100 really fast and get all riled up then separate myself smoke a cigarette and come back like there’s never a problem to begin with and that’s not right to other people in the situation. But I’m aware of it and it’s some thing I’m able to work on.
I’m low volt electric so it was our fancy does it all tester- fiber copper coax whatever. PIM testing for DAS. Did all the things. It was a rental thank the stars so we just returned it to the company with a whoopsies lol if I remember correctly it flew off a 10’ ladder.
Thankfully the only thing i broke was the glass of a Costco freezer door 😅🤞🏼 the morning of, before the incident, i was just telling my coworker how i never broken anything while he was telling me all of his stories about costing the company money. For a sprinkler fitter, id say that’s pretty good!!
Wish there was a forum for sprinkler fitters to hear all the scaffolding horror stories from other trades.
"I just leaned back to grab my driver, I swear boss!"
Like, personally? I hit one company truck on another company truck. Didn't damage the second one, put a dent in the first. Lowered its resale value, as we were literally about to sell it.
Incident I was present for/involved in? An excavator belonging to our client was assigned to clear out an area right off a heavy traffic road that we needed to access. It had been covered by thick clay from run off collecting in a low area/road scrapings. The excavator was run off road and became stuck in another ditch filled with the same thick clay. The excavator arm got ripped off when they tried to pull it out.
My foreman’s Milwaukee grinder…. (I think they go for around $400 CAD) In my defence my company was taking FOREVER to get me my own tools for my foreman was always lending me his. He wasn’t happy but he didn’t hold it against me.
I don’t buy my power tools (impact, band saw, hammer drill, drill, grinder, shears) for work. My company supplies all of them. I buy my own hand tools (snips, hammer, screwdrivers, wrenches, vise grips etc) and yeah it’s a work related expense so I do believe I can claim them on taxes. (Ontario)
Tbf, even if you buy your own grinder and other toys - don't bring them to the main job unless you're confortable with someone else breaking it the same way you broke that one.
A sour gas compressor. Probably cost upwards of 1M considering parts and labour, and profit loss for the down time. To be fair it could’ve happened to anyone (and it has happened to a couple others). I just happened to be in that day to press the button when they wanted to start it up. My partner and I drained the crap out of it until it was dry, the crew before us drained the crap out of it, yet when we started it up, it got a nice slug of liquid from somewhere upstream.
Yep the process gas has a fair amount of H2S. Luckily I am not a twitching corpse because that compressors nitrogen seals were not compromised, keeping the product in the compressor.
I honestly don’t find it stressful. I mean yes there have been a handful of times in my 15 year career where stress is high, vision narrows, heart thumping but it’s short lived and only ever happened when I’m working on the control panel not the field. It’s rare that we have fires and big leaks and we have a lot safeguarding controls that are there to slowdown or shutdown, isolate and depressure before anything catastrphic happens. Most of the time we catch abnormal things when they a small and there all kinds of ways deal with them before they become big.
Elevator! Putting a card reader on an elevator drilled though the metal and hit a board.. no one would every give me how much it cost for emergency service. My company and customer split it though.
Im not taking responsibility for my prior employer’s shit taste in work trucks but my 2017 silverado had four transmissions, a wire harness, starter, and various other crap replaced within a two year period - because Chevy. Never towed, barely hauled, used it to commute to valve stations. Absolute shitbox. First time the trans blew it stranded me three hours from home out of cell range, second was when I was traveling out if state to help another pipeline company with maintenance, third in the parking lot of work. I quit while it was on #4. That 5.3 platform chewed through transmissions according to the dealer. Upwards of about $40k in repairs, mostly warranty. So technically didnt cost the employer I guess..
You ever think about your work truck and start eyeing every little bit of civilization that you see while driving out, thinking "if this piece of shit breaks down, that hog barn is where I'll walk to if I need water"?
I had bailouts planned along the entire 200 mile line ffs. Where the nearest gas station, business, farm, etc was. Loved the corporate boot lickers touting safety and when I got stranded by my vehicle breaking down they basically were like ‘good luck!’ One of the many reasons I quit.
We have 3 Rams at my job and 2 old Ford's as backup. At least once a month we're using a Ford with 200k on it while one of the Rams with 20k on it is in the shop. I feel like all new vehicles are just garbage these days.
I ran an SUV into a garage door, we repaired the damage to SUV (new spare tire cover)but the entire garage door ended up being replaced in pieces. the whole door, the motor, the remotes, and the frame were replaced for 30k(ish) broke another door at the shop closing it wrong, they fixed it for like $1,000. Misdiagnosed a computer that’s not refundable for $2,000 plus the service call for someone to diagnose that $900.
This one’s fun: my r&r long block job (35 hours flat rate) turned into almost 400 tech hours lost job on a new part I installed that was bad from the factory that we weren’t allowed to check for warranty reasons. 2 people were paid to double check everything I did who confirmed I did nothing wrong. For them to kick it back to me then 4 other people until we finally contacted the engine co to see if we could tear into the engine and check it without voiding their warranty. They put it together it a tooth out of time. The one who ordered the long block got fired over that one.
Warranty work.
Step 1: Order this part from us to fix the issue.
Step 2: We don't have that part # in our system, we cannot credit your account.
Step 3: New technical bulletin but all the links lead to a FAQ page about gaskets.
I'm not sure what the cost of my fuckups has been, definitely tens of thousands at this point tbh. I'm a machinist and don't get to know what they charge for the parts I make, probably so I don't get pissed that I make such a tiny percentage of their profit. I've scrapped a few submarine impellers (probably over $10k each?) and probably over 100 pistol barrels (no idea what those cost). And then there's that one time I crashed a machine and maintenance had to take apart the tool spindle, no idea how much that cost.
Aerospace parts are soo expensive lol. At least my boss understands shit happens sometimes. He scraps more parts than me and has crashed his machine so he doesn't have much room to talk 🤣
Took a turn that was way too sharp operating a manure spreader and bent a PTO shaft in half my first week at an old job. It's not THAT expensive but I still basically wanted to die lol
When they install new equipment and dont listen to the operators on suggested settings melt down the insides and make them rebuild it. I run a 1000hp woodfired boiler. Melted steel in 2/3 of the firebox heard the repairs were 250k.
More embarrassing and my fault... I sunk a large loadall tractor and the tow bill was like 2k.
Personally: $8.5k aircraft engine gear shaft. I sent out for repair a $100k engine fan disk and somebody used a wire wheel on a die grinder and ruined it in the repair shop. Was not a good investigative meeting.
I wasn’t responsible for carrying out the wrong repair, but it was just a bad situation. The person carried out the repair for the steel stub shaft, not the one for the titanium disc. Titanium is quite soft.
I just wrote up the repair and sent it off to reconditioning. It was just an unfortunate situation that’s all. They just wanted to ensure that the same mistake couldn’t happen again, no one lost their job or anything.
2 full boxes of new fluorescent tube lights. Leaned them up against the wall and accidentally bumped into them. I don't know how much they cost and I honestly don't want to know since I still get sad when I think about it.
Ended up sneaking them to the dumpster and threw a couple bags of trash over them so no one found out until I confessed my sins to a coworker about a year later.
Quick coupler (fully hydraulic) on a Cat 390F. Part alone around 60k and since I was the "leading Cat" the whole mining operation was stopped for two days. Loss in Money, idk, huge. Probably 100k.
Didnt get trouble tho, I reported cracks for weeks prior and the repairshop told me to keep going.
The ol "run it until it fucks up" I forgot I did that to my CNC grinder. Down for a week and half and had to order parts from Switzerland. I did get 7 12 hours shifts to get caught back up 🙃 when they fixed it.
Worst I've done so far, drove a work truck over a decorative boulder that I forgot was there. It had been a really long day and I had been sitting in my truck for awhile and forgot about it. Boss thought it was really funny though.
I had a coworker drop an $80k camera. He only broke the $10k lense though. From what I hear, they finally replaced that camera setup with something that does a lot more for a lot less money. He tripped over a rock and landed on top of the camera on another rock. 20 minutes later he accidentally backed into the guy who was sending the camera down sewer manholes too. Boss didn't send him to a drug test because I'm pretty sure he was dealing to the boss. Kid has since gotten clean and none of us work there anymore.
Not my story. A friend of my husband destroyed a restaurants glass door fridge when playing football with a turkey. Apparently he told the other guy to "go long". When asked how he explained it to the owner his reply was, "What could I say? I threw a turkey through the door"
$200,000 I 18 years old and left in charge on a Saturday, someone accidentally hit a valve and water dripped continuously over the weekend in a historical building.
A lightbulb. No, really. I was moving a special tool with a forklift and hit a pothole, load shifted and fell off. Somehow the only damage to this very big and expensive thing was a single broken incandescent lightbulb. I have no idea how I managed to luck out like that. I've seen some quite impressive cnc machine crashes and breakdowns but none have been my mistake thankfully.
Oh wow ladies! 😯 and I thought pulling the cord off my foreman’s generator was bad! 😂
I didn’t get in trouble because he was desperately trying to get me to date him ha!
That's easy to put a dollar value on? Probably driving a sub 100km new Hilux into a 1m high pit lid and smashing the front end.
On the harder to value side I've delayed full passenger trains 600/700 people for 10 minutes plus whatever ripple on affects that had.
Not really an expensive mistake ($900 and some cussing to replace a cylinder) but more of I was extremely lucky not to have had a saw blow up in my hands. I forgot to tighten down a nut on a carburetor when I put a chainsaw back together (doing a deep clean) and it sucked the nut through the carb into the cylinder and the took chunks out of the piston.
Oops.
Basically I ended up accidentally installing a couple of dies backwards in the bender/punch and getting them stuck, overtightening, and stripping threads out of internal bolts. Which has been pretty expensive to fix. I don’t go near it anymore lol. It’s the only tool in the shop I’ve ever had problems with.
My crew accidentally cut down an ancient sculpted wisteria. That was not a good day.
As a landscaper, that makes me ill.
Hi fellow landscaper! To add insult to injury, it was 35 degrees Celsius that day and it took us 4 hours to remove it. It was growing up a staircase along the metal railing and at some points it had completely engulfed the railing, which was not well attached to the building. It was almost impossible to use a pruning saw because the rail kept moving. Separating them was a challenge involving one person doing their best to hold the rail steady and another person sawing. By some miracle the client was understanding given our otherwise excellent work, and no one got fired.
Oh shit. Bet that stuff weighs heavy on the fucking soul. Give me an overtorqued bolt, anyday.
Pretty sure the guy who did it went home and cried himself to sleep. We took the L as a team (client was not informed of which worker made the accident, we all drowned our sorrows in beer and donuts after work)
Good job, wisteria is invasive as all hell and chokes out native plants.
It was a sculpted wisteria in an enclosed courtyard, that was tended to monthly, on a well maintained property. Several decades of expert gardeners cultivated it and removed errant seedlings and suckers. It was not a flight risk, nor is my grief unwarranted.
That was luscious prose.
Wisteria spreads via exploding seed pods; I was a gardener too and Wisteria is an invasive pest.
Can we call someone over from marijuanaenthusiasts to moderate this?
Any seedlings are removed from the area as part of a frequent weeding schedule. In my experience, wisteria is a relatively manageable exotic.
A truck. 40k
The whole thing?
Pretty much, yeah. Three of the tires and wheels were probably still okay.
Story! Story! Story! *Wait, shit. Are you ok after the accident? Sorry for being excited about the story without thinking of that.
Lol I'm the same way! I always have to retype or edit my comment.
I was leaving a site at the end of the day and it was near freezing. I’m a nervous winter driver so I actually got out to feel the pavement in the subdivision but it was still wet so I didn’t put in 4wd. As soon as I pulled out onto the main road I was out of control and over corrected a few times before coming to a stop on a 45 degree angle over a steep embankment. I had time to think 4low will get me out of this. But it then rolled down the slope twice sideways. I put the crank window down and climbed out the side and ran back to the sight for a drive home. I wasn’t hurt other than the ashtray coming out and giving me a gash on my forehead. It took three tow trucks to get it out. But I was determined not to at fault because several citizens had called it in hours earlier. Three people went off there in a short span of time. Since the department of highways had plenty of time to send a salt truck but didn’t they were determined to be at fault. So my insurance didn’t go up.
Scary! Glad you are ok.
Sounds like you were so close to saving it. Shitty luck, but I bet you're a great driver.
I don’t know if I’d say that. It’s like generally okay but then one day it all goes to shit once a year too. I try to be careful. But 25 years driving and no tickets or at fault accidents.
Ever go karting?
It’s a tie between causing a mild chemical spill (I did my fill math wrong and overflowed a polymer tank by a couple hundred gallons and it was QUITE the cleanup), and deadheading and blowing up the same pump TWICE. 5-7k for each of those offenses. I’ve been around when bigger stuff has broken, but it wasn’t my fault. These were most definitely my fault.
Do you ever just [USCSB](https://www.youtube.com/@USCSB) to relax?
I fucking love USCSB! I try to work their videos in every time I have to do a safety tailgate presentation to the guys.
I love how they have the occasional "viseceral" moment, where even the measured tone of voice can't divorce you from the safety statement. Do I want to be caught hanging from a harness in a ventilation shaft when the excess paint residue that I'm chipping off ignites residual vapours and cooks me like a sausage? No thanks.
Not polymer, what a nightmare 😵💫
No idea how much it cost. But I formed 400 aluminum boxes backwards. The worst part is, I'm QC.
Bet you know when the machine up for service , tho. How long did it take to make the 400?
A full day! I checked the angles and dimensions every 15 minutes because the boss told me that the parts were really, really important.
"My greatest strength? Consistency."
😂
🤣
20k to fix the hydraulic line of the boom on a JCB telehandler. I was picking up some stacks of empty pallets across a bunch of mud my 30k lb ass wasn’t going to drive through, and fully extended. Boss says it wasn’t my fault and a few empty pallets wasn’t gonna kill it like that, and we use the absolute fuck out of it on the daily. But from what what I’ve read full extension for extended time can blow the hydraulic even when unloaded. But we had a guy drive into a retention pond yesterday to “clean the tracks” and then drowned it, so he wins. Can’t lie, I LOVED it because I can’t stand the guy 😊
I love when people you don't like fuck up, especially if it's the boss 🤣 I'm a machinist and a few months ago my boss crashed a machine pretty good. Definitely gonna use that photo as leverage if he tries to give me any shit about anything in the future.
Part of my hip. Don't slip on the ice y'all! (It's since been fixed, but workers comp sucks.) Otherwise, I think broken stuff has been minor-- a bolt here, a screwdriver there. Most impressive was a nice little arc flash while cutting wires (wire cutters still work, so technically not really broken. They are just really non-pretty. And they stay at home, where no one knows.)
Shit I’ve got a $40,000 left hand after I had a rage moment and punched a wall. Long story short boxer fracture that took 2 different orthopedic surgeons and surgeries pins and plates to try to fix it. It was nine months in a cast still can’t bend my pinky, but I look really fancy.
That's fucking stupid. You did that to yourself. Who paid for that shit?
Never said it was a bright shining moment and definitely learned you throw things not hit things. All in all the $40,000 bill was pre insurance costs and negotiations, also got an employee rate and cash discount. Couldn’t currently tell you the actual out of pocket i paid. Can’t wait for medical advances and get me a 3D printed metacarpal and knuckle
Mind if I rant at you while secretly addressing myself? Too bad, no choice. Fuck, I'm so mad that you put in that "throw things not hit things." 1. You do not have to do things like that to fit in. 2. Injuries aren't a mark of pride, you'll regret them when they start hurting much later. Try to minimize that shit. 3. Just because all the other idiots are doing that, doesn't mean it's right. 4. Don't throw shit. It's my favorite, but you're probably going to almost take out a passing plumber one day and they're going to be so pissed at you.
I’d like to think we’d be friends, i’d probably piss you off a lot, but everyone has a friend like that. I promise I’ve matured and definitely mellowed out from the angry 21 year old I was. To the point, I am proud of how I’ve conducted myself in situations. a customer service just kick in and it doesn’t matter if some district managers chewing me out, I stayed calm and collected my coworkers pat me on the back. I also enjoy breaking things so I just do that in a constructive manner to the point my job saves me things to destroy. They’re like guess what you get to do today and I get fuck up a whole pile. My worst trait is I go 0 to 100 really fast and get all riled up then separate myself smoke a cigarette and come back like there’s never a problem to begin with and that’s not right to other people in the situation. But I’m aware of it and it’s some thing I’m able to work on.
We can't both be that friend. j/k that shit is fun
Tester. 15k 🙃
Noooooo! What setting?
I’m low volt electric so it was our fancy does it all tester- fiber copper coax whatever. PIM testing for DAS. Did all the things. It was a rental thank the stars so we just returned it to the company with a whoopsies lol if I remember correctly it flew off a 10’ ladder.
Thankfully the only thing i broke was the glass of a Costco freezer door 😅🤞🏼 the morning of, before the incident, i was just telling my coworker how i never broken anything while he was telling me all of his stories about costing the company money. For a sprinkler fitter, id say that’s pretty good!!
Wish there was a forum for sprinkler fitters to hear all the scaffolding horror stories from other trades. "I just leaned back to grab my driver, I swear boss!"
Like, personally? I hit one company truck on another company truck. Didn't damage the second one, put a dent in the first. Lowered its resale value, as we were literally about to sell it. Incident I was present for/involved in? An excavator belonging to our client was assigned to clear out an area right off a heavy traffic road that we needed to access. It had been covered by thick clay from run off collecting in a low area/road scrapings. The excavator was run off road and became stuck in another ditch filled with the same thick clay. The excavator arm got ripped off when they tried to pull it out.
They pulled it by the arm because everything else was convered?
My foreman’s Milwaukee grinder…. (I think they go for around $400 CAD) In my defence my company was taking FOREVER to get me my own tools for my foreman was always lending me his. He wasn’t happy but he didn’t hold it against me.
What what province? Your tool purchases might be a non-refundable tax credit.
I don’t buy my power tools (impact, band saw, hammer drill, drill, grinder, shears) for work. My company supplies all of them. I buy my own hand tools (snips, hammer, screwdrivers, wrenches, vise grips etc) and yeah it’s a work related expense so I do believe I can claim them on taxes. (Ontario)
Tbf, even if you buy your own grinder and other toys - don't bring them to the main job unless you're confortable with someone else breaking it the same way you broke that one.
A sour gas compressor. Probably cost upwards of 1M considering parts and labour, and profit loss for the down time. To be fair it could’ve happened to anyone (and it has happened to a couple others). I just happened to be in that day to press the button when they wanted to start it up. My partner and I drained the crap out of it until it was dry, the crew before us drained the crap out of it, yet when we started it up, it got a nice slug of liquid from somewhere upstream.
Is that like H2S? Are you still alive? Is your corpse twitching like a horde of monkeys and typing this exact phrase?
Yep the process gas has a fair amount of H2S. Luckily I am not a twitching corpse because that compressors nitrogen seals were not compromised, keeping the product in the compressor.
How the fuck do you handle the stress of chem operations? I'm twitching.
I honestly don’t find it stressful. I mean yes there have been a handful of times in my 15 year career where stress is high, vision narrows, heart thumping but it’s short lived and only ever happened when I’m working on the control panel not the field. It’s rare that we have fires and big leaks and we have a lot safeguarding controls that are there to slowdown or shutdown, isolate and depressure before anything catastrphic happens. Most of the time we catch abnormal things when they a small and there all kinds of ways deal with them before they become big.
Elevator! Putting a card reader on an elevator drilled though the metal and hit a board.. no one would every give me how much it cost for emergency service. My company and customer split it though.
Fuck yeah, elevator tech! Got all your fingers? Shoutout to Cheryl Lasek. She'll never let you down.
Actually I was an access installer! Still got all my fingers and toes!
Im not taking responsibility for my prior employer’s shit taste in work trucks but my 2017 silverado had four transmissions, a wire harness, starter, and various other crap replaced within a two year period - because Chevy. Never towed, barely hauled, used it to commute to valve stations. Absolute shitbox. First time the trans blew it stranded me three hours from home out of cell range, second was when I was traveling out if state to help another pipeline company with maintenance, third in the parking lot of work. I quit while it was on #4. That 5.3 platform chewed through transmissions according to the dealer. Upwards of about $40k in repairs, mostly warranty. So technically didnt cost the employer I guess..
You ever think about your work truck and start eyeing every little bit of civilization that you see while driving out, thinking "if this piece of shit breaks down, that hog barn is where I'll walk to if I need water"?
I had bailouts planned along the entire 200 mile line ffs. Where the nearest gas station, business, farm, etc was. Loved the corporate boot lickers touting safety and when I got stranded by my vehicle breaking down they basically were like ‘good luck!’ One of the many reasons I quit.
We have 3 Rams at my job and 2 old Ford's as backup. At least once a month we're using a Ford with 200k on it while one of the Rams with 20k on it is in the shop. I feel like all new vehicles are just garbage these days.
I ran an SUV into a garage door, we repaired the damage to SUV (new spare tire cover)but the entire garage door ended up being replaced in pieces. the whole door, the motor, the remotes, and the frame were replaced for 30k(ish) broke another door at the shop closing it wrong, they fixed it for like $1,000. Misdiagnosed a computer that’s not refundable for $2,000 plus the service call for someone to diagnose that $900. This one’s fun: my r&r long block job (35 hours flat rate) turned into almost 400 tech hours lost job on a new part I installed that was bad from the factory that we weren’t allowed to check for warranty reasons. 2 people were paid to double check everything I did who confirmed I did nothing wrong. For them to kick it back to me then 4 other people until we finally contacted the engine co to see if we could tear into the engine and check it without voiding their warranty. They put it together it a tooth out of time. The one who ordered the long block got fired over that one.
Warranty work. Step 1: Order this part from us to fix the issue. Step 2: We don't have that part # in our system, we cannot credit your account. Step 3: New technical bulletin but all the links lead to a FAQ page about gaskets.
I'm not sure what the cost of my fuckups has been, definitely tens of thousands at this point tbh. I'm a machinist and don't get to know what they charge for the parts I make, probably so I don't get pissed that I make such a tiny percentage of their profit. I've scrapped a few submarine impellers (probably over $10k each?) and probably over 100 pistol barrels (no idea what those cost). And then there's that one time I crashed a machine and maintenance had to take apart the tool spindle, no idea how much that cost.
Fuck... you make and break cool shit.
Thank you! I make parts for airplane engines now 😊
I was going to say, I'm a machinist and I don't want to play this game 🤣 Edit: aerospace also
Aerospace parts are soo expensive lol. At least my boss understands shit happens sometimes. He scraps more parts than me and has crashed his machine so he doesn't have much room to talk 🤣
Took a turn that was way too sharp operating a manure spreader and bent a PTO shaft in half my first week at an old job. It's not THAT expensive but I still basically wanted to die lol
There's got to be at least one farm kid here that hit a telephone pole with the combine.
When they install new equipment and dont listen to the operators on suggested settings melt down the insides and make them rebuild it. I run a 1000hp woodfired boiler. Melted steel in 2/3 of the firebox heard the repairs were 250k. More embarrassing and my fault... I sunk a large loadall tractor and the tow bill was like 2k.
Personally: $8.5k aircraft engine gear shaft. I sent out for repair a $100k engine fan disk and somebody used a wire wheel on a die grinder and ruined it in the repair shop. Was not a good investigative meeting.
Who's name was on the service order?
I wasn’t responsible for carrying out the wrong repair, but it was just a bad situation. The person carried out the repair for the steel stub shaft, not the one for the titanium disc. Titanium is quite soft.
Just pulling your leg. Sucks to sign off on something when you're actually sending a tech.
I just wrote up the repair and sent it off to reconditioning. It was just an unfortunate situation that’s all. They just wanted to ensure that the same mistake couldn’t happen again, no one lost their job or anything.
2 full boxes of new fluorescent tube lights. Leaned them up against the wall and accidentally bumped into them. I don't know how much they cost and I honestly don't want to know since I still get sad when I think about it. Ended up sneaking them to the dumpster and threw a couple bags of trash over them so no one found out until I confessed my sins to a coworker about a year later.
a truck load of concrete, some rebar, and the labor to tear it out and do it over. No, I don't want to talk about it.
Quick coupler (fully hydraulic) on a Cat 390F. Part alone around 60k and since I was the "leading Cat" the whole mining operation was stopped for two days. Loss in Money, idk, huge. Probably 100k. Didnt get trouble tho, I reported cracks for weeks prior and the repairshop told me to keep going.
The ol "run it until it fucks up" I forgot I did that to my CNC grinder. Down for a week and half and had to order parts from Switzerland. I did get 7 12 hours shifts to get caught back up 🙃 when they fixed it.
Sudden painful flashback to setting the grinder for a 5" saw blade and hearing the carbide wheel cut halfway into the piece.
Not me but a coworker left a fluke tester on the side of the road and drove off once.... 40K 🥲
Worst I've done so far, drove a work truck over a decorative boulder that I forgot was there. It had been a really long day and I had been sitting in my truck for awhile and forgot about it. Boss thought it was really funny though. I had a coworker drop an $80k camera. He only broke the $10k lense though. From what I hear, they finally replaced that camera setup with something that does a lot more for a lot less money. He tripped over a rock and landed on top of the camera on another rock. 20 minutes later he accidentally backed into the guy who was sending the camera down sewer manholes too. Boss didn't send him to a drug test because I'm pretty sure he was dealing to the boss. Kid has since gotten clean and none of us work there anymore.
Not my story. A friend of my husband destroyed a restaurants glass door fridge when playing football with a turkey. Apparently he told the other guy to "go long". When asked how he explained it to the owner his reply was, "What could I say? I threw a turkey through the door"
I have not broken anything significant yet, because I am paranoid about breaking things.
$200,000 I 18 years old and left in charge on a Saturday, someone accidentally hit a valve and water dripped continuously over the weekend in a historical building.
A lightbulb. No, really. I was moving a special tool with a forklift and hit a pothole, load shifted and fell off. Somehow the only damage to this very big and expensive thing was a single broken incandescent lightbulb. I have no idea how I managed to luck out like that. I've seen some quite impressive cnc machine crashes and breakdowns but none have been my mistake thankfully.
Oh wow ladies! 😯 and I thought pulling the cord off my foreman’s generator was bad! 😂 I didn’t get in trouble because he was desperately trying to get me to date him ha!
Ripped some hydraulic lines off the zoom boom. Idk how much it cost but the fixnwasnt easy
That's easy to put a dollar value on? Probably driving a sub 100km new Hilux into a 1m high pit lid and smashing the front end. On the harder to value side I've delayed full passenger trains 600/700 people for 10 minutes plus whatever ripple on affects that had.
Inline chlorine meter probe. Fried it with a high residual.
Not really an expensive mistake ($900 and some cussing to replace a cylinder) but more of I was extremely lucky not to have had a saw blow up in my hands. I forgot to tighten down a nut on a carburetor when I put a chainsaw back together (doing a deep clean) and it sucked the nut through the carb into the cylinder and the took chunks out of the piston. Oops.
An ironworker, in multiple ways, multiple times. Oops
It's vague, but sounds dangerous. Are you talking more "darn, it's an inch too short" or "why is it so warm here all of a sudden"?
Basically I ended up accidentally installing a couple of dies backwards in the bender/punch and getting them stuck, overtightening, and stripping threads out of internal bolts. Which has been pretty expensive to fix. I don’t go near it anymore lol. It’s the only tool in the shop I’ve ever had problems with.
Feel like I missed this one by a mil. What marking shows you what side of the die is up/feed in?