I'm stupid!

[PastMember]

Ok, so, yesterday when I left the office, I did something incredibly stupid.

I left the water running in the sink in the breakroom. I remember turning it on with the idea that I'd fill the sink to let some things soak, but apparently I then forgot to turn it back off. I could have sworn I did, but very obviously, I did not.

Thus this morning, the entire office was flooded between 1 and 2 inches deep in water. The entire office.

I ruined the office. It's a miracle no one was electrocuted as there are countless powerstrips on the floor! It's another miracle that so far, no equipment or hardware seems damaged. I'm just waiting for someone to find something really expensive completely destroyed and fire me.

So far, everyone's been pretty decent about it - only a little teasing which stopped when I started crying. Of course, the boss keeps making comments that make me feel like crap, but I'm pretty sure he's completely unaware they are having that effect.

Anyway... someone make me feel better and tell a story about something stupid you've done, so I won't feel like the biggest idiot on the whole planet...

[Mikel]

NOPE, not a prayer, hon


 :drunken:

[Bree]

I dropped a box cutter in the toilet at B&N once, and I didn't realize I'd done it until I flushed it...

They had to call someone in to take the toilet apart. :p

HOWEVER that was not as bad as the manager who flushed a phone down the toilet once... while it was dialed into the intercom. We all got to hear it crackle and then die. :D

[Mikel]

that was not as bad as the manager who flushed a phone down the toilet once... while it was dialed into the intercom. We all got to hear it crackle and then die. :D

Now THAT you could charge admission to

[Vix]

Well, there was the time that I. . .
No, that doesn't sound half as bad.

Or the time that I. . .
No, not that either.

I guess that anything I've done that was that bad I've buried so deep that I can't remember it.

[Mikel]

Well, there was the time that I. . .
No, that doesn't sound half as bad.

Or the time that I. . .
No, not that either.

I guess that anything I've done that was that bad I've buried so deep that I can't remember it.

*Hands Vix a shovel*

Dig
Share
If you are nice, when I get home tonight I will share my story:  There was a girl involved and I was an early 20's guy, so you know stupidity ensues

[Yvonne]

My boyfriend, while a sweetie, does a lot of stupid things. Like driving a 12' delivery truck into a 10' parkade. Needless to say, he had that job for only a week. And speaking of my boyfriend, while he was stage managing on a cruise ship one of the techies was inches away from dropping a backdrop on his head, and worse - on the heads of about 20 dancers who were currently on stage performing. The same guy also put the pyrotechnics in upside down on more than one occasion and nearly set the stage on fire because of it.

I have a friend who worked for the gas company reading metres, and on her first day left a $1000 piece of equipment on top of her car and drove away. It broke. She cried. And went back to work the next day.

Thankfully most of my jobs have been in areas where I can't do much harm. :P

[Dana]

I flooded my parents' room one morning.  I'd flushed the toilet, and the handle stuck so it kept running, but I didn't hear it because I was at the other end of the house.  I came back to my parents' room about an hour later to get something, and the water was creeping into the hallway!  I panicked, called my dad, and put all the towels we own on the floor to soak up as much water as possible.  And we'd _just_ got our floors redone.  I felt so bad  :p  But luckily dad came home fairly quickly and fixed everything!  

I've done lots of klutzy things.  Another one I remember is when I was walking to my car after class let out, and I had my ipod in my ears and was just chillin', minding my own business when the tip of my sandal caught on a rut in the cement and I totally tripped in front of like...tons of people.  I think my face turned really really red....

[Mikel]

OK, I promised Panda I would...

20+ years ago I was pulling into the parking lot of the Smithhaven Mall, to do some Christmas shopping.  As I was turning into a parking lane, a car was coming the other way.  In it was an exceptionally cute girl I knew from work.

We agreed to meet for lunch before we went our way shopping.

Cute girl + lunch = dumb guy.

Three hours later I was leaving the mall, heading to my car and I could not find my keys.  SHARDS, I obviously had left them in the car.

Cute girl + lunch = dumb guy.

I was in such a rush to get to the food court, I not only left the keys in the ignition, I forgot to turn the car off.

Cute girl + lunch = dumb guy.

[Mikel]

I have a friend who worked for the gas company reading metres, and on her first day left a $1000 piece of equipment on top of her car and drove away. It broke. She cried. And went back to work the next day.

I did something similar once.  I was the night manager at a Burger King.  I had left the night deposit bag on the roof of the car, stuffed with $1,200.00.  Luckily I was able to back track and found the bag laying in the street.

[Eimi]

Back when I was at university I used to work with Japanese exchange students as a peer advisor and one of my duties was taking the kids to volunteer activities around town.  Well, we did this really fun clean up activity that the school does every year and everyone had a grat time.  When we were leaving, I piled my 15 kids into the fifteen passenger van and was about to pull out of the parking space to leave.  I saw there was a car next to me on both sides and then only one or two other vehichles in the entire parking lot.  I backed out and decided to swing wide of the car next to me to make sure I didn't hit it.  I ended up hitting the ONE car still left in the row behind us.  All fifteen students were laughing their butts off, especially when the school mascot, still in uniform, walked up to inspect the damage I'd done to his car...  From then on whenever we had new trainee orientation my boss would turn to me and say "Alright, and now would you like to explain to them the proceedure if you get into an accident with a university vehicle please?"  Never lived that one down.

The other stupid thing I did was before another volunteer activity.  We were going to hand out water to runners in a marathon race, but we had a lot of time before the race started, so we were trying to pass the time.  I decided to show the kids how to play Hackey Sack.  Now I'm not very good, but I thought they'd find it interested so we were having a lot of fun with that, until I jumped up and tried to do some weird behind the leg trick.  When I landed (after missing the damn sack), I somehow landed on my ankle and to not go into gory details, I ended up hyper-extending all the ligaments and had to wear an air-cast for a month and a brace for 3 months after that.  So I can claim that I suffered a major hacky sack related sports injury.

[Jane]

I guess I can rustle up a young-and-stupid story.  Aircraft mechanics working on the tarmac (flight line / where the planes park), but right down the other end of the air force base from our hangar.  After the aircraft left we had heaps of things to get back to our place so we got the aircraft pulling tractor (the tug) and hooked up the large yellow power unit to the back of it.  That's a perfectly acceptable use for each item, but we didn't stop there!

We tied a very tall set of aircraft steps onto the back of the power unit with a webbing strap (a strop).

We tied two sets of wheeled servicing stands to the back of the steps, also with strops.

We tied the fire extinguisher on the back of the last servicing stand.

Being technical people we realised there might be problems when we needed to slow down at the other end.  The power unit and the fire extinguisher had rigid towbars so they would be all right, but all those steps and stands with strops?  They would just bunch up and run into the item in front.

No problem.  We sat young and foolish mechanics on the steps and each of the two stands, told them to brace themselves and standby for the slow down at the end of the journey, whereupon they would use their feet and legs as shock absorbers between each piece of equipment.

About now you're imagining carnage, huh?

Not at all.  We (yes, I was the idiot on one of the stands) sailed along the flight line, oblivious to the fact that everybody who saw us pass went right inside to ring our boss and tell him he had a bunch of morons heading his way.  We survived bumps and loud metal gutters and pulled to a stop outside our hangar.  You know what?  Legs worked fine as shock absorbers.  We all looked pretty smug when we got off the eqiupment.  Why wouldn't we?  We'de moved everything back in one go *and* nobody had had to walk!

Then the boss stuck his head out the window and invited us into his office - and he didn't want to tell us how great our lateral thinking skills were.

Now this is a pretty stupid story already, but once we survived the yelling and scampered back out to our jobs the next aircraft came in for servicing.  It needed a power unit.  Another mechanic raced out, saw the tug already had the power unit on the back and floored it.

Man, was he surprised when he discovered he had dragged a very tall set of steps, two servicing stands and a fire extinguisher under the tail of another aircraft, along with the power unit.  The good news is that there was plenty of vertical clearance for the power unit ... you can guess the bad news.

Yeah, that was an expensive three week repair job on the aircraft tail.  The set of steps just needed painting.

[Paula]

I was living on my own for the first time in my life. I had a small apartment in a old house. I had a washmachine on when I started to vacuun. It overloaded the electricity-system and blew a fuse. I called to my father in panic. And he had to tell me, step by step, in phone how to change the fuse. (and where the fuse-box was). I really felt like stupid blond with two left-hands.

[Paula]

Oh, and I had to add that my father got really good laugh out of it.

[PastMember]

LOL

Great stories! Thanks ya'll!

And Mikel, did you still HAVE a car when you got back??