30 Blunders That Ended People’s Careers

I worked in public relations agencies for quite a long time, and mostly hated every minute of it. I didn't really understand what I was doing, but felt trapped in the business because I couldn't think of anything else I'd be able to do.

I got into it because around 2005-2010 social media was just becoming a big thing and old-school PR agencies would hire anybody who knew anything about Twitter, Facebook and all these exciting new channels. Pretty much all I had to do was show up to meetings and enthusiastically explain what social media was to confused old business dinosaurs.

So even though I knew nothing about PR and didn't really understand how agencies work, I quickly got over-promoted and for the first time in my life found I was in high demand, so I was getting paid more money than ever before. However, eventually social wasn't seen as such a big deal any more, so I found myself just trying to do whatever work they threw at me, hoping I could keep hold of that sweet salary for a little longer.

But because I wasn't into the job at all, I was always procrastinating, and I'd pull late nights to get work done at the last minute.

One day my boss asked to see my progress on a big client presentation that wasn't due for another week. I literally hadn't done a single thing on it, and I tried to bluster my way out of it, but the s**t hit the fan and I got fired.

Overnight I found I could no longer get interviews at agencies that used to be desperate for "social media experts" to work for them, and really started to worry about how I'd find another job.

In the end it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, because out of desperation I took a temporary 3-month contract to do some basic marketing stuff at a small tech company and before my contract expired the company got bought by a bigger company.

They decided they needed a marketing director for my region, and because I was sitting in the right chair at the time, I got promoted and given a permanent contract. I was given plenty of time and space to figure out how to do the job as the company grew, so I felt much more comfortable in the role, not like I was constantly making it up as I went along.

Been there 7 years, love the job and the people, and earn more money than I ever thought I would.

I got written up and pushed out of the company for farting in the wrong place.

To be fair, I was working in our microbiology QA group at a big pharmaceutical manufacturing company that made contact solution and other stuff. It was Thursday because that was taco soup day and this particular day it was extra spicy.

To get into the fill room, you have to spend like 45 minutes getting dressed in sterile room garb without touching the outside of your suits. It's quite the dance. So I'm in there sampling 100+ points of contact around the fill needle and my stomach starts grumbling. It's the end of the day, I don't want to leave and get dressed again. I look around and there are a few ladies working upstream on the conveyor belt looking for jams or whatever, and immediately after the fill needle, it goes out a little cutout in the window to be immediately packaged. The fill room itself has these cascading air pressures blowing away from the fill needle and is super loud.

So, that's my spot, I start to sample in that area, and let out a little 'pffffrrrrrrrrrrt!'. I feel better and go about my business. But then I start to hear this MOOOP MOOOP sound. Now, we have alarms, it's a stack of lights every few feet and a high pitched red light is a jam in the tracks somewhere, a blue alarm is something else, but this time a yellow alarm is going off. I look around unconcerned and see the ladies upstream are laughing their asses off. I look out to the packaging area and everyone is staring in the window at me. The line boss bangs on the window and demands that I see him outside.

There are hydrogen sulfide sensors around the sensitive areas of the line. That's because farts cause pink eye and I had just contaminated product. Thousands of bottles were thrown away and the line had to be purged for minutes before and after the 'incident'.

It took 15 minutes to properly disrobe, the whole time the rest of my QA department came to stare and laugh at me through the windows (you don't get naked l and they have to supervise you changing to make sure you do it right). When I got out, I had to sign several forms that claimed that I, Fr0thbeard, farted in the fill room. I got written up for it, but in my defence, so did the guy who trained me since he didn't mention the yellow alarms apparently. My boss let me go home early and I was forced out soon after.

Way late to this, so it will probably get buried, but oh well.

I used to be an arborist. I specialised in awkward tree removals, preferably big trees with structural issues and loads breakable, non movable objects (e.g. buildings, etc) around that needed to not be damaged.

My career was to the point where other local companies would call the company a worked for and ask if they could hire me out for a job that they were worried about. This isn't meant to be braggy, I'm definitely not proud of who I was at this time in my life.

I took pride in the fact that I would climb almost anything. I used to love working, turning up every day and being pointed towards a sketchy tree and having a big adventure taking it down. Looking back, though, it was the most egotistical I've ever been in my life. I was a show off, I was extremely competitive towards anyone who i thought had similar or, god forbid, superior abilities to me, and I *needed* to be seen as fearless and a cut above the rest (no pun intended). I even got to the point where I would be incredibly rude to the ground crews if I thought they weren't working hard enough and were going to cause me to complete the job at a less impressive speed.

Anyway in all my hubris I agreed to climb a tree that never should have been climbed, and only by sheer luck avoided being squashed like a bug between the trunk and the roof of an outbuilding when the tree decided to fall over as I was half way up getting ready to cut the second branch of the day off.

I was mostly uninjured, but the mental toll was quite large. I totally lost my edge and started getting jittery and even backing out of perfectly stable trees. Ended up having to take a pay cut, nobody was requesting me anymore, that's for sure. I also developed vertigo, and any time i was up a tree it felt as if the tree was falling and the ground was rushing up at me. I couldn't sleep any night when I knew I had work the next day (which is most nights when you think about it). And I started having crazy anxious moments where my heart would beat really fast. I carried on like it for 2 years with minimal improvement because I had financial responsibilities and no skills for anything else.

Luckily, I was eventually able to get work as a consultant in the same industry, which is a mixture of office based work and site visits that involve looking at trees instead of climbing them. But my career as a climber is definitely over.

A guy I worked with was caught stealing 2 cigarettes from a colleagues bag. Was on a six-figure salary. Not any more!

I was the assistant director at a summer camp. One of the very last nights was a sleepover night where all of the campers were there, but not all of the regular day staff.

Two of the counsellors were caught drinking beer, and in an attempt to weasel his way out, one of them told the head of the camp that I gave him permission to do so (I most definitely had not).

While I didn’t get fired on the spot or have my year end bonus withheld like the other two, I was told I wouldn’t be asked back again for next year where there had already been talks of me being a full director in the future.

Didn't get any sleep the night before (answering calls from a store in need) and did not take the next day off when I needed it. Ended up speaking my mind in front of a corporate liason...

No me- my fiancee before she met me. She reported a board member of a bank to HR for repeatedly sexually harassing her and groping her. Her fifteen year very successful career as a VP at that bank was over a week later. They said take your buyout / settlement offer or we will drag you through the courts for years. Never got another job in banking again. To this day she says she should have kept her mouth shut.

Working at a builders’ merchants.
Customer calls to place order over the phone (not unusual) and wants to give me the card details there and then (red flag). I initially refused but another member of staff vouched for them as they were regulars. Put the order through, knowing that whoever came to collect would need to come into the office for their paperwork before loading so we would have them on CCTV if it did turn out to be suspect…..only the yard crew didn’t follow process. When a van turned up for the goods, they loaded it all up and sent them away without asking for any kind of ID or manifest.

The payment card was later reported as stolen and the staff member who vouched for the customer denied even being in that day, which was a f*****g lie as she never took time off. I got fired and everyone else got to keep their jobs.

Browsing for another job while at the job

i saw a video once of a nurse explaining why she lost her job and nursing license - she took a photo of her entire emergency department track board with all the patients names, birthdays, and complaints and accidentally posted it on her public snapchat story. It was meant for her friend but everyone saw it and someone notified the hospital.

edit: forgot to add that this whole fiasco was because she wanted to show her friend how the doctor misspelled something