<p>I took a step backwards in a European museum and bumped into a freestanding display cabinet- and watched a fragile, ancient glass vase literally teeter from side to side to side. Not a vibration, not a shake. It was one of those moments when time moved very slowly. Finally, it righted itself.</p>
<p>I’ve found that groveling and apologizing profusely goes a long way. I’ve done some dumb things as an architect especially when I was starting out. For one of my first clients I ended up working the last couple of months for free because I felt badly about what had happened. A few years later the client hired me for another small job and paid me extra because she felt badly about not paying me for that time. </p>
<p>The funniest mistake I made was early on in Germany - I was trying to make German ones and then got them confused with sevens making some rather significant math mistakes!</p>
<p>Gave a preschool kid with mild peanut allergy some Chex Mix (the kind bought at the store has no peanuts). Then read the ingredients which said “manufactured by machinery that also processes peanut”…gulp. I snatched it away. He had eaten a few bites but was fine.</p>
<p>While working as a nurse on third shift, I omitted a med. dose on a post-surgical patient.
It was my first year out of nursing school. I had to call the Dr. and confess my error…bad,bad.</p>
<p>Took a deceased patient down to the hospital morgue (again on night shift) and left her in the “drawer” but forgot to put the toe tag on…not good.</p>
<p>This is not one of my own “errors” (and I have made several to be sure) but some of the other posts reminded me. A couple of years ago my dear SIL passed away very suddenly. She was pronounced as soon as she reached the ER by ambulance. A few days later, someone from the hospital called to talk to her about her satisfaction with her hospital visit…</p>
<p>My BIL was so shocked he didn’t quite know what to say. I called the hospital’s PR department later to let them know what happened. I also told them that I felt certain my SIL didn’t really enjoy her stay.</p>
<p>I felt really sorry for the poor person who called–I’m sure the mistake wasn’t hers.</p>
<p>I remember when I was a young teen at a hotel, serving as summer switchboard operator, you know, Lilly Tomlin style, with all the wires connecting calls. The tourists would always call down and ask how to get drinking water. I was perplexed and said, “Oh, you want ice water?” They would agree and I’d send the bellhop up with a pitcher of ice water from the hotel bar (the bellhops loved me that summer–made a ton on tips). </p>
<p>About the middle of the summer, I started telling them to just take the cup by the sink in the bathroom, put it under the faucet and turn it on! Some of them still preferred to get the bellhops to bring them a pitcher of iced water & probably thought I was endangering their health. </p>
<p>When there was a power outage at the hotel, ALL the lights for all the phones went on, lit up like a Christmas tree, so I just pulled them all out & disconnected everyone. :)</p>
<p>It was a fascinating summer but I vowed I would never work in Travel Industry & Management, since holidays were busy, as were weekends (luckily I only worked M-F).</p>
<p>I also love the bcc feature & wish more folks would use it instead of sharing my email with the world of all the others folks on their cc list.</p>
<p>As a new nurse, I was working the night shift. I am NOT a night owl, so I was having a really hard time working that shift. One night I made a medication error-I gave diazepam (Valium) instead of temazepam (Restoril). When I realized my mistake, I was horrified. I called the doctor and told him about the error. He told me that was a great way to learn an important lesson (the patient was fine, no harm caused,etc.) since it was not a cardiac drug or other dangerous substitution. He even gave me a telephone order for the valium so that I didn’t have to write myself up. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I told my nurse manager about the whole thing and she offered me a position on day shift as she was already aware I was having a hard time driving home in the mornings after shift change. I just wasn’t totally safe while working night shift. Every night at about 2 am I would get nauseous and light headed.</p>
<p>Every day of my career I am aware that I could make a mistake that could literally kill someone. It’s sobering and the most stressful part of being an nurse.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, When I was about six months out of nursing school I became the only RN on the floor on weekend night shifts.
The stress level was off the chart. Sometimes I would cry in the car while driving to work anticipating all the things that could go wrong. I remember praying almost every night in the elevator going up to my floor…please don’t let anyone code tonight.</p>
<p>^^^^Wow. At least where I worked there was a whole lot of support. I worked in an ICU and we were right over the ER. If a patient coded, you had about 15 people there within about 60 seconds: MDs, respiratory therapists, pharmacist, nursing supervisor, all other RNs on the unit, etc. I cannot imagine walking in your shoes!</p>
<p>Not my mistake, fortunately, and I saw it too late for correction :(, but still makes me laugh when I think about it. In my law office, papers were sent out with the local Department of Public Works as the defendant. Except, it was sent out saying “Department of Pubic Works.” :D</p>
<p>^lolz!</p>
<p>Nrdsb4, my mom was a nurse anesthetist when I was very young, and later a teacher. She told me once a patient said he’d had nothing to eat, but on the table, vomited, aspirated, and died. She said that was one reason she left nursing.</p>
<p>OK, mine is not really a mistake but more on the embarrassing line of things…
I’m a school nurse. During the past week and a half, a young, adorable male teacher has asked for a blood pressure check every day. A few days ago, while checking his BP in the tomb-like silence of my office, I…passed gas. Ugh!
PS Drug errors scare the hell out of me…</p>
<p>My DH took our then very young son into the data center with him one weekend (don’t remember why). DS reached straight forward at eye level and pushed a button, the power button, taking down an important system at the very large company. Worse, it was a system that held personal information of the CEO.</p>
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<p>My dad was a field office supervisor for the state dept of chidren & famly services. He took early retirement the minute it was offered. Their constant fear is to have visited a home, decided that the child could stay at home, then later read of the child’s death or other horrific child abuse. It didn’t happen on his watch, but he was constantly stressed about it.</p>
<p>When I was a hearings officer for Special Education, EVERY case I was assigned, the court reporter would practically be in tears and say it was the saddest case she had ever heard. After 4 years of working part-time, I was relieved to switch to another job. It was heart-wrenching, hearing of the very limited options available to some of these kids. Often, it was trying to help have some “less bad” options, when the law provided for them.</p>
<p>H was an interim pastor at a church that was having a special Christmas concert by a soloist. It didn’t seem like it would ever end. All of a sudden the sound system stopped working so the concert was over. We realized our S, while fidgeting in the pew, had accidentally kicked the cord & unplugged the sound system. We didn’t tell anyone what happened. I think H may have told S “good job” on the way home.</p>
<p>^^
We had a priest who used to end his sermons with “Thank you for listening.” My friend is reported to have said out loud one day “Thank you for shutting up!” and knowing him I would believe it ;)</p>
<p>Worst thing I’ve done at work? Last year on my internship, I managed to disable two golf carts and turn off the “on call” cell phone on the same night. I don’t think any of them were really my fault, but I got the “blame” for it ;)</p>
<p>Lafalum and Gloworm, your stories reminded me of something that happened to a dear friend of mine (now retired) who used to be the English as a Second Language teacher at our middle school.</p>
<p>One day, one of her students came to her room with a note from his regular 8th grade class teacher asking her to help him with a concept he didn’t understand. This student was a very formal young man from a country in Asia who carefully asked the question, “Mrs. H___. What is an erection?”</p>
<p>Knowing that sex ed was a part of the curriculum, my friend swallowed hard and pondered how to communicate this to a young man who spoke very little English. She decided to use “sign language” so straightening her arms, she placed her left hand on her right wrist, and slowly flapped her right hand up and down. He looked at her in puzzlement for a few moments until a look of understanding came over his face. Turning bright red, he bowed, and backed hastily out of the room.</p>
<p>Later on in the day, the 7th grade teacher approached my friend and said, “How did you ever explain to him what an ELECTION is?”</p>
<p>My friend was absolutely horrified at her mistake, but felt that there was no way she could explain herself to this student, given his limited English. They never “spoke” of it again, but she said that this student, who moved back to his home country a few weeks later, never made eye contact with her again!</p>
<p>I worked in a small, family-owned pharmacy in college, and mistakenly gave a customer the wrong prescription. I realized my mistake within a couple of minutes, and took off down the sidewalk, yelling her name. Our clientele was mostly elderly and the customer wasn’t hard to catch, but I was really scared. Never made that mistake again.</p>
<p>Back in the late 60’s I was a clerk in a “dime-store” that sold pets. While I was cleaning out the bird cage one of the canary’s got loose and was frantically flying around the store. This was in the days of the ratted-up, lacquered bee-hive, and of course the bird flew into a woman’s do and got stuck. Between her screaming, the bird squawking and all of the high school employees laughing hysterically, it was quite a sight. The manager finally calmed the customer down enough the get the bird loose.</p>
<p>Yes- medication errors loom large. Anesthesiologists are constantly giving meds via an IV or airway- you really learn how long seconds are when correcting/titrating them. You learn not to dwell on imperfections- like an airplane it is the end result that counts- a safe landing/wakeup despite any turbulence along the way.</p>
<p>I probably will never forget the time when I was a patient undergoing an elective diagnostic procedure and heard the last words before I was sedated of the anesthesiologist yelling at the head of the medical center that EVERYTHING on my/his tray had a preservative I was allergic to and did he want to come & deal with my anaphylactic shock. I tried to say, I can get up & come back another time but didn’t have the opportunity. It was not a good way to go under. (Fortunately, there were no ill effects but really not a pleasant experience.)</p>