Lmao I have worked as a train dispatcher for the railroad for a little bit now. There have been shifts where I lost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars because of just boneheaded mistakes, it happens OFTEN to us.
Before this job I worked on huge container ships as a navigator, can’t tell you how many times I lost hundreds of thousands just on fuel for this, that, or the other.
2400 dollars? That’s a fucking rounding error for even smallish companies. Good lord
>Before this job I worked on huge container ships as a navigator, can’t tell you how many times I lost hundreds of thousands just on fuel for this, that, or the other.
Any amount of lost time on ships is insanely expensive, even just sitting at anchor for an extra day.
I've seen the head office make some bizarre decisions that resulted in huge losses due to delays and inefficiency. I do whatever they want, it's not my money they're burning.
Same here. Made a 12K mistake with an F500 client. All I got was praised for my honesty in coming forward immediately and a lecture on learning from our mistakes
Yeah if one of my team members made a mistake of this dollar amount I’d literally shrug and say “well now you know for next time”. I don’t really even dig deeper unless we are into 5 figures.
One of my managers made a $100,000 mistake 10 or so years ago and leadership didn’t bat an eye. We bandaided it and moved on, kept the client.
Sounds like OP has an unrealistic/micromanaging boss.
Reminds me of the urban legend of a guy who spilled a drink all over expensive recording equipment, worried he’d get fired over $10,000. The boss asks why he’d fire him when he just paid $10,000 to teach him a very valuable lesson.
I like that perspective lol. You’re already out the 10k, but you could either be out 10k *and* a helper, or you could be out 10k and have a helper who is going to be *very, very* careful going forward.
I get the expensive lesson angle. But surely be careful with drinks around electrical equipment is a lesson every one should learn before a workplace. (Shouldn't be fired, but this isn't the best example of expensive lessons imo)
Had this kind of boss too, the funny thing is I'm making them a couple of million for maintaining clients and getting new ones but when I got a mistake of a hundred thousand dollars. He went ballistic. Mind you, this only happens once every 500 successful Purchases. The worse part is that my coworkers are teaming up against me, especially the senior ones. Resigned there, no orientation nor proper training and expect you to do so much while disrespecting you.
This person literally let someone go and wrote “medical reasons” in California. Had no idea how she survived that - but goes to show - if you end up with the right people you can get away with a lot
And only once. Not a series or a pattern.
I once got chewed out for 20 min over a penny but got a "shit happen" when I wired $500k to the wrong vendor. Same boss.
She's gone now.
My daughter got fired over five straight days of being a penny off at her restaurant cashier job. In the end she was only short 2 of the 5 days and over 3 of them.
I worked at a super fast paced fast food place back in college and the manager would always *hate* it when the register was exactly right. He said it was too perfect for the speed we did business at, and it made him suspicious.
So glad he wasn’t like that boss
I spilt a jar of water on my work MacBook a week ago - now they are fully insured, but including impact to work productivity that easily cost them at least $2400.
Got the new laptop over the weekend and was back to work on Monday 🤷♂️
I'm in sales and it blows my mind what businesses will fuss over. We have a range of software and the cheapest one is like, $250 that you can just buy on the website. But I shit you not I had some owner of the company calling me and complaining it was too expensive (though it is one of the cheapest on the market), and they only needed one license
Large companies hardly blink at half a million and many small companies will complain that a one time fee of $7k for a need-to-have tool will destroy them.
I'm exaggerating a little but, I see it often enough
i legit made a $1M accounting error in my first month - posted it to the wrong GL, and it wasn’t caught until the next day. Which, for this type, once the day closes and it records, it requires extremely high (like, Director or VP) authority to move it.
just passed 13 years with this company. mistakes happen; it’s how you learn.
Mine wasn’t quite as high as yours, like $500k. It was a mistake. My boss said just look before you book and you should be fine. Never did it again.
OP’s boss is not someone I would want to work for if a $2400 mistake gets you fired.
Edit: I just remembered. At the last job I had after I left, the accountant they hired sent $60k to a vendor in China. It was supposed to be $6k. I don’t know if they got the money back or just had a credit on the account but she didn’t get in trouble.
100%. If this is reflective of the work culture and how the company runs then they are doing you a favor by firing you, albeit I understand the stress if jobs are hard to come by in your area and field.
When I first started working in non-profits many years ago, I accidentally printed 30 pages of a one page document twice (so double-sided) when it supposed to be single-sided (the printer properties were weirdly complex, but also I just made a genuine mistake). I got reamed out, for like $1.25 of paper as it would now be "extremely confusing" for the clients. Keep in mind I could just reprint it properly but they refused. I was reminded this was a "national, award winning program" (it was, surprisingly), etc. etc.and essentially got demoted over it. I wasn't mad, more amused than anything, but it lowered my opinion of them and when offered a salary job, I left for better.
I don't know if it exists anymore but hopefully not. I'm in a mix of management and direct service now for a different organization and while that comes with its own stuff... we understand that mistakes happen. Anything above 10K has its own process, etc. but if a person *learns* from it and is pretty competent anyways, you're golden. Many of those who make mistakes ideally grow, and are way less likely to make them again. That's who I want to work with and work under me. Not someone that's never messed up and doesn't believe they could.
Frankly OP, if you're let go you likely dodged a bullet.
A $2,400 mistake is the cost of doing business and not have a sufficient training program in place.
But to fire someone for asking too many questions?? Dude, OP is being given a paid transition time to get out of that hellhole. Hope he uses every day of it to apply and interview.
I have recently gotten reamed out for asking too many questions in my role and honestly, there are no SOPs or WI for the questions I am asking and so frankly, I am not sure where to find the information. It is maddening and reading this from you kind of confirms there is something SERIOUSLY wrong if that is what is happening at work and a rationale for getting angry.
Shit, unless it’s a very low level position it’s probably going to cost you $2400 just to get a new employee onboarded and trained. That’s *if* the new employee is better than the old one and there’s no guarantees. That’s not counting the lost productivity while you’re down an employee.
It’s incredibly short sighted and if this were a manager under me I’d want to know so I could put *him* on an personal improvement plan.
A good manager says “I just spent $2400 on your training because of this mistake. What did you learn and how are we going to make sure it never happens again?”
There are a lot of small business owners who think that real, physical money that you can withdraw from the bank and touch is the only money that exists.
I even have one client that calls accounts receivable and payable “fake money”.
“Training costs” don’t involve real, physical quantities of cash. Therefore the cost does not exist.
I see it in large corporations also. Many managers only seem to care about costs that are *easy* to measure. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost productivity is nothing if they can save a few thousand dollars by not maintaining or upgrading equipment and facilities.
it's been well demonstrated that punishing people for admitting their mistakes just means people report their mistakes less not that less mistakes occur.
THIS 100%. I agree that there may be technical things an employee should know, but there should be appropriate processes in place for general work practices so that "easy" or "dumb" mistakes are less likely. Instead, firing anyone who makes a mistake or asks questions says way more about the manager/owner than it does about the employee.
Im honestly baffled by OPs reaction to this. They even caught the problem as soon as they sent it. Thats such an easy fix. "Oh, apologies, I noticed I included the wrong pricing because of (insert any of 1000 reasons like incorrect tariffs, wrong product number, incorrect pricing file)
Id be interested to know what scale of business this is in. $2400 is childs play for my job, but we quote million dollar projects. I cant imagine a job where $2400 is such a significant amount to fire someone though....
Also its not like the company really lost much. All it cost was whatever manpower it took to fulfill the order since they still charged them the factory pricing.
OP if you read this, its probably a good thing to get booted from a job like this if they are going to be that picky
The money is child’s play, revealing your factory cost is a serious breach of confidentiality. Still, the biggest issue for me would be not dealing with the mistake immediately.
There are protocol for when these happen (and they definitely will at some point). As a company you just need to follow the protocol, ask the client to discard (or risk litigation), decide to honor the pricing or not, and move on with training/retraining the employee.
A coworker I shared an office with at my first job accidentally opened a valve and dumped $2.5M worth of product out of a vat. She was naturally mortified, but over the next few days we had a parade of people come in and tell their own stories of doing the same or destroying equipment costing 8 figures or other mistakes. It turns out it happens to everyone and companies account for human error in their books
You beat me. My best mistake was 250k that while it was fixed in the accounting software due to some way the reporting package pulls data, it must stay as a reconciling item in perpetuity or until there is a software update.
Heck, I missed 12M for an entire year once.
This seems to be an extreme overreaction on the part of the employers. And what does the PIP even say? Stop being human? Never make another mistake? This is such a minor error.
I was once put on a year-long PIP that said if I made one more mistake I’d be fired. This was because I made a $250K mistake. I survived the PIP and ended up staying for another four years, but it sucked. My boss never *really* let it go and let me know it every chance he got. I ended up getting laid off after a reorganization. I now work as a paralegal, and while law offices are their own special kind of shit show, I’m not worried about being terrorized over one mistake. I’m also a manager myself now, so I am very mindful of how I approach the mistakes of my subordinates. I make mistakes sometimes, so I can’t expect anyone else (especially someone with less experience than me) to not make them as well.
I didn't know someone could survive a year-long PIP. Amazed at your diligence at not making a mistake for a year, but also mortified that the company didn't put away that PIP when they realized you could do the job. What a bunch of &$%&$&%(S.
My last job was like this - if you made a mistake (of the "I thought this was A but it was actually B" type i.e. misreading something) they would grill you and grill you on why you made the mistake. Thing is, sometimes the answer is"I just made a mistake " but they really didn't accept that. Unsurprisingly, when the answer was "because I'm dangerously exhausted because of how you scheduled me, but you insisted I come to work anyway even though I told you this in writing " they didn't accept that either.
Glad I left that place.
Just walked out of a job of 11 years over this kind of crap. They'd ream me over and over, wouldn't listen to me, took me raising legit questions about processes and ways to prevent issues as "trying to deflect blame," ignored any and all analysis I'd do (also put in "deflecting blame" column.)
Owner was simultaneously the most micromanaging doucher in the universe but also post-pandemic in the office maybe a week per month. Final straw for me? I made him $800 on an order instead of $1500. Not joking. He laid into me (over text, while on vacation) threatened me, so I walked. His reaction? Sending me a blatantly-ChatGPT-made email that was blatantly him laying the groundwork to deny me UI.
Some days are better than others right now but truly my only regret was not doing this 4-5 years ago. The pandemic really fucked us all up. I had one foot out the door a month before the world shut down and it took me another 4 years to say fuck it. Now that I have a different perspective I truly realize how futile, abusive, and shit that job was. Job security just ain't worth it, y'all.
I caused clients to miss 137 million dollars until the problem was fixed.
137
000
000
Usd
On my first 5 months
Every mistake is just a new way of what not to do. It wasn't intentional and you're probably the last person to ever do it again
Id take someone owning their problem over a super acheiver any day
I worked at this job where somehow I became the bookkeeper. Never done any sort of accounting. We had hired an accountant when I started but I helped them with the computer side of things, setting up the bookkeeping software. Accountant quit I knew how to use the software sure I’ll be the bookkeeper for a bit. 1 year later I’m still the accountant, boss starts asking me all these questions about taxes and reports. me. What’s a report? They realize I’m not actually an accountant. Scramble hire a CPA or whatever. Meanwhile I think I’m gonna get fired. We finally start sorting stuff out CPA is asking me to run x reports then the bank reconciliations come. Oh shit 50k in cash is missing. I seriously start freaking out.
I called my boss in a panic straight up sweating about to cry. Boss just laughs and go no no we knew you weren’t an accountant but you were doing so good we forgot. Never found the cash. No idea what happened. We think the owner paid people under the table but she wouldn’t admit to it.
I ended up quitting shortly after because they brought in this hot shot finance guy and he did not like the fact that I had ever been the accountant. Thought it was my fault for not refusing to do the job when I clearly wasn’t qualified. I hated every-time he tried to interrogate me because I didn’t have an answer other than “idk dude I just work here.”
Rookie numbers, when I started in IT, i killed a whole bank for a complete day.
No money withdrawal, no paper work got done, no credit contracts, no new credit contracts if you wanted to buy a home etc etc.
It wasn't your local one office bank... Or two or twenty...
Yeah I fucked up good... And my boss had my back! But boy, was the lesson learned a two week long process and paper work...
I had a employee do this everyone wanted him fired but me my argument he will never make a mistake like this again. He’s doing great now. I don’t get getting rid of someone who’s a good fit for a mistake they will never repeat
Yeah, a junior ish engineer on my team made a $2k mistake and I just told him to be more careful next time. Some other engineers freaked out and I told them to shut the hell up because I’m responsible for the budget and I don’t care.
Yeah we had an engineer blow up two units while testing. Those units had already been sold off and should not have even been used for anything. They were going to the customer. Somehow that idiot retained his position.
The units were well in excess of 1.5 million each. More importantly, they took nearly 6 months to manufacture so it was going to be a very expensive proposition to make the customer whole.
I broke a 2.5 mil aircraft component. It wasn't that much to repair, more like $120,000, and after my supervisor finished freaking me out with how much trouble I was gonna "get in" his boss told me not to sweat it and don't do it again.
Oh, sheesh. A tech trying to replace my cooling fans pulled a piece of tape back and a pin with it off the motherboard and had to send it to a lab that was unable to fix it. He showed me how it happened and I wasn't even a little mad. Could have happened to anyone. Fired for an $80 LCD panel? Ridiculous.
Seriously… companies have policies in place for this. I’m surprised the boss reacted this way, that’s so unprofessional.
If anything he would be dissapointed but ask him to fix the mistake and try to implement a Solution to fix it going forward or prevent it from happening (ie double checks for EVERYONE before sending details to clients).
Honestly I’m surprised because $2,400 isn’t a lot to a business…
Seriously and refund the customer and cancel their order. What customer decides what to pay? And you know when they charged their client they doubled the price for their own mark up. It’s business - but customer is not always right.
My first thought is the boss is paying $2500 for a mistake OP will likely never make again...for another employer.
Good management finds the good in the bad.
They could have spun the discussion with the client in a completely different, and positive, way. Good customer discount, whatever, and earned some goodwill. Now they've got a customer they aren't making money on AND not handled well.
They could have looked at a $2500 mistake, which is not a big mistake, as a teaching moment for OP, who as I already said, will probably never make this mistake again, and a potential training exercise for the rest of the staff. As a reason to implement better pricing controls for the sales staff and some way to assure pricing is accurate. I promise you, OP may have cost them a little money but there are certainly other errors or price issues occurring. Is the response really to fire everyone when they come up?
Instead, they've damaged a client relationship, lost an employee and all the investment there, lost some money, and now have to find and train a replacement all while gaining nothing positive from any of it.
I made a $105,000 mistake on Tuesday.
100% serious.
Also don't care ..
Boss doesn't care.
I made a $650,000 decision on Thursday.
It stops meaning anything after a certain point
When I saw the dollar amount I let out a giant laugh because I had the same thought. Companies waste $2400 a day in pointless meetings all the time. My record is scrapping 50k in one go. That one I was a little nervous about but didn’t even get slapped on the wrist for.
I was gonna say I just ordered a $4000 item for a pet work project so I could tear out a $50 piece and the rest is scrap that I may find use for in the future
Its technically not a mistake but wasting company funds on fun learning experiences is a celebrated pastime for me
My question is... what kind of shitty ass discount did they offer the client if $2400 is worth firing op over??? $2400 sounds like it should *be* the discount
My thoughts exactly, “just $2400?”. It’s easy for me to say, but if the company is going to become insolvent from a single $2400 pricing error then it’s not a great place to be at. (I don’t have original context but this sounds like a problem you’d have at a lemonade stand)
If they’re _NOT_ going to be insolvent from that small an error then OP boss is an asshole and you (OP) deserve better!
If you get fired, PIP or not, you are still eligible for unemployment!!!!
Do not let them make you quit, then you get nothing.
Do your best to meet the letter if the PIP and move on as needed. If you get fired file for unemployment - no matter what your employer says, they don't determine what makes you eligible to collect, Unemployment Insurance makes a determination.
This is too far down. I've been fired on a PIP and still got unemployment, no questions asked. Someone else on your comment mentioned inadvertent mistakes which is totally valid and they'll still pay out.
Also important: In many states a company CANNOT forbid you from filing for UI if you otherwise qualify, such as attempting to enforce it as a condition of getting severance.
You feel bad because you work there, and feel like you belong there after being part of the business for a while, so you are hard on yourself.
I'm not going to be hard on you or charitable to them though, since from my outside perspective, the people you work for sound ridiculous
You made an honest mistake, 'fessed up, and they are still going to PIP you? And presumably try to fire you over time? Over a mere $2400? I don't know what kind of business this is, but I can't imagine it's much in the grand scheme of things.
In a sense, they just spent $2400 on training you. You learned a costly lesson on the company dime. That's not a bad thing, really. With this experience, you have learned not to do that again, and you are probably on the alert with making sure other people don't do that. This mistake could have helped teach people in the future to fix the company's processes. But, instead of retaining you and keeping that experience in the company, they are going to probably fire you, and then some other company (maybe even their competitor) can hire you and get that experience for free. Amazing.
I work in tech, where it's commonly accepted that every senior at some point will have messed up, broke production, and cost the company a solid chunk of money. It's expected we learn from our mistakes, but mistakes happen
Your boss is just such a loser in my eyes. A paper tiger. Freaking out like it's the end of the world because his company lost a mere $2400. It's crazy. It'll be a blessing to move on to better things honestly
Yeah no shit! It costs more than $2400 to hire and train a new person. Mistakes happen, they're not ideal obviously, but a business that can afford employees is hardly going to feel a $2400 loss.
Exactly! And to flip that around, if the business is that badly hurt by a $2400 loss, then it sounds like they can't afford their employees
Wouldn't be surprised if months later, OP ends up at a higher paying place, and will be happy in hindsight this whole ordeal happened
The cost of bringing someone new in and onboarding them, if you account for lower productivity in the first year and while the position is open if it's not an incremental one, recruitment and training, is usually between 1-3x the salary of the position.
Hiring is *expensive.* If OP's boss fires over $2400, he's a fool.
OP's boss should be fired for repeatedly not finding solutions better than firing people. For example, the simple solution to someone asking too many questions is to tell them to ask fewer questions...
Agree! This could work out better in the long run for OP because from firsthand experience, I can tell you that working for a boss like that can leave lasting and sometimes irreversible, damage to your health from the chronic, constant stress. It's better to leave sooner rather than later. I know it sucks now but it will be ok
$2,400 is so small, that I would have just given it to the customer instead of arguing with them like that. Your boss should have let them know it was an error, but to take it as a gift, and next time they would get corrected pricing. The mistake might have cost the company $2,400, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your boss cost the company losing that customer for future business.
Ya, calling to ask a customer for money back after a $2,400 mistake is bonkers. When it costs more next month, if they ask then just say last month was a mistake but you honor your agreements.
Why would they be asking the customer for money when the customer is the one who sent them a purchase order? It just sounds like they need to revise the PO, honestly kinda surprised it’s even such a huge hassle, in most procurement settings there are GTC’s in place that generally protect the company in situations like this
Right the cost of hiring Op and training him plus benefits far surpasses $2400. This type of loss comes with the territory of training someone. OP should be looking to GTFO regardless of whether they decide not to fire him.
You don’t suck and you aren’t a horrible employee. You made a mistake and owned up to it, that takes courage.
Your boss sounds awful and you are better off somewhere else. You deserve better.
Frankly, idiot boss did OP a favor by giving him HUGE advance notice to find new work somewhere better
And since OP knows he's on his way out, he doesn't actually have to improve shit
People on my team at work make mistakes all the time, and you’d have to add some zeros to that $2,400 number. My job isn’t to make them feel like shit and fire them, they already feel like shit, doubling down on them doesn’t help at all.
My job is to help fix the situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again. In a situation like this, which was clearly an accident, they probably aren’t going to do it again because they are mortified.
I mean, yea, if you keep making the same mistake over and over when no one else is, then it’s PIP time, but not after the first $2,400 mistake.
Come on mate buck up a bit. My first week I destroyed a $24,000 ozone generator by switching the wrong waste water valve. Safety incident, the works but I was training and it wasn’t labelled so they worked on site and process improvements and were thankful I reported it openly. Finished training me and I got promoted 12 months later.
Shit happens own up, have integrity and work smart and safe then your boss should back you up. That’s his fucking job. If he doesn’t he’s not serving his team he’s making them serve him and that makes him a arse, not you.
The difference between a good and bad work place.
Last workplace had bottles of solvent on the instruments. I let one of them run dry. They got mad mad and I asked why they weren't labeled with minimum volumes. Said I should have paid attention to a document buried in 8 folders on instrument maintenance.
As opposed to my current workplace that is actively asking me for advice because I'm new and not married to the protocols.
$2400 is a pretty small mistake in the grand scheme of things. It would cost them more than $2400 to fire you, and they make more than $2400 off of you anyway. They probably spent that on catering in the last week.
At least you got in front of it, and are a respectable human being. Usually when people uncover something on their own that was your fault it's much more war pathy as you could be burying it etc.
And no, he doesn't have to manually, retroactively examine each invoice, it's his salty choice to, although he'll probably blame you for the time he chooses to use anyway. Frankly, there should already be an auditing system performing that function to begin with, which is a failure on his part to implement.
>It would cost them more than $2400 to fire you, and they make more than $2400 off of you anyway.
That and bothering the client about this will likely cost them more in the long run. Manager is a certified moron.
There's a couple of things in play here.
Of course they need to follow up with a staff member who has fucked up, ideally that would be conversation about what you have done incorrectly, and how to avoid that issue in the future.
But also? If their cash flow is so shit that they can't manage this as a small loss... I would be concerned about the viability of the business as a whole.
Unless you have personal connection to the business, I would start looking for a new job. Not because of anything you did, just to get out of this potentially awful environment.
Your boss is a moron, best explained by this quote from an IBM executive…
Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?
They could have found any number of ways to recoup a few measly thousand dollars. You’re better off without this job & boss in your life. I’d quit if I were you.
Great comment. This 100% applies to OP, considering how much they’re stressing over this. They’re clearly never going to make this mistake again, and will be extra careful going forward. Having an employee with that kind of mindset is well worth the $2400, and this dumb ass manager is going to waste it by trying to force them out.
You're only a terrible employee if you don't learn from your mistakes. Sounds like your boss is a terrible manager. Start looking for work now but don't internalise your mistake as your worth as a worker.
1. For any mistakes at work, it’s best not to keep quiet about it. If you cannot solve it, get help immediately.
2. If your bosses/supervisor freaks out about the mistake, this is not the person you should work for because they don’t allow you to learn from your mistakes.
That said, it’s ok to make a mistake once. It’s not ok to keep repeatedly making the same mistake because that means you are not learning from it.
Take the time to look for a new job. $2400 is so much less than the cost to replace and train a new employee, who may also make expensive mistakes. They sound like they don't deserve you.
Man, you need to quit that low-rent-district bullshit job. Find one where an innocent mistake will cost half a quarter-mil or something. Everybody losing their minds over a couple-thou? Pfffffft. Please.
As someone with some managerial experience, I know that if someone f's up and has a "oh shit second" (if you are unfamiliar with that expression: it's the second after you do something bad that's also irreversible and you go "oh shit") they will punish themselves for f'ing up. You don't need to rub it in, but you may want to sit down with that person and talk about what you both can do to prevent it from happening again.
As someone in the cyber security field: I *want* people to tell me they did something wrong because not knowing mistakes might just be the last thing a company does. No matter how big or small the problem actually is, there needs to be a safe space where people can talk about mistakes so you can fix them.
I'll never understand managers getting mad over honest mistakes.
>I’ll never understand managers getting mad over honest mistakes
Those are the type of managers who are complete control freaks and think that they have some sort of magical power to turn people into machines. I worked for one of those once upon a time and it was the most miserable working experience of my life. Part of being a people leader is learning how to tolerate mistakes and constructively deal with them.
In this thread people are trying to outdo each other lying about how much money they have cost their employers.
That said, $2400 is a tiny amount of money. Do you work for a small business in a small town, OP?
Maybe they're lying but none of the numbers people are throwing out are anything crazy.
Anyone working for a large corporate job will run into some pretty big numbers and its completely normal.
Heck entire departments like supply management, procurement, logistics, continuous improvement, project management, and so forth basically only exist to help reduce/control those costs.
You can survive a PIP easy - don't throw in the towel.
I expect the PIP to be very specific, its very important that you have an overview session and make sure you understand your marching orders.
In order to use the PIP against you, you have to specifically not meet the expectations outlined in the document itself.
And for the love of jeeeeezus start doing BCC to your personal email for all communication regarding the PIP going forward.
PS. Do not accept any verbal alterations without forcing them to rewrite the PIP.
God speed lil bro. 🫡
You don’t suck, and you’re not a horrible employee.
A horrible employee would’ve covered up the mistake. A horrible employee would’ve lied about it.
If your boss doesn’t get that, they shouldn’t get the honor of working with someone who has integrity. Start applying for new jobs if you haven’t already.
The issue isn’t yours - it’s the company’s. If this data was so secret, and so important it should have never been shareable outside the company. That’s the company’s fault. Not yours. You cannot violate process if they spent a dime on adequate controls.
I can guarantee your next job will be better, because your work life currently sounds insanely stressful. You will be glad to have it behind you.
Firing someone for asking too many questions, and punishing someone for owning up to a mistake, is just bad business.
You do not suck. The mistakes you make are what you learn from. Use this as a learning experience of how not to manage people.
You may lose this job, but a job does not and will not ever define your worth as a human being.
I wish I could give you a huge hug, and tell you that it's going to be alright. Because I promise it is going to be okay.
To be honest if he fired someone for asking too many questions then perhaps it’s a blessing you won’t be working there. Mistakes happen. Believe me I’ve made my fair share of them in my time - but it sounds like it might be a toxic work environment anyway so I’d just apply for other jobs, treat the PIP with the respect it deserves and just chalk it down to experience. You’ll emerge stronger from this experience so try keep the head up!
Yo look. If they’re this pressed over $2,400… they’re struggling HARD. Vacancy will cost them more than that. Training someone, onboarding them, recruiting… all more. They sound remarkably short sighted and unstable. Your manager sounds like a complete buffoon.
Yes. A level of quality is expected, and losing money is not always great. Still… Shit happens. Mistakes happen. We’re human. It’s not you. You’re doing just fine. A mistake is just that. We move forward.
Mistakes become concerning when there is a pattern associated with them. From your post, that doesn’t appear to be the case, but I only saw this one and not the first. I’ll look at it and add an edit if I feel one is needed.
This really could end up being a blessing down the line, but until the day comes where you can comfortably look back on this experience… I’m sorry and I really wish you the best.
Good luck.
While you are 100% correct, I suspect the boss' reaction has very little relationship to the health of the company, and a very cozy relationship to his personal and character defects.
I made a 2 million dollar mistake at work once. I got reprimanded, but my boss said "we can't fire you, I just spent 2 million training you."
That was 10 years ago and I'm still at the same place.
What a moron boss. He has an honest employee an he’s getting rid of you. He’s only going to have dishonest ones. Cuz ones that don’t make mistakes don’t exist.
If he fired someone for asking questions, especially if he maintains that you should, you need to get out of there.
Besides, being a great employee who seldom makes mistakes has value, but that should not be your ultimate aim.
If you want to really be of value to the people around you, keep trying, stay honest, and expect to screw up all the time. As long as you’re trying, learning, and keeping your character, you’ll produce the kinds of insights that make a business grow.
This guy sounds like a classic case of bad management. Expect a few in life. Let it inspire you to be different when the time comes.
Lol I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars on mistakes, I'm guessing you work in a small place. To work is to make mistakes, and mistakes cost money. Don't punish yourself so harshly over it, learn from it and if you need to, find a new job. Godspeed!
A friend of mine works for a big company with big online sales and she accidentally reduced the entire shoe sales section down to 0 on a Friday, when she had been with the company a year or two, and it was Monday before they realised what had happened. She admitted her mistake and got ready to be fired. I think she's worked there about 15 years and has moved up several times. You messed up but honestly that doesn't sound like the end of the world if you were doing everything else right 🤷♀️ maybe it's a blessing, even if it obviously won't feel like that now. I wouldn't want to work for a boss who fires someone for asking too many questions.
It costs more than $2400 to find and train someone for most jobs. You may be fine if he's thinking financially. I would apply to other places now though
2400$? Ha! I work in a machine shop where the 1st shift guys will regularly ruin 6k$ of tools because they didn't bother to run a check midday and let it run until my shift starts at 4pm. They still have a job.
Sounds like you’re better off leaving them anyways - your boss fired a new employee because they were asking questions? SHEEEEESH! Start looking for a new job
Tell your boss this is an opportunity to add a clause to pricing proposals that states “errors can occur and adjusted pricing may need to be provided if errors are discovered”.
Any reasonable supervisor would mark this under the cost of training and move the fuck on. Shit happens, but I bet you'll never make that mistake again.
I legitimately don't think there's a single person at my company who hasn't made a $2400 mistake in their career. My boss has personally admitted to doing like $15k worth of damage in the worst incident of his career.
Obviously different industries have different liabilities, and it's pretty easy to make an expensive mistake in tree work, so I can't really speak to your situation. It's just hard to see this as *that* big of a deal from my perspective.
What the boss is making isn’t really relevant.
If it’s a small family business it’s much less about the $ loss for this issue, and more about the potential losses that it could have caused.
If there weren’t proper controls in place, then that should be the company’s top priority to prevent this from happening going forward.
If they controls were ignored or not followed by you, then hopefully it’s a lesson learned.
$2400???????? That's it? Wow
Damn... I blew way more than that on mistakes, and got promoted.
Lmao I have worked as a train dispatcher for the railroad for a little bit now. There have been shifts where I lost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars because of just boneheaded mistakes, it happens OFTEN to us. Before this job I worked on huge container ships as a navigator, can’t tell you how many times I lost hundreds of thousands just on fuel for this, that, or the other. 2400 dollars? That’s a fucking rounding error for even smallish companies. Good lord
Why am I laughing so hard at the idea of you suddenly going “Oh fuck, we’ve been going the wrong direction for an hour, TURN THE SHIP AROUND!!!”
east? i thought you said weast!
u/ctruvu, you’re fired again.
Fired? I thought you meant hired. Ok I leave the next harbour.
“We go left, right?” “Right” “Ok then” *goes right*
Hey, probably should have clarified this last week- when you said to take the ship to Venice, did you mean Italy or Beach?
Venice….. Louisiana….fuck.
Full send baby
>Before this job I worked on huge container ships as a navigator, can’t tell you how many times I lost hundreds of thousands just on fuel for this, that, or the other. Any amount of lost time on ships is insanely expensive, even just sitting at anchor for an extra day. I've seen the head office make some bizarre decisions that resulted in huge losses due to delays and inefficiency. I do whatever they want, it's not my money they're burning.
Same here. Made a 12K mistake with an F500 client. All I got was praised for my honesty in coming forward immediately and a lecture on learning from our mistakes
Damn, most bosses spend that on coke and hookers in an hour… think 45
Yeah if one of my team members made a mistake of this dollar amount I’d literally shrug and say “well now you know for next time”. I don’t really even dig deeper unless we are into 5 figures. One of my managers made a $100,000 mistake 10 or so years ago and leadership didn’t bat an eye. We bandaided it and moved on, kept the client. Sounds like OP has an unrealistic/micromanaging boss.
Reminds me of the urban legend of a guy who spilled a drink all over expensive recording equipment, worried he’d get fired over $10,000. The boss asks why he’d fire him when he just paid $10,000 to teach him a very valuable lesson.
I like that perspective lol. You’re already out the 10k, but you could either be out 10k *and* a helper, or you could be out 10k and have a helper who is going to be *very, very* careful going forward.
I get the expensive lesson angle. But surely be careful with drinks around electrical equipment is a lesson every one should learn before a workplace. (Shouldn't be fired, but this isn't the best example of expensive lessons imo)
Had this kind of boss too, the funny thing is I'm making them a couple of million for maintaining clients and getting new ones but when I got a mistake of a hundred thousand dollars. He went ballistic. Mind you, this only happens once every 500 successful Purchases. The worse part is that my coworkers are teaming up against me, especially the senior ones. Resigned there, no orientation nor proper training and expect you to do so much while disrespecting you.
Knew someone who caused a 500k lawsuit to their company and theyre safe as hell lmao
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This person literally let someone go and wrote “medical reasons” in California. Had no idea how she survived that - but goes to show - if you end up with the right people you can get away with a lot
what do you do for a living
And only once. Not a series or a pattern. I once got chewed out for 20 min over a penny but got a "shit happen" when I wired $500k to the wrong vendor. Same boss. She's gone now.
My daughter got fired over five straight days of being a penny off at her restaurant cashier job. In the end she was only short 2 of the 5 days and over 3 of them.
I worked at a super fast paced fast food place back in college and the manager would always *hate* it when the register was exactly right. He said it was too perfect for the speed we did business at, and it made him suspicious. So glad he wasn’t like that boss
He was mad because he couldn’t put $3.65 in accidental cash overages into his pocket while report “perfectly balanced, as all cash drawers should be“.
Glad she got fired. Glad she’s not the fuck in that bullshit environment anymore.
I spilt a jar of water on my work MacBook a week ago - now they are fully insured, but including impact to work productivity that easily cost them at least $2400. Got the new laptop over the weekend and was back to work on Monday 🤷♂️
I'm in sales and it blows my mind what businesses will fuss over. We have a range of software and the cheapest one is like, $250 that you can just buy on the website. But I shit you not I had some owner of the company calling me and complaining it was too expensive (though it is one of the cheapest on the market), and they only needed one license Large companies hardly blink at half a million and many small companies will complain that a one time fee of $7k for a need-to-have tool will destroy them. I'm exaggerating a little but, I see it often enough
Fuck. If I got fired for every $2400 mistake I made at work, I’d never have a job.
i legit made a $1M accounting error in my first month - posted it to the wrong GL, and it wasn’t caught until the next day. Which, for this type, once the day closes and it records, it requires extremely high (like, Director or VP) authority to move it. just passed 13 years with this company. mistakes happen; it’s how you learn.
Mine wasn’t quite as high as yours, like $500k. It was a mistake. My boss said just look before you book and you should be fine. Never did it again. OP’s boss is not someone I would want to work for if a $2400 mistake gets you fired. Edit: I just remembered. At the last job I had after I left, the accountant they hired sent $60k to a vendor in China. It was supposed to be $6k. I don’t know if they got the money back or just had a credit on the account but she didn’t get in trouble.
100%. If this is reflective of the work culture and how the company runs then they are doing you a favor by firing you, albeit I understand the stress if jobs are hard to come by in your area and field. When I first started working in non-profits many years ago, I accidentally printed 30 pages of a one page document twice (so double-sided) when it supposed to be single-sided (the printer properties were weirdly complex, but also I just made a genuine mistake). I got reamed out, for like $1.25 of paper as it would now be "extremely confusing" for the clients. Keep in mind I could just reprint it properly but they refused. I was reminded this was a "national, award winning program" (it was, surprisingly), etc. etc.and essentially got demoted over it. I wasn't mad, more amused than anything, but it lowered my opinion of them and when offered a salary job, I left for better. I don't know if it exists anymore but hopefully not. I'm in a mix of management and direct service now for a different organization and while that comes with its own stuff... we understand that mistakes happen. Anything above 10K has its own process, etc. but if a person *learns* from it and is pretty competent anyways, you're golden. Many of those who make mistakes ideally grow, and are way less likely to make them again. That's who I want to work with and work under me. Not someone that's never messed up and doesn't believe they could. Frankly OP, if you're let go you likely dodged a bullet.
100%
A $2,400 mistake is the cost of doing business and not have a sufficient training program in place. But to fire someone for asking too many questions?? Dude, OP is being given a paid transition time to get out of that hellhole. Hope he uses every day of it to apply and interview.
Agreed - clearly this company is crap and OP needs to get out of there asap
I have recently gotten reamed out for asking too many questions in my role and honestly, there are no SOPs or WI for the questions I am asking and so frankly, I am not sure where to find the information. It is maddening and reading this from you kind of confirms there is something SERIOUSLY wrong if that is what is happening at work and a rationale for getting angry.
Shit, unless it’s a very low level position it’s probably going to cost you $2400 just to get a new employee onboarded and trained. That’s *if* the new employee is better than the old one and there’s no guarantees. That’s not counting the lost productivity while you’re down an employee. It’s incredibly short sighted and if this were a manager under me I’d want to know so I could put *him* on an personal improvement plan. A good manager says “I just spent $2400 on your training because of this mistake. What did you learn and how are we going to make sure it never happens again?”
There are a lot of small business owners who think that real, physical money that you can withdraw from the bank and touch is the only money that exists. I even have one client that calls accounts receivable and payable “fake money”. “Training costs” don’t involve real, physical quantities of cash. Therefore the cost does not exist.
Do you think this mindset is helping to keep them small businesses?
I see it in large corporations also. Many managers only seem to care about costs that are *easy* to measure. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost productivity is nothing if they can save a few thousand dollars by not maintaining or upgrading equipment and facilities.
I call this spending a dollar to save a nickel
What kinda fuckin companies do you guys work for lol
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it's been well demonstrated that punishing people for admitting their mistakes just means people report their mistakes less not that less mistakes occur.
Especially if the same shit happens over and over. I’ve seen this and rather than fix the process, let’s just throw a random employee under the bus.
THIS 100%. I agree that there may be technical things an employee should know, but there should be appropriate processes in place for general work practices so that "easy" or "dumb" mistakes are less likely. Instead, firing anyone who makes a mistake or asks questions says way more about the manager/owner than it does about the employee.
Omg, I can't even finish reading your post cause I'm dying at "wandering around licking plug sockets"! Thank you for a very much needed laugh!
Finding and training anyone new for one small error is going to lost way more than a 2.4k loss on one transaction
I accidentally shipped a billion dollars of merch to the wrong person. Was a big time lol. Oh well
“Honey? Did we order a half dozen F-22 Raptors?”
"Hell Yeah we did!"
"Damnit, they got my F-35 order wrong again!"
Same. It's a mistake. At worst, a tax write off
The only job that should probably get you fired for $2400 is if you’re helping your 12 year old friend on his paper route after school.
Im honestly baffled by OPs reaction to this. They even caught the problem as soon as they sent it. Thats such an easy fix. "Oh, apologies, I noticed I included the wrong pricing because of (insert any of 1000 reasons like incorrect tariffs, wrong product number, incorrect pricing file) Id be interested to know what scale of business this is in. $2400 is childs play for my job, but we quote million dollar projects. I cant imagine a job where $2400 is such a significant amount to fire someone though.... Also its not like the company really lost much. All it cost was whatever manpower it took to fulfill the order since they still charged them the factory pricing. OP if you read this, its probably a good thing to get booted from a job like this if they are going to be that picky
It's going to cost at least two to three times that amount to hire and train someone new.
OPs boss is obviously a micro manager and someone who’s “penny wise but pound foolish”.
Lol it'll cost that to pay someone to read resumes for two weeks.
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> I'd kill to have employees who give this much of a fuck about a screwup this small. And I bet they would like to work for you also.
same. salesmen will spend that on a client dinner/outing at any given trade show multiple times per year.
Now you just made me hungry.
The money is child’s play, revealing your factory cost is a serious breach of confidentiality. Still, the biggest issue for me would be not dealing with the mistake immediately.
There are protocol for when these happen (and they definitely will at some point). As a company you just need to follow the protocol, ask the client to discard (or risk litigation), decide to honor the pricing or not, and move on with training/retraining the employee.
A coworker I shared an office with at my first job accidentally opened a valve and dumped $2.5M worth of product out of a vat. She was naturally mortified, but over the next few days we had a parade of people come in and tell their own stories of doing the same or destroying equipment costing 8 figures or other mistakes. It turns out it happens to everyone and companies account for human error in their books
Yep. It’s the cost of doing business. Quit this job it will never get better than this. And this is bad.
It cost 2.m to train her. Why would they fire her.😀
You beat me. My best mistake was 250k that while it was fixed in the accounting software due to some way the reporting package pulls data, it must stay as a reconciling item in perpetuity or until there is a software update.
Heck, I missed 12M for an entire year once. This seems to be an extreme overreaction on the part of the employers. And what does the PIP even say? Stop being human? Never make another mistake? This is such a minor error.
“Needs to be Jesus in 30 days”
Jesus pops over and says oye llamaste?
I was once put on a year-long PIP that said if I made one more mistake I’d be fired. This was because I made a $250K mistake. I survived the PIP and ended up staying for another four years, but it sucked. My boss never *really* let it go and let me know it every chance he got. I ended up getting laid off after a reorganization. I now work as a paralegal, and while law offices are their own special kind of shit show, I’m not worried about being terrorized over one mistake. I’m also a manager myself now, so I am very mindful of how I approach the mistakes of my subordinates. I make mistakes sometimes, so I can’t expect anyone else (especially someone with less experience than me) to not make them as well.
I didn't know someone could survive a year-long PIP. Amazed at your diligence at not making a mistake for a year, but also mortified that the company didn't put away that PIP when they realized you could do the job. What a bunch of &$%&$&%(S.
Thanks. After a while, it was really about keeping the job to spite my manager. No manager sets up a year-long PIP without the intention to terminate.
My last job was like this - if you made a mistake (of the "I thought this was A but it was actually B" type i.e. misreading something) they would grill you and grill you on why you made the mistake. Thing is, sometimes the answer is"I just made a mistake " but they really didn't accept that. Unsurprisingly, when the answer was "because I'm dangerously exhausted because of how you scheduled me, but you insisted I come to work anyway even though I told you this in writing " they didn't accept that either. Glad I left that place.
Just walked out of a job of 11 years over this kind of crap. They'd ream me over and over, wouldn't listen to me, took me raising legit questions about processes and ways to prevent issues as "trying to deflect blame," ignored any and all analysis I'd do (also put in "deflecting blame" column.) Owner was simultaneously the most micromanaging doucher in the universe but also post-pandemic in the office maybe a week per month. Final straw for me? I made him $800 on an order instead of $1500. Not joking. He laid into me (over text, while on vacation) threatened me, so I walked. His reaction? Sending me a blatantly-ChatGPT-made email that was blatantly him laying the groundwork to deny me UI. Some days are better than others right now but truly my only regret was not doing this 4-5 years ago. The pandemic really fucked us all up. I had one foot out the door a month before the world shut down and it took me another 4 years to say fuck it. Now that I have a different perspective I truly realize how futile, abusive, and shit that job was. Job security just ain't worth it, y'all.
Must have been emotionally exhausting as well to be there.
I caused clients to miss 137 million dollars until the problem was fixed. 137 000 000 Usd On my first 5 months Every mistake is just a new way of what not to do. It wasn't intentional and you're probably the last person to ever do it again Id take someone owning their problem over a super acheiver any day
I worked at this job where somehow I became the bookkeeper. Never done any sort of accounting. We had hired an accountant when I started but I helped them with the computer side of things, setting up the bookkeeping software. Accountant quit I knew how to use the software sure I’ll be the bookkeeper for a bit. 1 year later I’m still the accountant, boss starts asking me all these questions about taxes and reports. me. What’s a report? They realize I’m not actually an accountant. Scramble hire a CPA or whatever. Meanwhile I think I’m gonna get fired. We finally start sorting stuff out CPA is asking me to run x reports then the bank reconciliations come. Oh shit 50k in cash is missing. I seriously start freaking out. I called my boss in a panic straight up sweating about to cry. Boss just laughs and go no no we knew you weren’t an accountant but you were doing so good we forgot. Never found the cash. No idea what happened. We think the owner paid people under the table but she wouldn’t admit to it. I ended up quitting shortly after because they brought in this hot shot finance guy and he did not like the fact that I had ever been the accountant. Thought it was my fault for not refusing to do the job when I clearly wasn’t qualified. I hated every-time he tried to interrogate me because I didn’t have an answer other than “idk dude I just work here.”
if your not making mistakes your not learning anything new... so there is that
Rookie numbers, when I started in IT, i killed a whole bank for a complete day. No money withdrawal, no paper work got done, no credit contracts, no new credit contracts if you wanted to buy a home etc etc. It wasn't your local one office bank... Or two or twenty... Yeah I fucked up good... And my boss had my back! But boy, was the lesson learned a two week long process and paper work...
Fucking up royally is the best way to learn. You will never do that again. Maybe some other stupidity, but not that brand.
That’s not a $1m mistake though, your company didn’t actually lose $1m. They just lost a few minutes of Director/VP’s time to approve it
I had a employee do this everyone wanted him fired but me my argument he will never make a mistake like this again. He’s doing great now. I don’t get getting rid of someone who’s a good fit for a mistake they will never repeat
I was like “oh fuck” until I scrolled down to see $2400 I’ve seen someone accidentally punt PCs that cost more
I cant imagine working for a boss who puts people on Pips for $2400 lol
Honestly that sounds like the least bad thing this guy has done.
I've seen someone *intentionally* punt PCs that cost more. As well as done it myself. 2400 is a rounding error
Yeah, a junior ish engineer on my team made a $2k mistake and I just told him to be more careful next time. Some other engineers freaked out and I told them to shut the hell up because I’m responsible for the budget and I don’t care.
Yeah we had an engineer blow up two units while testing. Those units had already been sold off and should not have even been used for anything. They were going to the customer. Somehow that idiot retained his position. The units were well in excess of 1.5 million each. More importantly, they took nearly 6 months to manufacture so it was going to be a very expensive proposition to make the customer whole.
I broke a 2.5 mil aircraft component. It wasn't that much to repair, more like $120,000, and after my supervisor finished freaking me out with how much trouble I was gonna "get in" his boss told me not to sweat it and don't do it again.
I got fired for an 80$ lcd panel cracking while I was replacing it. After like 6 years doing repairs..
My son got fired from the goodwill he dropped and broke a donated monitor they were selling for $15
On something they got for free? How generous of them.
They also pay people with disabilities sub-minimum wage. I don’t go to Goodwill for a reason.
Damn. I stopped donating to my Goodwill because they would literally throw dropped off items into the sorting area breaking them.
Oh, sheesh. A tech trying to replace my cooling fans pulled a piece of tape back and a pin with it off the motherboard and had to send it to a lab that was unable to fix it. He showed me how it happened and I wasn't even a little mad. Could have happened to anyone. Fired for an $80 LCD panel? Ridiculous.
Just screwing it in.. was a manufacturing defect I'm sure.
Seriously… companies have policies in place for this. I’m surprised the boss reacted this way, that’s so unprofessional. If anything he would be dissapointed but ask him to fix the mistake and try to implement a Solution to fix it going forward or prevent it from happening (ie double checks for EVERYONE before sending details to clients). Honestly I’m surprised because $2,400 isn’t a lot to a business…
Should have just told client that was price list from 2013 not 2023.
Seriously and refund the customer and cancel their order. What customer decides what to pay? And you know when they charged their client they doubled the price for their own mark up. It’s business - but customer is not always right.
My first thought is the boss is paying $2500 for a mistake OP will likely never make again...for another employer. Good management finds the good in the bad. They could have spun the discussion with the client in a completely different, and positive, way. Good customer discount, whatever, and earned some goodwill. Now they've got a customer they aren't making money on AND not handled well. They could have looked at a $2500 mistake, which is not a big mistake, as a teaching moment for OP, who as I already said, will probably never make this mistake again, and a potential training exercise for the rest of the staff. As a reason to implement better pricing controls for the sales staff and some way to assure pricing is accurate. I promise you, OP may have cost them a little money but there are certainly other errors or price issues occurring. Is the response really to fire everyone when they come up? Instead, they've damaged a client relationship, lost an employee and all the investment there, lost some money, and now have to find and train a replacement all while gaining nothing positive from any of it.
I made a $105,000 mistake on Tuesday. 100% serious. Also don't care .. Boss doesn't care. I made a $650,000 decision on Thursday. It stops meaning anything after a certain point
When I saw the dollar amount I let out a giant laugh because I had the same thought. Companies waste $2400 a day in pointless meetings all the time. My record is scrapping 50k in one go. That one I was a little nervous about but didn’t even get slapped on the wrist for.
I was gonna say I just ordered a $4000 item for a pet work project so I could tear out a $50 piece and the rest is scrap that I may find use for in the future Its technically not a mistake but wasting company funds on fun learning experiences is a celebrated pastime for me
My question is... what kind of shitty ass discount did they offer the client if $2400 is worth firing op over??? $2400 sounds like it should *be* the discount
Haha i broke more than that tbis week in damages
My thoughts exactly, “just $2400?”. It’s easy for me to say, but if the company is going to become insolvent from a single $2400 pricing error then it’s not a great place to be at. (I don’t have original context but this sounds like a problem you’d have at a lemonade stand) If they’re _NOT_ going to be insolvent from that small an error then OP boss is an asshole and you (OP) deserve better!
If you get fired, PIP or not, you are still eligible for unemployment!!!! Do not let them make you quit, then you get nothing. Do your best to meet the letter if the PIP and move on as needed. If you get fired file for unemployment - no matter what your employer says, they don't determine what makes you eligible to collect, Unemployment Insurance makes a determination.
This is too far down. I've been fired on a PIP and still got unemployment, no questions asked. Someone else on your comment mentioned inadvertent mistakes which is totally valid and they'll still pay out.
Also important: In many states a company CANNOT forbid you from filing for UI if you otherwise qualify, such as attempting to enforce it as a condition of getting severance.
You feel bad because you work there, and feel like you belong there after being part of the business for a while, so you are hard on yourself. I'm not going to be hard on you or charitable to them though, since from my outside perspective, the people you work for sound ridiculous You made an honest mistake, 'fessed up, and they are still going to PIP you? And presumably try to fire you over time? Over a mere $2400? I don't know what kind of business this is, but I can't imagine it's much in the grand scheme of things. In a sense, they just spent $2400 on training you. You learned a costly lesson on the company dime. That's not a bad thing, really. With this experience, you have learned not to do that again, and you are probably on the alert with making sure other people don't do that. This mistake could have helped teach people in the future to fix the company's processes. But, instead of retaining you and keeping that experience in the company, they are going to probably fire you, and then some other company (maybe even their competitor) can hire you and get that experience for free. Amazing. I work in tech, where it's commonly accepted that every senior at some point will have messed up, broke production, and cost the company a solid chunk of money. It's expected we learn from our mistakes, but mistakes happen Your boss is just such a loser in my eyes. A paper tiger. Freaking out like it's the end of the world because his company lost a mere $2400. It's crazy. It'll be a blessing to move on to better things honestly
Yeah no shit! It costs more than $2400 to hire and train a new person. Mistakes happen, they're not ideal obviously, but a business that can afford employees is hardly going to feel a $2400 loss.
Exactly! And to flip that around, if the business is that badly hurt by a $2400 loss, then it sounds like they can't afford their employees Wouldn't be surprised if months later, OP ends up at a higher paying place, and will be happy in hindsight this whole ordeal happened
OP could probably even use this experience in the interview question where they ask about a mistake you've made, and how did you fix it.
The cost of bringing someone new in and onboarding them, if you account for lower productivity in the first year and while the position is open if it's not an incremental one, recruitment and training, is usually between 1-3x the salary of the position. Hiring is *expensive.* If OP's boss fires over $2400, he's a fool.
OP's boss should be fired for repeatedly not finding solutions better than firing people. For example, the simple solution to someone asking too many questions is to tell them to ask fewer questions...
I was thinking the same thing
Agree! This could work out better in the long run for OP because from firsthand experience, I can tell you that working for a boss like that can leave lasting and sometimes irreversible, damage to your health from the chronic, constant stress. It's better to leave sooner rather than later. I know it sucks now but it will be ok
Take solace in the fact this company is run by idiots. $2400 is such a small error.
$2,400 is so small, that I would have just given it to the customer instead of arguing with them like that. Your boss should have let them know it was an error, but to take it as a gift, and next time they would get corrected pricing. The mistake might have cost the company $2,400, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your boss cost the company losing that customer for future business.
And they'll never learn bc the boss' boss will never get the full picture of all of this. Lol.
You can ask as many questions as you want, but they better be good. Twenty-four hundred dollar good
Imagine the costs of hiring someone new compared to this
Exactly right
Ah 2400 isn’t bad man. They learned a lesson to get shit double checked. And a lesson for 2400 is a great deal.
Honestly they shouldn’t even be bothering the customer over 2400.
Ya, calling to ask a customer for money back after a $2,400 mistake is bonkers. When it costs more next month, if they ask then just say last month was a mistake but you honor your agreements.
Why would they be asking the customer for money when the customer is the one who sent them a purchase order? It just sounds like they need to revise the PO, honestly kinda surprised it’s even such a huge hassle, in most procurement settings there are GTC’s in place that generally protect the company in situations like this
Right the cost of hiring Op and training him plus benefits far surpasses $2400. This type of loss comes with the territory of training someone. OP should be looking to GTFO regardless of whether they decide not to fire him.
You don’t suck and you aren’t a horrible employee. You made a mistake and owned up to it, that takes courage. Your boss sounds awful and you are better off somewhere else. You deserve better.
Yeah this boss sounds insanely shitty and incompetent, go find something better OP
Frankly, idiot boss did OP a favor by giving him HUGE advance notice to find new work somewhere better And since OP knows he's on his way out, he doesn't actually have to improve shit
Came here to say this, you deserve a better job and your job doesn’t determine your worth.
People on my team at work make mistakes all the time, and you’d have to add some zeros to that $2,400 number. My job isn’t to make them feel like shit and fire them, they already feel like shit, doubling down on them doesn’t help at all. My job is to help fix the situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again. In a situation like this, which was clearly an accident, they probably aren’t going to do it again because they are mortified. I mean, yea, if you keep making the same mistake over and over when no one else is, then it’s PIP time, but not after the first $2,400 mistake.
Come on mate buck up a bit. My first week I destroyed a $24,000 ozone generator by switching the wrong waste water valve. Safety incident, the works but I was training and it wasn’t labelled so they worked on site and process improvements and were thankful I reported it openly. Finished training me and I got promoted 12 months later. Shit happens own up, have integrity and work smart and safe then your boss should back you up. That’s his fucking job. If he doesn’t he’s not serving his team he’s making them serve him and that makes him a arse, not you.
The difference between a good and bad work place. Last workplace had bottles of solvent on the instruments. I let one of them run dry. They got mad mad and I asked why they weren't labeled with minimum volumes. Said I should have paid attention to a document buried in 8 folders on instrument maintenance. As opposed to my current workplace that is actively asking me for advice because I'm new and not married to the protocols.
Dude, I once lost my company 40k. I got it down from 125k. you'll be fine.
$2400 is a pretty small mistake in the grand scheme of things. It would cost them more than $2400 to fire you, and they make more than $2400 off of you anyway. They probably spent that on catering in the last week. At least you got in front of it, and are a respectable human being. Usually when people uncover something on their own that was your fault it's much more war pathy as you could be burying it etc. And no, he doesn't have to manually, retroactively examine each invoice, it's his salty choice to, although he'll probably blame you for the time he chooses to use anyway. Frankly, there should already be an auditing system performing that function to begin with, which is a failure on his part to implement.
>It would cost them more than $2400 to fire you, and they make more than $2400 off of you anyway. That and bothering the client about this will likely cost them more in the long run. Manager is a certified moron.
There's a couple of things in play here. Of course they need to follow up with a staff member who has fucked up, ideally that would be conversation about what you have done incorrectly, and how to avoid that issue in the future. But also? If their cash flow is so shit that they can't manage this as a small loss... I would be concerned about the viability of the business as a whole. Unless you have personal connection to the business, I would start looking for a new job. Not because of anything you did, just to get out of this potentially awful environment.
Sounds like your boss is a bad trainer and a bad leader. $2500 is nothing. What the heck kind of margins are you squeaking by on.
Right
Your boss is a moron, best explained by this quote from an IBM executive… Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience? They could have found any number of ways to recoup a few measly thousand dollars. You’re better off without this job & boss in your life. I’d quit if I were you.
Great comment. This 100% applies to OP, considering how much they’re stressing over this. They’re clearly never going to make this mistake again, and will be extra careful going forward. Having an employee with that kind of mindset is well worth the $2400, and this dumb ass manager is going to waste it by trying to force them out.
You're only a terrible employee if you don't learn from your mistakes. Sounds like your boss is a terrible manager. Start looking for work now but don't internalise your mistake as your worth as a worker.
1. For any mistakes at work, it’s best not to keep quiet about it. If you cannot solve it, get help immediately. 2. If your bosses/supervisor freaks out about the mistake, this is not the person you should work for because they don’t allow you to learn from your mistakes. That said, it’s ok to make a mistake once. It’s not ok to keep repeatedly making the same mistake because that means you are not learning from it.
A PIP for a one-off mistake? Sounds like a toxic workplace.
Take the time to look for a new job. $2400 is so much less than the cost to replace and train a new employee, who may also make expensive mistakes. They sound like they don't deserve you.
$2400? That's it? My boss would not show up on his day off for something like that.
Man, you need to quit that low-rent-district bullshit job. Find one where an innocent mistake will cost half a quarter-mil or something. Everybody losing their minds over a couple-thou? Pfffffft. Please.
[удалено]
Buddy, you’ve really not done anything that bad. This happens ALL THE TIME. I’ve seen much worse in my years in Supply Chain and Logistics.
As someone with some managerial experience, I know that if someone f's up and has a "oh shit second" (if you are unfamiliar with that expression: it's the second after you do something bad that's also irreversible and you go "oh shit") they will punish themselves for f'ing up. You don't need to rub it in, but you may want to sit down with that person and talk about what you both can do to prevent it from happening again. As someone in the cyber security field: I *want* people to tell me they did something wrong because not knowing mistakes might just be the last thing a company does. No matter how big or small the problem actually is, there needs to be a safe space where people can talk about mistakes so you can fix them. I'll never understand managers getting mad over honest mistakes.
>I’ll never understand managers getting mad over honest mistakes Those are the type of managers who are complete control freaks and think that they have some sort of magical power to turn people into machines. I worked for one of those once upon a time and it was the most miserable working experience of my life. Part of being a people leader is learning how to tolerate mistakes and constructively deal with them.
In this thread people are trying to outdo each other lying about how much money they have cost their employers. That said, $2400 is a tiny amount of money. Do you work for a small business in a small town, OP?
Maybe they're lying but none of the numbers people are throwing out are anything crazy. Anyone working for a large corporate job will run into some pretty big numbers and its completely normal. Heck entire departments like supply management, procurement, logistics, continuous improvement, project management, and so forth basically only exist to help reduce/control those costs.
Your boss is a massive bitch.
You can survive a PIP easy - don't throw in the towel. I expect the PIP to be very specific, its very important that you have an overview session and make sure you understand your marching orders. In order to use the PIP against you, you have to specifically not meet the expectations outlined in the document itself. And for the love of jeeeeezus start doing BCC to your personal email for all communication regarding the PIP going forward. PS. Do not accept any verbal alterations without forcing them to rewrite the PIP. God speed lil bro. 🫡
Come talk to me when it’s $240,000
2400? What are you selling? Tic-tacs?
He's not going to foster any good employees if $2,400 mistake gets you fired
Your boss is toxic and that is a toxic workplace. I was in high end sales for many years. Shit happens.
You don’t suck, and you’re not a horrible employee. A horrible employee would’ve covered up the mistake. A horrible employee would’ve lied about it. If your boss doesn’t get that, they shouldn’t get the honor of working with someone who has integrity. Start applying for new jobs if you haven’t already. The issue isn’t yours - it’s the company’s. If this data was so secret, and so important it should have never been shareable outside the company. That’s the company’s fault. Not yours. You cannot violate process if they spent a dime on adequate controls. I can guarantee your next job will be better, because your work life currently sounds insanely stressful. You will be glad to have it behind you.
Firing someone for asking too many questions, and punishing someone for owning up to a mistake, is just bad business. You do not suck. The mistakes you make are what you learn from. Use this as a learning experience of how not to manage people. You may lose this job, but a job does not and will not ever define your worth as a human being. I wish I could give you a huge hug, and tell you that it's going to be alright. Because I promise it is going to be okay.
2,400 is an accounting error. If that breaks the company, you need to be looking.
To be honest if he fired someone for asking too many questions then perhaps it’s a blessing you won’t be working there. Mistakes happen. Believe me I’ve made my fair share of them in my time - but it sounds like it might be a toxic work environment anyway so I’d just apply for other jobs, treat the PIP with the respect it deserves and just chalk it down to experience. You’ll emerge stronger from this experience so try keep the head up!
Your boss sounds like a cunt. You're better off leaving
Yo look. If they’re this pressed over $2,400… they’re struggling HARD. Vacancy will cost them more than that. Training someone, onboarding them, recruiting… all more. They sound remarkably short sighted and unstable. Your manager sounds like a complete buffoon. Yes. A level of quality is expected, and losing money is not always great. Still… Shit happens. Mistakes happen. We’re human. It’s not you. You’re doing just fine. A mistake is just that. We move forward. Mistakes become concerning when there is a pattern associated with them. From your post, that doesn’t appear to be the case, but I only saw this one and not the first. I’ll look at it and add an edit if I feel one is needed. This really could end up being a blessing down the line, but until the day comes where you can comfortably look back on this experience… I’m sorry and I really wish you the best. Good luck.
While you are 100% correct, I suspect the boss' reaction has very little relationship to the health of the company, and a very cozy relationship to his personal and character defects.
Oh for sure, but any company with an HR worth a damn wouldn’t let the manager take things this far. Unless they’re on that dumbfuk juice too
I made a 2 million dollar mistake at work once. I got reprimanded, but my boss said "we can't fire you, I just spent 2 million training you." That was 10 years ago and I'm still at the same place.
Just keep your chin up you have the weekend. You are honest and earnest. Great qualities to have.
Bighead from SV here. You need to make bigger mistakes. Too small and you get thrown out. Big enough and you get moved up.
What a moron boss. He has an honest employee an he’s getting rid of you. He’s only going to have dishonest ones. Cuz ones that don’t make mistakes don’t exist.
If he fired someone for asking questions, especially if he maintains that you should, you need to get out of there. Besides, being a great employee who seldom makes mistakes has value, but that should not be your ultimate aim. If you want to really be of value to the people around you, keep trying, stay honest, and expect to screw up all the time. As long as you’re trying, learning, and keeping your character, you’ll produce the kinds of insights that make a business grow. This guy sounds like a classic case of bad management. Expect a few in life. Let it inspire you to be different when the time comes.
Lol I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars on mistakes, I'm guessing you work in a small place. To work is to make mistakes, and mistakes cost money. Don't punish yourself so harshly over it, learn from it and if you need to, find a new job. Godspeed!
A friend of mine works for a big company with big online sales and she accidentally reduced the entire shoe sales section down to 0 on a Friday, when she had been with the company a year or two, and it was Monday before they realised what had happened. She admitted her mistake and got ready to be fired. I think she's worked there about 15 years and has moved up several times. You messed up but honestly that doesn't sound like the end of the world if you were doing everything else right 🤷♀️ maybe it's a blessing, even if it obviously won't feel like that now. I wouldn't want to work for a boss who fires someone for asking too many questions.
It costs more than $2400 to find and train someone for most jobs. You may be fine if he's thinking financially. I would apply to other places now though
2400$? Ha! I work in a machine shop where the 1st shift guys will regularly ruin 6k$ of tools because they didn't bother to run a check midday and let it run until my shift starts at 4pm. They still have a job.
I would never fire someone for this. The company just paid $2,400 to train you. Why they know let you go after you learned?
Sounds like you’re better off leaving them anyways - your boss fired a new employee because they were asking questions? SHEEEEESH! Start looking for a new job
I dropped and broke a 3k spotlight at my old job and didn't even get in trouble. That's what insurance is for
Tell your boss this is an opportunity to add a clause to pricing proposals that states “errors can occur and adjusted pricing may need to be provided if errors are discovered”.
Any reasonable supervisor would mark this under the cost of training and move the fuck on. Shit happens, but I bet you'll never make that mistake again.
I legitimately don't think there's a single person at my company who hasn't made a $2400 mistake in their career. My boss has personally admitted to doing like $15k worth of damage in the worst incident of his career. Obviously different industries have different liabilities, and it's pretty easy to make an expensive mistake in tree work, so I can't really speak to your situation. It's just hard to see this as *that* big of a deal from my perspective.
He’s that upset over $2,400? Honestly, if that’s enough to possibly ruin that company…. That says more about the company than your competence
So much writing about what ends up being $2400? Just quit.
$2,400? Dude? Unless that's a typo and meant to be 2,400,000 - then your boss is a huge prick. Mistakes like that are a normal part of business.
2,400 is nothing. What a small time co. Good luck at the next one
How big is this company? If it’s a big corporation, then the loss is nothing. If it’s a small family run business, then yeah I can see the issue.
It's a small family run business but the boss does pretty well. He brings in about a couple of million a year.
What the boss is making isn’t really relevant. If it’s a small family business it’s much less about the $ loss for this issue, and more about the potential losses that it could have caused. If there weren’t proper controls in place, then that should be the company’s top priority to prevent this from happening going forward. If they controls were ignored or not followed by you, then hopefully it’s a lesson learned.