Your ‘oh sh*t’ moments

[RU_]

You know that gut-wrenching feeling when you have just done something you immediately regret?

I’ve had two in the last month.

• my first one was being way too busy with work and forgetting to have an environmental clearance certificate signed off before I commenced civil works on a project. Ended up with a decent back and forth with the environmental team and a lot of apologising, but they let me off with a warning and requested an environmental incident report for something extremely minor (a shovel worth of soil had fallen into the bushland off a windrow the contractor created across about 5 metres). I think that was them flexing their muscle as I had messed up.
• the second one was an at fault car crash last week, didn’t see a car on my right at a roundabout as they were basically the same colour as the road and I don’t believe they had their headlights on in the early morning when it was still that twilight darkness, ended up t-boning them in my hire car as I was on holidays. $500 and a hit to my pride out of that one as everyone was okay.

I did notice another post where someone on the forum was pre-occupied with a new release of something and instead of working they were putting their time into that and accidentally knocked out 3000 odd servers to their workplace.

What are your ‘oh s**t’ moments?

 

[Engimal v3]

Fell asleep driving once while coming home from a late shift at Woolies and swiped a parked car. Shook me badly.

A few inches to the left and I would have ran straight up the arse of it.

 

[Syd]

If I'm going to participate ITT we are going to need a lot more bandwidth!!

 

[mr bagcroft]

15 minutes in the GF replay of 2010.
Ponied up to go again when I couldn't even afford the first one.
15 minutes is generous, reckon it was obvious we were not going to win 5-10 minutes in.

 

[Sinjin Smith]

Because of my influence my son is a die hard emotionally invested Tottenham and Carlton supporter, furthermore even though he was born in Oz he goes for England in any sporting event again because of my country of origin. I've condemned him to a lifetime of sporting disappointment

 

[Xtreme]

This dude went from Baywatch to.... Aquaman

I'm struggling to see how!

 

[Rotayjay]

15 minutes in the GF replay of 2010.
Ponied up to go again when I couldn't even afford the first one.
15 minutes is generous, reckon it was obvious we were not going to win 5-10 minutes in.

Had you not attended the replay and St Kilda won, I'm sure you would have regretted that for life. I think you made the right choice.

My most recent 'oh s**t' moment was:

Driving though a suburban street on a dull, cloudy morning. I was in a hurry and think I was doing about 53 in a 50 zone. Furthermore, I wasn't driving to the conditions because I approached an area with numerous cars parked on both sides of the street, close together, creating concealed driveways, and I didn't slow down.

I saw a car in one of those driveways and assumed they'd seen me coming. They pulled straight out, both of us slammed on our brakes, and came to a stop approximately 20 cm from a T-bone. I drove away. When they say to cover the brake when approaching a hazard, they aren't kidding.

 

[Gough]

I was crossing the Parade at the lights outside of Dillon's bookshop and I was half was across when someone cruised straight through the intersection. If I'd been another metre or two into it they would have picked up what was left of me on George St.

 

[Over The Post]

Doing a hot-swap disk replacement on a storage system in a major bank. The storage system for the forex team. 2pm, peak hour for them as that was Aus/Asia/NZ/subcontinent trading worldwide. Pulled the dud disk out. Put the new disk in. Waited for the disk light to turn green. Light turned green and the storage system crashed. Not to worry, it's in a high availability cluster and it will just fail over to the other system. Fails over, the other system crashes. Less than fifteen seconds from heavily loaded to dead in the water. I was still looking at it wondering wtf just happened when the server room door was literally kicked in by a manager closely followed by security.

Turns out that because it was a critical system the operating system was several versions old (old == reliable) and it didn't recognise the new firmware on the replacement disk, and instead of rejecting the disk decided that the computer equivalent of explosive diarrhoea was a better course of action.

 

[peternorth]

Doing a hot-swap disk replacement on a storage system in a major bank. The storage system for the forex team. 2pm, peak hour for them as that was Aus/Asia/NZ/subcontinent trading worldwide. Pulled the dud disk out. Put the new disk in. Waited for the disk light to turn green. Light turned green and the storage system crashed. Not to worry, it's in a high availability cluster and it will just fail over to the other system. Fails over, the other system crashes. Less than fifteen seconds from heavily loaded to dead in the water. I was still looking at it wondering wtf just happened when the server room door was literally kicked in by a manager closely followed by security.

Turns out that because it was a critical system the operating system was several versions old (old == reliable) and it didn't recognise the new firmware on the replacement disk, and instead of rejecting the disk decided that the computer equivalent of explosive diarrhoea was a better course of action.

Chickens ?

 

[Guardian Hawk]

Almost worth creating a dummy account just to write this...

But when my eldest was about 18 months old (now 7), we were playing in the backyard. I went inside to take a dump and left him playing with his trucks.

Come out after about 5 minutes and trucks are there but son is not. Call out - no answer. Probably just playing hide and seek I tell myself. Check the cubby, behind the bushes, etc. "Must have gone inside". Go in, call his name - still no answer (which is pretty normal for a kid that age but am getting nervous). Start jogging from room to room calling out in a "this is serious voice". Check everywhere - can't find and in full panic mode now.

Go back outside. Notice the side gate is closed but not fully latched - "but surely an 18 month old couldn't reach the latch or open such a heavy gate?" See the driveway gate is also slightly ajar. Frantic now. Look both ways down the street - nothing. Start running down the street toward the main road yelling his name. Lady turns round the corner of the main road into our street...holding...yes, it's him.

"He yours?", she says, with a disgusted look. "He was heading straight for the main road".

I snatch him off her and hold him tight - a blubbering mess of tears and overwhelming relief. Don't know if I even said thanks.

Have still never told anyone - least of all my overly anxious, highly safety conscious wife.

Poor kid had to come in to the toilet every time I went from then on pretty much until he started school.

(and a little part of me has always wondered if he really got all that way - through multiple heavy gates closed behind him - on his own)

 

[Sinjin Smith]

Doing a hot-swap disk replacement on a storage system in a major bank. The storage system for the forex team. 2pm, peak hour for them as that was Aus/Asia/NZ/subcontinent trading worldwide. Pulled the dud disk out. Put the new disk in. Waited for the disk light to turn green. Light turned green and the storage system crashed. Not to worry, it's in a high availability cluster and it will just fail over to the other system. Fails over, the other system crashes. Less than fifteen seconds from heavily loaded to dead in the water. I was still looking at it wondering wtf just happened when the server room door was literally kicked in by a manager closely followed by security.

Turns out that because it was a critical system the operating system was several versions old (old == reliable) and it didn't recognise the new firmware on the replacement disk, and instead of rejecting the disk decided that the computer equivalent of explosive diarrhoea was a better course of action.

Got to ask, why is the bank's tech team doing major infrastructure changes during peak operation hours?? I mean when we put through firewall changes its always from 12:00am - 5:00am and they are just network paths which can be rolled back

 

[Gough]

Almost worth creating a dummy account just to write this...

But when my eldest was about 18 months old (now 7), we were playing in the backyard. I went inside to take a dump and left him playing with his trucks.

Come out after about 5 minutes and trucks are there but son is not. Call out - no answer. Probably just playing hide and seek I tell myself. Check the cubby, behind the bushes, etc. "Must have gone inside". Go in, call his name - still no answer (which is pretty normal for a kid that age but am getting nervous). Start jogging from room to room calling out in a "this is serious voice". Check everywhere - can't find and in full panic mode now.

Go back outside. Notice the side gate is closed but not fully latched - "but surely an 18 month old couldn't reach the latch or open such a heavy gate?" See the driveway gate is also slightly ajar. Frantic now. Look both ways down the street - nothing. Start running down the street toward the main road yelling his name. Lady turns round the corner of the main road into our street...holding...yes, it's him.

"He yours?", she says, with a disgusted look. "He was heading straight for the main road".

I snatch him off her and hold him tight - a blubbering mess of tears and overwhelming relief. Don't know if I even said thanks.

Have still never told anyone - least of all my overly anxious, highly safety conscious wife.

Poor kid had to come in to the toilet every time I went from then on pretty much until he started school.

(and a little part of me has always wondered if he really got all that way - through multiple heavy gates closed behind him - on his own)

The couple I lived with in England had a six years old daughter and one day I'd just got home from work, realised I needed to go back, could see that E was driving her mother round the bend so I said I'd take her with me. Same as you left her in the shop for a minute while I went into the stock room with my boss to see if we had any kids books that we could give her and when we went back into the shop she'd gone (I'd left the shutter ajar). For a few horrifying minutes my boss and I were searching everywhere when she crawled back under the shutter explaining that she'd seen one of her friends. I reckon I aged a couple of years in those minutes.

 

[Guardian Hawk]

The couple I lived with in England had a six years old daughter and one day I'd just got home from work, realised I needed to go back, could see that E was driving her mother round the bend so I said I'd take her with me. Same as you left her in the shop for a minute while I went into the stock room with my boss to see if we had any kids books that we could give her and when we went back into the shop she'd gone (I'd left the shutter ajar). For a few horrifying minutes my boss and I were searching everywhere when she crawled back under the shutter explaining that she'd seen one of her friends. I reckon I aged a couple of years in those minutes.

Yep, from the time I came out to having him back in my arms would only have been a couple of minutes.

Honestly felt like forever and was completely exhausted that night (moreso than the time I ran a marathon).

I reckon it's the only thing scarier than when you have a genuine "near-death" experience.

 

[Gough]

Yep, from the time I came out to having him back in my arms would only have been a couple of minutes.

Honestly felt like forever and was completely exhausted that night (moreso than the time I ran a marathon).

I reckon it's the only thing scarier than when you have a genuine "near-death" experience.

E wasn't even mine to lose in the first place.

 

[Over The Post]

Got to ask, why is the bank's tech team doing major infrastructure changes during peak operation hours?? I mean when we put through firewall changes its always from 12:00am - 5:00am and they are just network paths which can be rolled back

Because it was a disk hot swap in a clustered system that was just sitting in a server room in the office, not one of the data centres. I was the poor third-party chump who answered the page to go and do it.

Very shortly after this incident the bank's IT department were apprised of it being "not just another server" and its status was upgraded considerably and it went onto the "you can only touch this between 5am and 6am with full change control" list.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Driving home from work one afternoon, swung around the corner of my street and nearly ran over a baby crawling across the road. I braked in time and was getting out of the car when the father (who was obviously supposed to be watching him) rushed out yelling and blaming the baby - "You little devil!"

Another time I was behind a car waiting to turn right off a busy road into a side street. A gap appeared and the car swung right. Only problem was, the rear passenger door also swung open and a small toddler fell out. Fortunately the traffic was slow moving. Mum jammed on the brakes, leapt out, ran back and retrieved the child in a few seconds.

 

[MatthewB]

sitting at the traffic lights, lights go green, i wasn't paying attention, all of a sudden, a car goes flying through the intersection, had i been paying attention and took off when the lights went green, i would have been cleaned up

 

[Over The Post]

Yup, same here a few weeks ago. T intersection from my street onto main road, two lanes + turning lane each side. It's a 3 minute red cycle so for those of us queued up it's normally a Formula 1 start.

This particular day I was sitting in neutral with the handbrake on daydreaming when the light went green. Ooops. In gear, brake off, waved sorry to the guy behind, moved into the intersection and a car came absolutely balls out through the other side, between two lines of stopped cars. Any other day I'd have been history.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

My local Woolies is in one of those small shopping centres (small like a newsagent, pharmacy, Baker's Delight, butcher, a couple of other bits and pieces and that's it). Every now and then when I'm heading there for the weekly shop, I'll duck across to the pharmacy and stock up on those 100 packs of paracetamol or ibuprofen.

Now, this isn't one of your chemist warehouse jobs, it's one of those pharmacies that doubles as a bloody antique shop for some reason. Anyway, I'm at the counter with my $11 box of ibuprofen waiting, while the staff are all up at the other end of the shop filling prescriptions or whatever.

After a couple of minutes, someone finally comes down, only I realise I'm blocking her way to get to the register, so I walk back a few steps...crash. I knock a vase off a table which has some glass ornament thing inside, absolute carnage. They set about cleaning everything up while I'm sitting there like a kid who's been caught pinching a pack of jelly beans.

I have no idea what to do, if they say "You have to pay for it", I feel like I'd just have to go okay. I'm not really sure what the damage (pardon the pun) would have been, but I have pretty good eyesight and reckon the label on the bottom of the vase said $160, so all up it could easily have been $250+, I haven't the faintest idea.

They're all up the other end, figuring out what to do with me and I'm just feeling a bit numb, a few little thoughts creeping in like "Well, if you had someone behind the counter, if you hadn't thought it was a bright idea to balance $200 ornaments precariously on a table next to the counter, where numerous people will queue up during the day..." nah, stuff that. I f**ked up, I've gotta wear it. I'm sick and tired of people too gutless to own their mistakes nowadays. Finally a young assistant comes over and says "Don't worry about it, it happens. Thanks for waiting."

This happened on the weekend and now I don't know what to do. I hate being indebted to people for stuff like this. I'm sure they're not out of pocket and just do an insurance claim or something, but thinking I ought to write them a nice letter to say thanks for being nice about it and I'd like to make a donation to a charity of their choice to show my appreciation that they could have f**ked my whole weekend, but decided to be cool about it.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

My local Woolies is in one of those small shopping centres (small like a newsagent, pharmacy, Baker's Delight, butcher, a couple of other bits and pieces and that's it). Every now and then when I'm heading there for the weekly shop, I'll duck across to the pharmacy and stock up on those 100 packs of paracetamol or ibuprofen.

Now, this isn't one of your chemist warehouse jobs, it's one of those pharmacies that doubles as a bloody antique shop for some reason. Anyway, I'm at the counter with my $11 box of ibuprofen waiting, while the staff are all up at the other end of the shop filling prescriptions or whatever.

After a couple of minutes, someone finally comes down, only I realise I'm blocking her way to get to the register, so I walk back a few steps...crash. I knock a vase off a table which has some glass ornament thing inside, absolute carnage. They set about cleaning everything up while I'm sitting there like a kid who's been caught pinching a pack of jelly beans.

I have no idea what to do, if they say "You have to pay for it", I feel like I'd just have to go okay. I'm not really sure what the damage (pardon the pun) would have been, but I have pretty good eyesight and reckon the label on the bottom of the vase said $160, so all up it could easily have been $250+, I haven't the faintest idea.

They're all up the other end, figuring out what to do with me and I'm just feeling a bit numb, a few little thoughts creeping in like "Well, if you had someone behind the counter, if you hadn't thought it was a bright idea to balance $200 ornaments precariously on a table next to the counter, where numerous people will queue up during the day..." nah, stuff that. I f**ked up, I've gotta wear it. I'm sick and tired of people too gutless to own their mistakes nowadays. Finally a young assistant comes over and says "Don't worry about it, it happens. Thanks for waiting."

This happened on the weekend and now I don't know what to do. I hate being indebted to people for stuff like this. I'm sure they're not out of pocket and just do an insurance claim or something, but thinking I ought to write them a nice letter to say thanks for being nice about it and I'd like to make a donation to a charity of their choice to show my appreciation that they could have f**ked my whole weekend, but decided to be cool about it.

Similar happened to me. Big chemist nearby had a section in the centre of the store full of nice giftware: photo frames, little jewel boxes, all sorts of stuff, much of it glass. There were a couple of signs saying Breakages Must Be Paid For. I went in there countless times, bought plenty of gifts. Until the day I dislodged something and crash. Red-faced I feared the worst (item was only about $15, but still…) but the assistant said the same as yours did. I’m sure I wasn’t the first and by no means the last.

One day the shop changed from Amcal to Blooms and the first thing they did was get rid of the giftware!

Don’t feel too guilty. It was their responsibility to arrange their stock safely, especially the expensive things. As you say, they’d have insurance. No doubt it was heavily marked up - or the price you thought you saw was in Thai baht .

 

[Dan Moody]

The couple I lived with in England had a six years old daughter and one day I'd just got home from work, realised I needed to go back, could see that E was driving her mother round the bend so I said I'd take her with me. Same as you left her in the shop for a minute while I went into the stock room with my boss to see if we had any kids books that we could give her and when we went back into the shop she'd gone (I'd left the shutter ajar). For a few horrifying minutes my boss and I were searching everywhere when she crawled back under the shutter explaining that she'd seen one of her friends. I reckon I aged a couple of years in those minutes.

How long have you been friends with the McCanns?

 

[Over The Post]

^^^ underrated post ^^^

 

[Cruyff14]

Had my 9 month old daughter sitting on the bed the other day, about two feet from the edge. Turned my back for a couple of seconds and all of a sudden I heard a thud, followed by tears.

She had fallen off the bed, and somehow just managed to miss the bedside table. Could have been so much worse.

 

[mr bagcroft]

My local Woolies is in one of those small shopping centres (small like a newsagent, pharmacy, Baker's Delight, butcher, a couple of other bits and pieces and that's it). Every now and then when I'm heading there for the weekly shop, I'll duck across to the pharmacy and stock up on those 100 packs of paracetamol or ibuprofen.

Now, this isn't one of your chemist warehouse jobs, it's one of those pharmacies that doubles as a bloody antique shop for some reason. Anyway, I'm at the counter with my $11 box of ibuprofen waiting, while the staff are all up at the other end of the shop filling prescriptions or whatever.

After a couple of minutes, someone finally comes down, only I realise I'm blocking her way to get to the register, so I walk back a few steps...crash. I knock a vase off a table which has some glass ornament thing inside, absolute carnage. They set about cleaning everything up while I'm sitting there like a kid who's been caught pinching a pack of jelly beans.

I have no idea what to do, if they say "You have to pay for it", I feel like I'd just have to go okay. I'm not really sure what the damage (pardon the pun) would have been, but I have pretty good eyesight and reckon the label on the bottom of the vase said $160, so all up it could easily have been $250+, I haven't the faintest idea.

They're all up the other end, figuring out what to do with me and I'm just feeling a bit numb, a few little thoughts creeping in like "Well, if you had someone behind the counter, if you hadn't thought it was a bright idea to balance $200 ornaments precariously on a table next to the counter, where numerous people will queue up during the day..." nah, stuff that. I f**ked up, I've gotta wear it. I'm sick and tired of people too gutless to own their mistakes nowadays. Finally a young assistant comes over and says "Don't worry about it, it happens. Thanks for waiting."

This happened on the weekend and now I don't know what to do. I hate being indebted to people for stuff like this. I'm sure they're not out of pocket and just do an insurance claim or something, but thinking I ought to write them a nice letter to say thanks for being nice about it and I'd like to make a donation to a charity of their choice to show my appreciation that they could have f**ked my whole weekend, but decided to be cool about it.

You should marry her.