I'll start. I had been chatting with a coworker online while at work — using a bit of coarse language. Shortly before leaving, I copied and pasted some marketing copy into the CMS for the page I was working on. I didn't check my work and went home for the weekend.
Got a text Saturday morning that something was off about our "For Prospective Students" landing page (I was working on the new website for a Private Catholic College). Navigated there, and stood staring in disbelief as I read my own words calling a certain friend of mine a certain derogatory name or 4 under the heading "Why Choose Us?" Turns out, I thought I had added the Marketing copy to the clipboard, but must've accidentally copied and pasted a fraction of my damning convo instead.
Lesson Learned: ALWAYS check your work, no matter how long you have been building websites or anything public-facing. It was such a dumb mistake. I didn't end up fired, but got a stern reprimand from my direct supervisor. Months later, the President of the school confided to me that he found the incident fairly hilarious, and somewhat troubling. Hoo boy.
Nothing, shockingly. My supervisor just shook his head and went "man, I just...you can't..oh man." I felt like an idiot and had another serious talk with supervisor. Apparently, only a few members of our marketing team had seen it, and I had been doing good work so the damage was mitigated somewhat.
It helped that I was the only person on staff who really knew Javascript and Coffeescript well and that I was also well-versed in writing and editing. Had I lacked any of these, had another staff member been better at them, or had the project been further along I'm sure I would've been canned. The president didn't find out until weeks later, thank god.
Ack. I can really empathize with this. Nothing makes me feel more amateur than just pushing commits with missing lines and the like, pushing another fix commit and determining if I should squash or not.
Staying too long. If your goal is to grow in responsibility, title and compensation, the most important thing is to have a boss that has the inclination and authority to develop your career and promote you, when appropriate. If you don't have that, you need to make a move.
I once fell asleep at a customer facility. We had been doing 12hr days and it was a weekend. No one was there. Cafeteria was closed so no coffee. So I decided to find a quiet spot to nap. Needless to say I got a call from my boss's boss's boss. Also, I was told to not bill that day. Despite being salaried with no overtime and having reached 40hrs in the first few days.
It wasn't the same after that. Never let your boss or coworker discover how little you care about work.
there was a tax issue in our shopping cart software that only occurred in florida. I googled for an address in florida and put in a few test purchases.
Long story short, I shipped a thousand dollars worth of networking equipment to Disney World.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] threadGot a text Saturday morning that something was off about our "For Prospective Students" landing page (I was working on the new website for a Private Catholic College). Navigated there, and stood staring in disbelief as I read my own words calling a certain friend of mine a certain derogatory name or 4 under the heading "Why Choose Us?" Turns out, I thought I had added the Marketing copy to the clipboard, but must've accidentally copied and pasted a fraction of my damning convo instead.
Lesson Learned: ALWAYS check your work, no matter how long you have been building websites or anything public-facing. It was such a dumb mistake. I didn't end up fired, but got a stern reprimand from my direct supervisor. Months later, the President of the school confided to me that he found the incident fairly hilarious, and somewhat troubling. Hoo boy.
It helped that I was the only person on staff who really knew Javascript and Coffeescript well and that I was also well-versed in writing and editing. Had I lacked any of these, had another staff member been better at them, or had the project been further along I'm sure I would've been canned. The president didn't find out until weeks later, thank god.
It wasn't the same after that. Never let your boss or coworker discover how little you care about work.
Or switch bosses. A boss that can't understand that after 12 hour days you need some rest can go fuck themselves.
Long story short, I shipped a thousand dollars worth of networking equipment to Disney World.