Ever had "One of Those Days?

[Volphin]

Had some samples come in for a job I just completed for a client. They were, to say the least, wrong and I had to stop the shipment to the customer. The supplier did their job. It was ME and my employees that messed it up. Needless to say I have to eat this one and redo the job the right way. The customer is none the wiser, as we are still on timeline, but I just cost my company $6K. It doesn't happen often (first time in 10 years), but wooo boy, when it does it's a doozy. But the bottom line is, I'm not sending out substandard product with my name on it, period. It just smarts a bit.

I've been kicking myself all day. I'm the last one to approve it before it goes to production, and I was in a hurry and missed some details. sigh....

Well, the sun will rise tomorrow.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

We have all done it, $6K is a drop in the bucket compared to some of the goofs I have made!

 

[southkogs]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Just had a $2k bite today from my crew. We don't screw up often, but like you - it's expensive when we do.

At least you don't have to explain it to the owner

 

[generator12]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Volphin, you're not alone buddy.

I made several thousand-dollar mistakes over the years that taught me to tighten things up, and probably were the primary reason I never made any million-dollar ones.

It happens, as you know.

 

[The Rooster]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Years ago I managed to basically pump the wrong product in a pipeline going to Texas from Louisiana. Nearly half a day went by before I realized the mistake and shutdown the pipeline. Between contaminating pipelines, storage tanks, time lost running product through the pipeline, and having to reverse and rerun the product through the facility to clean it up and get it back on spec, my boss estimated I cost the company nearly $ 500,000. Thats right, half a million dollars. All because I pushed the wrong button. Don't feel bad.

 

[sublauxation]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Sorry for your loss. In my early attempts to make it big I wasted about 35K over 8 years on an office lease for space I didn't need.

On a positive note that money was tax deductible so it actually cost me less At least that's what I keep telling myself.

 

[britisher]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

If the shipment of whatever it was is totally 'off', then yes YOU are eating $6K. Often, we as suppliers set our standards higher than the customers and end up with stuff we held from the customer. You could contact the customer after they have their proper shipment and point out that the first batch didn't meet you exacting standards, so you had them done again, BUT if they wanted to purchase the 'off' shipment, they can have it for $X. Even if it was 'cost', you'd come out evens, no-one lost and everyone won. Stuff with slight 'offs' are no good to man nor beast sat on a shelf gathering dust.
Part of my business is Embroidery and we have errors from time to time, like yours. Trouble is you can't recycle shirts with a company name on or a person's name/title on to someone else. I have $1K worth of Verizon polo's ordered by a customer who then did a runner and left me holding the baby. Verizon Corporate weren't interested as the guy was a franchisee. Guess Corporate aren't bothered that franchisees trash their reputation. Needless to say I am not and never will be a Verizon customer!

 

[rbh]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Customer wanted X product used, I grabbed the wrong reel and placed it.
Thank god I did not cut it and was able to put it back on the reel, so it only cost me labour and some pride.

 

[Volphin]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

If the shipment of whatever it was is totally 'off', then yes YOU are eating $6K. Often, we as suppliers set our standards higher than the customers and end up with stuff we held from the customer. You could contact the customer after they have their proper shipment and point out that the first batch didn't meet you exacting standards, so you had them done again, BUT if they wanted to purchase the 'off' shipment, they can have it for $X. Even if it was 'cost', you'd come out evens, no-one lost and everyone won. Stuff with slight 'offs' are no good to man nor beast sat on a shelf gathering dust.
Part of my business is Embroidery and we have errors from time to time, like yours. Trouble is you can't recycle shirts with a company name on or a person's name/title on to someone else. I have $1K worth of Verizon polo's ordered by a customer who then did a runner and left me holding the baby. Verizon Corporate weren't interested as the guy was a franchisee. Guess Corporate aren't bothered that franchisees trash their reputation. Needless to say I am not and never will be a Verizon customer!

We caught it before it shipped thank goodness. This would be like if you had a major error in your stitching... the error is too great to resell. But I may be able to use the raw materials for another job. The last runner I had was a company that sold a Sunday School Education program. !!! Was on the hook for $25K in 1990. That was not very nice, but they had no assets to go after.

 

[lncoop]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Several years ago I got an order to sell 9k shares of a stock. At the end of the day I realized I had added a zero to the quantity.:faint2: It was a thin stock. As I recall the loss was just under $100k. I was told not to do it again and that was the end of it. Fortunately I haven't.

 

[angus63]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

A recent graduate turned the wrong valve while bunkering a fishing vessel from a fuel barge in Alaska. The barge took on water and sank with a quarter million gallons of heavy fuel oil. The total cost of the error, including environmental clean up and recovery, cost just under $4 million. He sadly lost his license and his future as a mariner as a result of choosing the wrong wheel on a manifold. Bad days are all relative.

 

[salty87]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Several years ago I got an order to sell 9k shares of a stock. At the end of the day I realized I had added a zero to the quantity.:faint2: It was a thin stock. As I recall the loss was just under $100k. I was told not to do it again and that was the end of it. Fortunately I haven't.

ouch, i used to work with the market monitoring traders and working trade error P&Ls.

i also had a job as risk manager for a day trading firm. i was responsible for making sure a client never lost more money than they had or they'd be losing the brokerage firm's money. when the mortgage industry and economy went up in flames i saw a money manager lose about $50 million of his clients' money (everything in the accounts). there was of course a flurry of lawsuits and the lawyers did well. clients got hosed. money manager is barred from the industry. the firm lost nothing but those were some sleepless nights for me.

 

[lncoop]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

ouch, i used to work with the market monitoring traders and working trade error P&Ls.

i also had a job as risk manager for a day trading firm. i was responsible for making sure a client never lost more money than they had or they'd be losing the brokerage firm's money. when the mortgage industry and economy went up in flames i saw a money manager lose about $50 million of his clients' money (everything in the accounts). there was of course a flurry of lawsuits and the lawyers did well. clients got hosed. money manager is barred from the industry. the firm lost nothing but those were some sleepless nights for me.

Definitely put a lump in my throat, but as you probably know the main thing is to be straight about something like that. Seems like every time you take an error position the market goes against you LOL. I've seen people move them around and try to hide them in hopes of covering when (if) things improve. That's a sure way to get the boot.

 

[salty87]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

no kidding. even a profit on the trade won't make that look like a good decision.

 

[kfa4303]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

"The customer is none the wiser, as we are still on timeline...." That's the most important thing. Never let 'em see ya sweat

 

[southkogs]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Many moons ago, I was in the quick-print business. One of my own personal foul-ups cost the organization a couple palettes of paper (think I still hold a record on that one). But the one I'll relay here is more for some laughs:

Had a beast of a project come in that we had to crank out FAST. Basically I had 4 Xerox Docutechs running full steam across Nashville for 2 days. We got it all done - just in the nick of time, honestly - and the client has a truck pick it up. They load the rig (maybe a 26' box truck) close to full and blast off North for a conference they had in Louisville.

The next morning, the client comes in and meets me at about 7AM to tell me that the project has to be completely re-done. I'm in a half-panic - no way it was wrong! We checked, spot checked, reviewed again, packed, labeled … no way dude. We didn't mess it up ...

… and we didn't. The truck had just passed over the state line into Kentucky, something sparked underneath it and caught it on fire. A 26' box truck full of paper on fire!

Practically doubled my sales that month … and gave me a great sales growth idea for the future :target:

 

[generator12]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

When I was 23 years old and just starting out as an instrumentation/control technician, I was told to "stroke the valves" controlling the natural gas feeds to an open hearth steel furnace that was down for overhaul. I was in my third week with the company and had never worked with either valves or piping systems, much less on steel-making furnaces. But I did as I was told and hooked up a low pressure air regulator to two of the valves and began to check their operation.

Sure enough, here came a bunch of guys running down the steps from the operating floor yelling for me to close the valves. Turned out the fitters had neglected to do the lock-out, and I had just opened two 3-inch, 20 PSI natural gas lines right into the furnace, which at that moment was full of guys on ladders and scaffolds rebuilding burners and replacing refractory bricks. Some of them were smoking as they worked, too...! They all jumped down and ran in all directions. Amazingly, nobody was hurt and the gas never ignited.

I learned something that day that guided my work every single day until I retired.

 

[kenmyfam]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Been there, done that. I guess the silver lining is as an old boss once explained, "The only guy that doesn't make a mistake, is the guy that does nothing".

Agree with this one completely.

 

[Fishing Dude too]

Re: Ever had "One of Those Days?

Know an electrical engineer who was doing a power plant startup when it went very wrong do to a sun spot. No loss of live but millions in equipment, he still works for the company.