5 replies to this topic

[GMO]

I'm old now.  Almost ooooooold but certainly getting on a bit.

 

Delivering some training last week I went through a few "and there was THIS time..." stories.  But stories always go down well and stick in peoples minds.

 

Anyway, it got me thinking.  "What was your biggest f*** up?"

 

Mine was the situation around releasing something which had low risk but it undermined me.  We had some known contamination, I convinced myself based on facts and data that there was no food safety risk.  I still agree with that assessment now.  There was a small risk of 1-2 complaints (which we never received) but they would not have been harmful.

 

But we knew the product had been contaminated and we knew we'd had an issue.

 

It was one of those situations as well where there had been about 10 previous mistakes which then put me in that situation of not being able to make a decision which would be seen as ethical even if I thought it was.  I can't go into detail here but some of those mistakes were from my team, the same team members who were then (under the radar) critical that I'd let it go.

 

I fronted into the criticism and what's funny is while I'm long gone, one of the team members who was most frustrated (and had made a mistake himself that led to the situation) has apparently now been promoted so I often wonder how he now deals with these grey area situations.

 

But what I'd do if I went back is not make a different decision but communicate it better and force the team into a very quick and robust RCA with me leading it (I'd asked for it but it was half arsed what came back).  Then I'd get everyone to front up into their part of the whole sh** show.

 

It still rankles now that they pushed all that onto me.  But it rankles me more that I accepted it.  I suppose I knew in the moment it was an 80/20 call which I thought was defensible but their doubt poked at the 20% of doubt in me.  But that's what you get paid for at senior level right?  We've all had to make those calls sometimes.

 

25 years in the food industry though and I'm surprised that sticks in my craw so much.  Especially when I've lived through public recalls, micro incidents, food defence issues etc.  

 

So what's your moment?  Relax on Dr GMO's therapy couch and get it off your chest....

[MDaleDDF]

My biggest mistakes have nothing to do with the food industry.....

My biggest mistake at work?   Hmmmm.   Probably taking the job!   Lol...

 

I once was set up by a former employee, before I knew wtf I was doing around here, and stood up in front of the entire company (encouraged by this lady) and said something totally stupid, and the owner let me have it big time in front of everyone....  I swore it'd never happen again, and it never has.   This lady was devious man, like a soap opera character or something...

[TimG]

Costliest mistake wasn't food industry related. I was an assistant manager in the parts department at a Jeep dealership. I had one late night where I worked till 8 solo per week. That involved handling any walk-in customers, mechanics who needed to order/look up parts, and put the final parts order in to Chrysler for the day. Anyway, super busy evening, was trying to get my order in before deadline because I had some car down (cars in the shop) situations.

This was old school ordering so you would first always go to availability and type in an amount, typically way more than you needed just because that was the only way to see where the parts were coming from. We'd always type 333 or 666 just because it was right there next to the enter button.

Anyway, busy day, accidentally ORDERED 666 dodge ram ring and pinion gear sets that were our cost $450 each. Cleared out the entire nation which only had about 173 of them so that was a $78,000 mistake at first. Spent the entire next day making calls cancelling back orders, etc. In the end I think I cost our dealership 7 grand, and I fully expected to be fired for that since I believe I made 30 grand a year at that point.

 

Funniest part of that is at a parts manager meeting years later I told that story, and a dodge dealership manager goes 'oh so YOU'RE THE AXXHOLE! Those were on back order for a MONTH!" #legacy

[MDaleDDF]

Costliest mistake wasn't food industry related. I was an assistant manager in the parts department at a Jeep dealership. I had one late night where I worked till 8 solo per week. That involved handling any walk-in customers, mechanics who needed to order/look up parts, and put the final parts order in to Chrysler for the day. Anyway, super busy evening, was trying to get my order in before deadline because I had some car down (cars in the shop) situations.

This was old school ordering so you would first always go to availability and type in an amount, typically way more than you needed just because that was the only way to see where the parts were coming from. We'd always type 333 or 666 just because it was right there next to the enter button.

Anyway, busy day, accidentally ORDERED 666 dodge ram ring and pinion gear sets that were our cost $450 each. Cleared out the entire nation which only had about 173 of them so that was a $78,000 mistake at first. Spent the entire next day making calls cancelling back orders, etc. In the end I think I cost our dealership 7 grand, and I fully expected to be fired for that since I believe I made 30 grand a year at that point.

 

Funniest part of that is at a parts manager meeting years later I told that story, and a dodge dealership manager goes 'oh so YOU'RE THE AXXHOLE! Those were on back order for a MONTH!" #legacy

omg Tim that's hilarious....

[GreyeagleA]

 

I once was set up by a former employee, before I knew wtf I was doing around here, and stood up in front of the entire company (encouraged by this lady) and said something totally stupid, and the owner let me have it big time in front of everyone....  I swore it'd never happen again, and it never has.   This lady was devious man, like a soap opera character or someth

 

We had an operator who was like that and no one was immune to her.  I swear some people thrive on causing drama

[GMO]

Oh someone once set me up in a meeting.  Boss A waited till my boss, boss B had left (early) then asked me for some advice which was "urgent".  So I stayed back and did it.  Emailed my boss, Boss B.  Got to the site meeting the next day, and Boss A asks me about it.  I explain my view much to Boss B horror at not being in the loop.

 

Result?  I ended up staying back late to be a pawn in the game between Boss A and Boss B then got it in the neck from Boss B.

 

But I'm sanguine about that and it just taught me to question the "why" with people and to look for the politics.