What’s the worst mistake you’ve made at work? Sent something with a boneheaded mislinking error to a client today and feel less than great.

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I was a lowly first year staff and was in the same room when I felt my partner was being mean to my manager and said something to the effect like “hey now partner, I think you’re being mean to the manager, I think they were doing a good job”. Surprised I walked out of there with my job still

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It is very EY, and that's why I work there.

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Showed up super late to an internal status meeting not knowing the partner was leading it. Worst thing I’ve seen was watching my senior send sametime messages to the manager and me about the client while sharing her screen with the client in a meeting. In case you’re wondering, she wasn’t saying anything nice.

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I once sent a sametime to the senior I was talking bad about instead of my other coworker, and I explicitly said his name so there was no dodging it. Still cringe about it years later but survived and still kept working with him.

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I've done this. haha

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Trusting the people 🤷🏼‍♀️

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As a first year associate, I accidentally typed ‘PornHub.com’ instead of ‘GrubHub.com’ in the address bar of my work computer while at the client site and mindlessly clicked ‘enter.’

Obviously, the website was blocked but I was super worried that some sort of report would be sent to IT...nothing ever came of it.

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Did that too once. Told my friend in IT immediately and he said he’d take care of it.

Sent an attachment to a client that had another client’s information.

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classic. been there done that.

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3 times in a row I scheduled team calls with a client and forgot to include the client. Wasted 6 peoples time on each occasion. I was a manager at the time.

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I love this and have done it before. Ive scheduled calls and blocked the entire day. Also, meant to schedule for 1pm and was 1am instead.

Emailed client, with Sr Mgr cc’d, but called the the wrong name. I.e., “Hi Kathy” when her name was Barb (not even close!)

Cc’d wrong “Chris” on a client email, with client data attached. Wrong Chris was a different client and emailed me back to let me know.

Schedule a call with local authorities for a negotiated incentive for a client, didn’t realize there was a time difference, so the firm pretty much showed up an hour late.

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Friend (a manager) forwarded me an email that she received from HR letting all the managers and up know that “Suzie Admin” had left the firm to pursue other opportunities, and that the firm wished her well in her new endeavors.” I replied back to friend that we all knew it was a bunch of BS and that Suzie has been fired. Friend and I go to lunch right after and I asked if she got my email.
Turns out - I didn’t reply to my friend. I replied back to HR (the forward was an attachment in the email sent to me, and I replied back inside that attached email).
Came back from lunch and went straight to the HR person and apologized. At least she was cool about it - said she knew it was BS too but it’s what she had to write.

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Honestly this is why I double check links and versions and all those things. I hate going back to the client and saying “oops!!” It’s helped me and my reputation so it’s not a bad thing. Also, send delay on email is a godsend for when you realize you double checked everything except your name. Or the client’s.

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New one. Today I sat on a conference call and thought these ppl were a bunch of jerks for not acknowledging me introducing myself when dialing in and then continuing to sit there in total silence for, oh, about three minutes while waiting for the senior manager to dial in. Then I realized I just hadn’t turned my headset on. So in all likelihood they were thinking I was a jerk for dialing in and not introducing myself or participating in small talk. 🙄

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Moved a workpaper to partner for review that was summing the "number of days held" column and reporting it as cap gains. Had calced the client's quarterly tax payment off this. At least it got caught before numbers went to the client? I thought for sure it was going to show up in my performance review but nope, instead I got promoted that year 🤷‍♂️

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No, "team" was just me (senior) and partner. I made the workpaper and had a bottom line cell pulling a hugely wrong number, partner pointed it out and I felt like a dope. It was a quick re-link and then recalc of the tax payment but it was super embarrassing to have my normally strong attention to detail overlook something so silly. Oh well, deadline and short staffed, that's what the second set of eyes is for I guess.

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Calculated materiality wrong on a public job and it was caught about 2 weeks before issuance. Yes, i had calced it way lower of course (because mistakes never work out in your favor, right?) and resulted in MANY more selections in a scramble before issuance.

In my defense, it had been reviewed by MANy people MANY levels above me at the beginning of the audit, but still by far the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I cried in front of the partner on the spot when they frantically called me to their office to question how I got to my number ...

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Brand new manager (as in, has gotten promoted like 1 mo. before at the time I calculated it wrong) 😞

I sent client A's bank confirmation template to client B.

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I think your mistake wins. Lol

Not leaving Big 4 two years earlier than I did

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So this happened today. Someone, thinking they were on mute, shit talked the presenter on an internal nationwide division conference call.

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I accidentally imported a ton of extra apportionment data into corptax for a massive international company with 400 plus entities in mid September.

Wrote some copy about the mighty profession of PUBIC accounting. (See there, I did it again.)

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