Made a costly mistake at work (£10k)....

[Welly]

Ever made a mistake which costs your company?

I am responsible for tendering for construction related sub contracts. I estimate the job price by reviewing construction plans and specifications and submit my fixed price for the works.

I tendered for a job last year and we are working on it now but it has now come to light that I "missed" some works which we are deemed to have included for - indeed the client considers we should have included this work and is saying they won't cough up any additional monies for this.

The trouble is, the bit I missed was not depicted on any of the plans I had and the client omitted to send me schematic plans which would have highlighted the missing works. The client is saying I should have asked for further information or surveyed the building thoroughly (yeah right - last June it was a large hole in the ground). Thing is you don't know you are making a mistake if there's nothing to tell you at that time

The upshot is that this will COST the company £10,000.00

I feel responsible for this but also angry as the client has not given me all the information but is leaning heavily on old fashioned contractual clauses to get him out the sh*t and leave me in it - i.e. in a very stupid, twisted way he's right

[steve_earwig]

The bastard! Can you not suggest to down tools, leave it how it is and charge for the work done so far? Does this really mean you have to include the cost for stuff in the estimate that you have no way of knowing about?? Heading - bollocks, sub-heading - total.
bricks - £x,000
mortar - £x,000
beer - £xx,000
invisible extras - £10,000
use of crystal ball - £1,000

(I helped save my company millions for which I got nice meal, a stay in a hotel and a pen, then I got the shove)

[STALLED]

Welly - are you a Quantity Surveyor?

[Welly]

A pen eh? (cheers)

Unfortunately it's a big job, for a big Contractor, for a big client - they have you tied up in knots contractually and even if we left site they would be entitled to "determine" our contract, employ others, and then take the money from what they owe us (we get interim payments in lieu after 45 days and assessed by their QS to make sure we're always out of pocket or rather we haven't been paid over the odds at any one stage of the project).

We've treated this guy to gifts aswell (before and during the contract) but he's holding us at arm's length over this one we're meeting him on Weds to "try" for some extra monies, TBH anything would do - I'm even considering getting my own hands dirty to reduce the labour liability

[Eric]

I feel for you mate, it's an easy thing to do.

I did the same once.
We shipped a game then found out that I'd omitted checking if online play worked (I'm a games tester by trade.)... it didn't...
I was Lead tester on that one, the game cost around £4million to make and a large section of it didn't work when it went to the shops....

Luckily I got let off with a warning because I was new at the time (quite a few years ago.)
My colleague (Senior tester) got demoted for it down to my level and lost his yearly bonus.

I felt pretty bad about that

[Welly]

Welly - are you a Quantity Surveyor?

I'm a HVAC Engineer by trade and also a Director, Estimator, Accountant, Q.S, Purchaser, Wages Clerk, Salesman, Administrator, the list goes on....occasionally I get some actual work done

Actually I've been doing this particular job now for 7 years and I remember distinctly the works of a very respected and experienced ex-collegue of mine who said "8 years is about the longest you should stay in a job" I agree with this as I do get complacent.

In my defence though this is a first for me and it's not entirely my fault really (well that's my story and I'm sticking with it)

[Welly]

Bloody hell - even the google ads are ganging up on me now

....Bankruptsy, bad debts, credit.....

[teamster1975]

Ouch Welly!
Can you make a claim on your company's indemnity insurance?

I'm getting all those bad debt ads too, it's not just you

[Welly]

The liability insurance is only there to protect against a claim against you when there's an accident, damage, or whatever.

It doesn't pay out for this kind of thing - otherwise contractors would never loose any money on jobs, they'd just claim on the insurance - quite damaging if you think about it.

[teamster1975]

I don't mean public liability, indemnity insurance protects you against being sued for making a cock-up. You'll laugh but it was a condition of one of my customers that I had this before they let me loose on their computer systems

[DaiRees]

I'm just buying some professional indemnity insurance for my company, but I reckon Welly's right. It'll only protect you if you fek up and someone sues you, doesn't cover stuff like quoting problems.

I've got to have it in case I give someone duff advice that costs them alot of money , then they'd sue me to recoup their losses

[Welly]

Sorry Teamy - no we don't have Professional Indemnity insurance since we are not responsible for designing or putting forward solutions. We only install to a given specification (covered by the designers own PI insurance) if we make a mistake or stray from the spec then it's our own fault but if we follow the spec and something's not right then the Designer is at fault (que huge grey area).

It's a bit like employing a designer to size up a radiator for your lounge - you get a plumber to fit it and the room is still cold. It would be the designers fault not the plumbers.

[mjb]

I made a mistake which disconnected nearly every user from a top-5 UK ISP one evening, (and kept them out for about 5 minutes while the equipment rebooted) and this was from the days of 0845 dialups where the primary revenue stream was from the call termination. It was about 9pm so less than 1/4 of the users bothered re-connecting. Oops.

[Welly]

I'm starting to feel better now

[ianst28]

not quite as bad as your f£"k up welly but one of the lads sold normal 80w90 gear oil for a customer's renault espace auto box
customer didn't realise that it was wrong untill after he had put the oil in and driven the car to the petrol station then all hell broke loose
the company line was that it was the customers responsability to ensure that the product purchased was correct and not ours therfore the customer got told not our fault not our problem cue trading standards they actually agreed with the company but said that our staff should have enough knowledge to ensure that the customer was given the correct stuff
meanwhile the poor customer (for once i was on his side not the companys) was stuck with a potentialy screwed autobox
i managed to persuade my boss to persuade head office to let us get it sorted as a guesture of goodwill on the understanding that it cost as little as possible
so the total cost to the company
1 crate of beer for my cousin who owns a garage
1 service kit for my cousins car and his wife's car too
5l of auto fluid
huge discount on a sat nav for my cousins trip to spain

lots of hiding stuff from head office