Intentionally or accidentally. Could be physical, interpersonal or conceptual/intangible.
I flooded a dormitory once, but I blame building maintenance for tricking me into it.
I wake up and head to the bathroom. Turn on the shower, nothing happens. Try the sink, still no water. No advance notice to the residents, but the water must have been shut off for some reason. I have a class to go to, so I turn everything “off”, get dressed, and leave. I’d forgotten that one of the sink knobs was threaded the opposite way from the standard convention, so that one was full on when the water was restored. Came back to the dorm after lunch and realized exactly what I’d done as soon as I entered the hallway and saw the maintenance man running his shop-vac outside my room. It overflowed the sink drain, and the bathroom floor drain, flowed through the dorm room, and was in the process of flooding the hallway.
Maintenance’s fault. Good answer
I was trying to move a job site, well seasoned porta-potty with a Bobcat. I should have strapped it to the forks……….
I married a bipolar woman. Those were 3 interesting years.
Yikes! I nearly married a gal with Borderline Personality Disorder. Absolutely insane. So glad my wife is normal.
That’s not an easy cross to bear
Both involving One of these
First time my manager was micromanaging me what buttons to press, so I did a malicious compliance and let him make me spill around 150kg of honey on the floor.
Second time I tried teaching a new lad how to work it, and he insisted that I shut up and leave him to it because he knows how to do it because hes not thick and it was pretty insulting that I thought he was that thick. Just stood back and casually watched him spill 2 tons of beef and blood all over the floor.
Neither one was properly my fault, but I deliberately did nothing to stop either one and laughed inside the whole way.

Is that a mixing drum? Where were you making with honey and beef?
The honey was for honey-roasted ham, and the beef was just frozen beef that got defrosted. Separate instances like.
I love those answers
As a young child I got up early and decided that I would cut my own hair as a gift to my parents.
The big problem was the small mirror in the kitchen was too high so I was jumping, snip, jump, snip, etc.
When complete I went up to wake them to show them their “gift”.
I still remember the look on my mother’s face. I couldn’t understand why she was horrified hahaha.
Edit: I just remembered another little detail… She took me to the hairdresser’s as soon as possible and when the lady asked if I’d cut my own hair I was like “how did you know???” Lol
Thats fantastic
Thanks. It’s a good little mischief story :) Great thread!
I went to a private university 20 years ago
Ooooooof thats a rough one bud
We did Work Experience at my school and I managed to get a place at a local radio station. Now, what’s the worst thing a work experience kid could do at a radio station specifically? If you answered “take the entire station off the air” then you’d be right.
Could be worse, you didn’t trigger a visit from the FCC!
Hellllll yeah
I drained an entire airplane’s fuel tank onto the hangar floor once. Wasn’t really ready to mop up 26 gallons of avgas.
Jesus thats a pricy mistake
I don’t get why someone downvoted you. You asked for big messes and this is one and you commented as much. The internet can be weird.
Probably someone that just doesn’t like me based off other posts. I could not care less about a few downvotes if the thread is going well.
Oh yeah it doesn’t matter at all. It’s just fascinating to see how petty people can be.
I love that shit
Oh gosh, the smell, the white lead splotches!
It might be why I’m like this.
I can’t remember exactly what happened, but my parents have a photo of me when I was little and my face very full of chocolate cream :)
I need to set the scene first: Me, about 12-13 years ago, on the surface looking like a respectable career and family man, pillar of the community…Behind the scenes slowly falling apart, trapped in an abusive marriage, a job I hated more and more each day, and told that I had to keep the happy face on for the sake of everyone else.
And one day I just fucking imploded. Left for work one morning like normal, halfway there I threw my phone out the window and decided I was done. I remember driving and driving, stopping a few times for food or just to get out of the car and meander…but I had no real direction, started to panic about the possibility of going back to hell or staying lost out here. I blacked out.
Apparently my car ran out of gas and I ditched it. I was told when they (they being the cops) found me I was several states away, couldn’t remember my name, was talking nonsense, and was covered in my own filth. I was involuntarily committed and when my wife tried to visit me I tried to attack her, told her I wanted her dead, that she better never come near me again. That was the last I ever saw of her or our kids. My dad had no idea how to handle this so he just decided to treat me like I was dead and sold off most of what I owned, and at the time I was too inside out to care. I was in and out of psych wards for the better part of three years.
So yeah, destroyed a family, a home, my career and reputation, and caused a ruckus in a sleepy little rural shit town. I did get better…much better, and I’m happier and more together than I’ve ever been, but that’s the boring part of the story.
Well fucking congrats on the recovery from that. I’m sure it was very difficult. Glad to hear you’re doing well now.
oh my word, it sounds like you’ve been through hell and back. I’m glad you made it out!
This might sound weird, but now I look at that psychotic break as something that had to happen so I could get where I am today. I’m more lucid, my thoughts are less chaotic, and I have better agency to deal with people and situations that I know are bad for me.
that makes sense, and it got you out of a bad situation. I don’t know what else to say other than I’m happy for where you’ve gotten to and here’s a hug 🤗
factory I worked at, I snapped a bearing rod on an injection machine.
it was made of steel, about 16 inches in diameter, about 18ft long, and cost around $1.5 million to replace.
complete accident, required a mandatory one week off (no pay) while they investigated if it was due to negligence or just routine wear and tear.
it took them six months to get a new one and cost the company close to $100 million on lost revenue on top of the cost of the part.
Mandatory week off with no pay. Bummer. Pretty sure that’s illegal in my country.
probably is if you live somewhere with workers rights and a pro “human” government.
I live in one where corporations get more rights and support than the homeless.
Did you keep your job after that?
I did. I was a good employee, worked hard, and was well liked. it was also found that there was a flaw in the rod that caused it to fail.
Once I spilled my trader Joe’s chicken Tikka masala all over my pants and while it wasn’t really a big mess in the long run it was still very disappointing in the moment
More like Tikka messala, am I right?
AwkwardStandupDinosaur.jpg
I accidentally set a model home on fire when I was 12 while trying to burn bugs with a magnifying glass. Not a toy model, but like the house they show buyers to get a sense of the layout of the house they would have built.
Sid Phillips, is that you?
My entire life after high school
Good answer
Same
I put my leg through the ceiling of a General’s office. He wasn’t the commander of the base mind you, he was the commander over several bases.
Someone had asked my team to repair one of his lights, and his office was in a WWII era building that had had a facelift. So most everything you could see was newer looking, but that did not apply to the base structure of the building, which included the area above the ceiling. Took a bad step and CRASH, huge mess.
Lucky on two points: He wasn’t in his office, and I was able to grab support so as to not fall all the way through.
His secretary heard the commotion and yelled, “oh gosh, are you ok?” Bless her, she was concerned for me. Friends/coworkers laughing their asses off in the ceiling with me.
“Not sure. I think I probably need CPR!” Couldn’t resist saying this. Friends still howling.
“Oh jeez, I’ll call the Fire Department”.
“No, not necessary. I’m fine now, thank you.”
I never did see the General, and they didn’t want me in his office to clean the mess.
So this was my biggest mess in a figurative sense due the circumstances. Which would have been orders of magnitude worse had the General been at his desk.
Thats a great story










