🫣 F*ck-Up Friday Pt. II: How to Fail Professionally
In case you were feeling too competent today. A collection of workplace disasters I wish I could take back.
Happy Friday!
Hope you all enjoyed your public holiday - while we in capitalistic Berlin were busy boosting the GDP. 🙃
And here comes the first fuck-up of this edition:
Yesterday, I double-texted way too many people, desperately waiting for a reply…
Only to realize: I live in the state with the least public holidays - and chose a job that doesn’t believe in them anyway. So big sorry to everyone finding some passive aggressive e-mails of mine in their inbox today!
However, since the last edition of Fuck-Up Friday, I’ve been collecting even more cringe material. Big thanks to friends and family, who instantly started sending me their own horror stories - and no thanks to my memory for suddenly remembering all the things I thought I’d blocked out for good.
So welcome to Part II. Let's get into it. 🧃
(Bonus at the bottom: some fresh AI panic, backed by brain scans)
1.
For an event, we needed 4,500 snack bars and 100 bags of popcorn. I may have flipped a few zeros and ended up ordering 450 bars and 1,000 bags of popcorn. Not only was the ratio completely wrong, but 1,000 popcorn bags turned into a full-blown logistics issue - the warehouse couldn’t even take them.
→ Guys, if you ever want to make me happy: I love Knalle Berlin popcorn! Literally the best way to cheer me up.
2.
I had a call with our big boss to talk about a tricky case. I asked what the best legal solution would be.
He said: “Let’s just refund the €122,000 - quick and dirty. That should be fine, right?”
And I thought: okay, sounds clear. Let’s go.But then my actual boss came in. It was NOT FINE.
She’s been arguing for two weeks that the refund isn’t even allowed by law…
→ Just because the CEO said it it doesn’t mean it was right - never forget that. Confidence is not knowledge.
3.
Had a business meeting with a client - and two hours later, I accidentally messaged them on iMessage: "Wish we had more time just the two of us." Well. That message was obviously meant for someone else.
→ Not too sure if a “wrong person 😅” text can recover that. Oops.
4.
I was working remotely from a very warm, very non-German place - but our (very traditional) clients weren’t supposed to know.
While waiting for my boss to join the call, I went full small talk, complaining about the grey skies in Berlin. Until an ambulance drove by and the client casually said:
"Funny… ambulances don’t sound like that in Germany."
→ For me, being left alone with a client you’ve never met - with no idea if or when your boss is joining - is amongst the top 10 most uncomfortable business feeling.
5.
I was planning an event for several hundred people. Everything was ready: venue booked, catering confirmed, run of show prepped.
Except… I never actually sent out the invite. I only realized days before. No one literally knew it was happening.
→ Probably the most exclusive event you’ve ever (not) hosted.
6.
We were prepping for a big online launch, and I got a little too creative while building the landing pages.
Instead of using boring placeholder text like “Lorem Ipsum,” I added something sassier just for fun. We went live - and only the 20th customer let us know that after placing an order, they were greeted by my masterpiece of sarcasm.
→ Could’ve been worse - they only got roasted after paying.
7.
I was prepping all the documents for a big board meeting, including our financial model. My boss started screen-sharing the Excel sheet… and that’s when I noticed I’d messed up the formula. Our MRR showed up as 10x higher than it actually was. I started sweating. But no one was actually questioning it??
→ You sit there, wondering if you're a genius, a fraud, or both.
(Hot Take: boards mostly show up to clap anyway.)
8.
I was at an event when someone came up to me, all smiles, talking to me like we were old friends, clearly knew me.
The problem? I had no idea who she was. So I smiled, nodded, and faked an entire conversation. Only later did I realize: we had met just two weeks earlier at a mentorship program… where I apparently trauma-dumped her my entire life.
→ Apparently I’m not the only one whose brain is a sieve when it comes to people.
If anyone has tips for remembering names and faces - save me from myself please.
9.
I cancelled a client meeting last minute, saying I wasn’t feeling well.
Truth was: I just wasn’t in the mood.Fast forward three hours - I walk into my regular cycling class.
Guess who’s already on the bike next to mine?
→ We love a speedy recovery. We hate Berlin Mitte for making it this small.
Big thanks to everyone who contributed to this edition.
Clearly, I’m not the only one accidentally building a personal archive of professional chaos. And that makes me feel less of a failure - and maybe you too!
If you’ve got a horror story that deserves its moment - send it my way.
Part III is already in the making. 😉
Have a calm, client-free weekend!
—Constanze
FOLLOW UP FROM LAST EDITION
Over the last week I’ve gotten quite a few emails where people clearly copy-pasted ChatGPT outputs directly into their messages - including the little comments underneath like “here’s a tighter version” or “let me know if you want a more casual tone.”
(At least delete the stage directions, people. 😅)
So this feels like the perfect moment to share:
Remember the last edition where we asked whether AI is making us a bit… dumber?
Well, there’s new data. 🚨
A fresh MIT study just dropped, and it's wild:
- Brain scans of ChatGPT users showed a drop in neural connections from 79 to 42 - within just four months.
- When AI users had to write without assistance, they performed worse than people who never used AI at all.
- 8 out of 10 couldn't even recall what they wrote minutes earlier.
“Brain connectivity systematically scaled down with the amount of external support.”
So the trade-off is clear: short-term speed vs. long-term brain strength.
Are we already past the smartest we’ll ever be? Or are we just evolving in a different direction?
Curious what you think. Is this just the beginning - or the beginning of the end? 👀 Bonus points if you write it yourself. 😉
Truly one of my favorite editions ever, so full of humor and real-life stories that could happen to literally anyone in the working world. It reminded me that sometimes it’s better to laugh things off and move on rather than overthinking every little mistake.
My personal highlight, and what I related to the most, was that classic moment when someone comes up to you, starts chatting, and you have no idea where you know them from. So you just smile, go with the small talk, and spend the entire conversation secretly trying to figure it out.
Like so many people, I’m honestly terrible with names. But faces? I remember them, and not just the face itself, but the experience or emotion I associate with that person. That’s how I store people in my memory. And yet, somehow, people always seem to remember me. Maybe I have a certain presence or look that sticks? I really don’t know.
What I do know is: the people I remember have definitely left some kind of impression on me. Whether it was a positive energy or, let’s say, an “interesting” one, something about them made me pay attention. So no, I wouldn’t say I don’t listen to people. Quite the opposite. I find so many things interesting and worth remembering.
But if anyone out there can explain what exactly goes on in my brain when it just randomly forgets some people’s existence like they were never there, please tell me. I’d love to understand it.