In the old days, there was a popular saying that a caravan moves at the speed of the slowest camel. And indeed, the strength of almost any thing or phenomenon is actually determined by the strength of its weakest link. In other words, you can have a great sports team, for example, but the failure of just one athlete can bring literally everything to naught.
The world knows many situations where someone's unfortunate mistake, oversight, or just stupidity actually ruined everything for everyone, and we have written about such stories more than once or twice. Well, it's time for another selection of such examples and tales brought to you by Bored Panda.
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Years ago an apartment complex I lived in had a laundromat, and the machines were free to residents. Well, one resident made copies of her key and the place after that was always packed with people that didn't live at the complex. When the owner saw the utilities go up and figured out what was going on, he installed a system where everyone had to pay for laundry.
In my building, we have cards issued by the company that actually owns the machine. You have to put money on the card to use the machines.
I'm sure anyone downwind from you could back up the accuracy of your statement.
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All tamper evident packaging stems from an unknown person slipping poisoned capsules into Tylenol bottles in the 80s. Before that nobody needed the jaws of life to open a box of crackers.
I remember that being all over the news and seeing tamper proof packaging and caplets for the first time.
It was because of the lawsuits. IMO that period marked the beginning of the breakdown of America. I.e. couldn’t even trust basic stuff.
Load More Replies...My favorite is child-proof tops on - arthritis medication - for my *hands.*
Load More Replies...THIS. So. much. this. Try to break into a package of cold medicine when you are sick and feverish and weak and achy. So frustrating!
Or open a bottle of cough syrup when your arthritis is flaring up. Great times. 🫤
Load More Replies...I needed my son to open a new ketchup bottle recently… the soft bottle wouldn’t allow enough leverage.
I've thought for a while that packaging companies are thinking "Let's see how hard we can make this to open before people just say screw it and stop buying it."
I was attending a concert in high school. Sum 41 and Simple Plan. Someone threw a full water bottle on stage and hit the lead singer of Simple Plan in the face. He had to leave to go get stitches. Concert over. Simple Plan had played all of 2 and a half songs....
That’s so rude, I took my little sister to see them when they were still new and had kiss chasey starting for them before they were famous , not my music but those boys were lovely
A few days ago, a thread appeared in the AskReddit community, whose author, user u/Big_Recover7977, asked netizens: "What was ruined for everyone by one person being an idiot?" Well, it's not that the culprits of all the problems in the stories told by the people who were among more than 4.4K comments were absolutely idiots...
Sometimes, it was just an unfortunate coincidence or something else. Be that as it may, over 4.3K upvotes is a good reason to make a list of the most interesting stories out there. So, please get comfortable and let's get to reading. Or, just scrolling, who knows.
I heard someone ate an apple once… and someone else took it way too personally.
Remote work. Only takes that one a****t to be running their kid to school, mowing the lawn, taking a nap, or "forgetting to charge their computer" in the middle of the work day to ruin it for everyone.
Actually, no. That only matters if you work set hours. I have worked from home for years for a small company and what mattered was whether you pulled your weight or not. I'd go to the supermarket in the middle of working day when all the kids were at school and most people were in work. Need to pick your other half up, no problem. Meant I sometimes worked to 8 or 9 in the evening, but as long as the work got done, we were entirely flexible.
200% agree! If your task is getting done on time, who cares when you do it?
Load More Replies...As long as your task has been completed, who cares when you do it? If you want to go see a movie and get lunch during the day, and are willing to stay up till 2 in the morning to finish your report, go for it. These micromanagers who want to dictate every minute of an employee's life need to back off. It's called work/life balance. Let them breathe and care for themselves and their families. As long as their work is done and on time, it's all good.
Works for us - at least in the SCRUM setting with agile development. Because the team checks themselves, and rely on each other. If one dev is not performing, it is immediately obvious.
The angry deaf person who got all UC Berkeley lectures removed from YouTube because there were no captions.
I hate the "I can't, so neither can you" selfish approach. Accommodate the disadvantaged, but don't take away from the majority to do it.
It's a valid complaint. But their response didn't have to be like that.
Load More Replies...And because " it was too much trouble and expense to caption them" despite them having volunteers to do it.
Berkeley is ground zero for the 'I'm offended! Everything has to be my way! I want! I want! It's not fair!' movement.
The deaf person didnt get the videos removed, they asked for accommodation, and berkley decided it wasnt worth the effort to help, so they removed it for everyone else
Load More Replies...I feel like Berkeley is more culpable here than the deaf person. They may have made a bigger deal of it than it needed to be - but that is when Berkeley shouldve stepped up and just added the captions! But no - they decided being lazy, doing nothing and ruining it for everyone was much much easier. That is some bull sh!t
Gotta be more to the story than just that, like the McDonald's coffee lady. They could've just added captions
Among the stories told by netizens, there are both local failures and legendary and well-known situations—for example, Adam, Eve, and the apple (a story I'm sure you all know).
Stories about how someone's stupid and unreasonable prank disrupted a concert of a popular band, and about how the creator of a viral casual game had a meltdown and simply deleted the app (on the other hand, in the latter case, the guy at least made a hell of a lot of money).
And, of course, there's a viral story about breakdancing at the Olympics, when the highly controversial performance of Australian athlete Rachel Gunn not only became one of the main memes of 2024 but also, perhaps, blocked the sport's further path to the Olympics. At least in 2028, in Los Angeles, breakdancing will no longer be on the competition program...
The kid who c*****d his head open at the swimming hole we hung out at most summer days. We told him not to dive from there, he did anyway, so they closed it off for everyone for ever!
I want to be the first one to complain about censoring c*****d, which is just as annoying as the censoring itself!
I'm failing to see any context where crack-ed is remotely dodgy. Are we censoring typos now? Crack-head?
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My old apartment complex's gym used to be open 24/7 until this one woman decided to bring her entire CrossFit group at 3 AM. They dropped weights blasted music and damaged equipment.
Twitter.
There are also many office stories when someone's outright stupidity either created a precedent for banning some good thing for the whole staff, or someone simply left a strong-smelling food in the shared refrigerator in the office kitchen.
This is also the 'eternal classic,' when one of your colleagues starts heating up fish in the microwave... Offices and workplaces are generally an almost inexhaustible source of such stories, aren't they?
The jerk at my work who expensed his family's dinner. Now they scrutinize every receipt, and they didn't lose their job. Thanks knucklehead.
Sorry, but that sounds a lot as if everyone was buying stuff on the company card, just not that extensive.
I agree. If you aren't charging things to the company that you shouldn't then you shouldn't care that they scrutinize every receipt.
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Olympic breakdancing.
It belongs as much as gymnastics or figure skating. They're all performing "sports".
Load More Replies...I'm just wondering why it's an Olympic sport now instead of 40 years ago when it was a thing.
Serious question. Is she why they cancelled it, or was there just not enough interest in it?
It's a recent changeup to the sports program. The host country gets to pick an optional event that's not otherwise part of the normal lineup. Breakdancing is really popular in France, so they picked that. Japan picked skateboarding, baseball/softball, karate, climbing, and surfing. 2028 LA will have cricket, flag football, lacrosse, and squash.
Load More Replies...For years, I would watch the local breakdancers (and Shabadoo; remember Rerun from "What's Happening!"?) and think, "Breakdancing should be in the Olympics." Thanks, Rachel Gunn, for ruining it for everyone else.
Used to work at a large office campus that had 4 wheeled scooters laying around so we could get from one side of the campus to the other quickly. We we're all adults and used them responsibly, They were big and heavy so its not like you could do tricks as if it was a razor scooter.
The d*****s that would also pour vodka into their coffee got too drunk and fell off one of the scooters and lost most of his front teeth, tried to sue the company, and left bad reviews on Glassdoor and LinkedIn after they were fired for being drunk on the job.
At least now, with missing front teeth, he looks exactly like the dumba$$ that he is. Tht moron is lucky he didnt get a DUI!!
In fact, particularly in countries with case law, almost any legislative ban or regulation is actually the result of someone's mistake or failure. Well, all instructions and regulations are in fact written while taking into account possible problems.
So if you, reading some manual, come across a paragraph that contains, as it seems to you, some self-evident thing—don't rush to laughter. Most likely, this paragraph is based on real—and, perhaps, quite sad—experiences.
Told a new colleague getting a company credit card don’t [misuse] it, and you won’t lose it. Colleague goes on first work trip and tries to expense a $100 mani / pedi. Management hears about it, and it leads to several years of draconian receipt review (“how can you prove to us these three coffees were all for team members?”). Stupid all around.
Is anyone else thinking of Michael Scott taking Jim to a "Hooters" lunch on "The Office"? He just got his card back. 😂
HELL YES. I'll have the chicken breast, hold the chicken.
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In middle school we had a planned field trip to the zoo to celebrate our last yr as middle schoolers. Well one idiot thought it would be a better idea to go out with a bang by starting a food fight in the cafeteria instead.
End of year school trip cancelled for everyone and everyone had to help clean the food fight mess. The cafeteria smelled terrible until the end of the school yr because janitors couldn’t clean food stuck in the high ceilings.
I was with it until the last sentence. Why in the world would they leave rotting food on the ceiling?? And allow children to continue eating there? Nope.
The communal office fridge at my last job. Someone decided to store their experimental kimchi there for three months.
Those are 2 words I never want to see together in the same sentence.
Load More Replies...I don't even wanna know what that smelled like after 3 months. Were the people wearing Hazmat suits called?
In Korea they make special refrigerators just for kimchi. Most people there make their own and know that standard fridges are either too cold or don't maintain the constant temperature needed.
To be authentic, kimchi must be buried in a clay pot for three months.
You can't make kimchi in a cold environment, right? Was that the experimental part?
After the fermentation starts, you put it in the fridge. I needs some time at room temperature to start the process quicker, when bubbles come up in the fridge with it. Also, kimchi 🤮
Load More Replies...In any case, this selection of almost three dozen diverse stories is definitely worth reading. Or, at least, quickly scrolling to the very end. And then, we'll be sincerely grateful to you if you add some tale from your own memory, or from your life experience, in the comments below. In the end, if you have something interesting to share with folks—why not do it, right?
Wearing shoes through airport security.
Varies with the country and airport. Lots of place do not make you remove them
When I did it while working in Mexico in 2014 the security guy laughed. The thing is, the shoe guy that started it all FAILED. It's all security theater anyway. The TSA fails to catch stuff in tests between 80-95% of the time.
Load More Replies...Yes, that's the whole point. Everything in this article is someone's fault.
Load More Replies...A terrorist is ion Houston. He decides to set off a bomb during a sold out baseball game in Chicago. What'll happen if he DRIVES to Chicago?
Which costs extra. Well, if you've got enough money you might be able to get the Supreme Court to grant you immunity from everything.
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One kid falls out a window, and all of a sudden every hotel window in my country can open just enough to remind you of the fresh air you arent getting.
It’s also keeping in mind people who book high rooms to commit s*****e - sue-side
Let me help. Taking your own life, self-destruction, ending it all, self-immolation, self-murder, self-slaughter, topping yourself, etc
Load More Replies...Also keeping the hotel from heating / cooling the outdoors when windows are left open and HVAC not turned off. Or burglars (lower floors) from getting into unattended rooms.
"one kid falls out a window". Iirc this was such a problem that people demanded child proof measures in high buildings
I don't mind windows that open only a little bit, they still let fresh air in. However, they're becoming rare because many hotels have no opening windows to begin with and others used to have opening windows but have now replaced them.
I was thinking the same. I don't know if I've ever been in a US hotel that had windows that open. Overseas I have though.
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Pokemon cards. Watching grown a*s man-boys fight each other in a parking lot for a box of cards.
As well as Tickle-Me-Elmo, Cabbage Patch dolls, and the Hungry Hungry Hippo games.
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Coupons. They're not what they used to be because of some people taking advantage of them to such a horrible amount.
And they have to add the line about the coupon being worth a quarter of a cent because some stores had to pay the amount on the coupon IF THE STORES WERE OUT OF THE ITEM.
No, it was because of trading stamps. The whole story: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/26838/why-are-coupons-worth-1100th-cent
Load More Replies...I'm assuming the poster is referring to extreme couponers. Ya know, those people who try to get $300 or more worth of groceries for literal pennies. I use coupons and at most, I've gotten maybe $5 off my grocery bill.
Halloween candy bowls that are left unattended. People can't just take 1 nowadays smh.
Yeah, kids didn't just start being greedy for candy
Load More Replies...We’re a “take a handful” house. I’ve already removed my chosen candy for the house, so the goal is an empty cauldron at the end of the night.
There needs to be a sign stating to only take one. Some Halloween houses give out more than one piece per person.
We leave bowls unattended and put about 3-4 pieces in Halloween party baggies. We have a sign to take 1 baggie please and indicated which kind of candies were in each bag, like chocolate, non-chocolate, low in sugar. I know it's not the same everywhere but we've been lucky.
Niche answer, but community volunteers in table top gaming. Many companies used to have people who would join official volunteer groups to promote their games at gaming cons - Privateer Press had Press Gangers, Magic the Gathering had their guys, etc. It helped generate interest in their games.
That doesn't happen any more, mainly because some j*****s decided to sue WotC years ago because they claimed that their volunteer work counted as a form of employment, and that they therefore should be backpaid benefits.
Overnight, many games companies shuttered their programmes to avoid similar law suits. .
I worked conventions in Houston for years (NanCon, TexiCon).. WotC (Wizards of the Coast) [for example] always sent an employee to demonstrate new games or any changes But since we'd all known each other for ages, they'd let us know months/weeks in advance if they needed any volunteers to help out (especially with things like Magic the Gathering). They'd usually get supplies to volunteers early for new games, or bring whatever they needed to the Con. Most volunteers were thrilled with anything.
Apparently the j*****s didn't know the difference between being an employee and being a volunteer. Volunteers typically don't get paid.
Because they're hardcore into these games and they get very cool swag, including unique items not available to the public. Also full boxes of new releases etc. Note: this may have changed since we closed our gamestore in 2011 lol
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McDonald's stopped giving out *real* Happy Meal toys and switched to paper ones. Thanks, some random kid who choked in 1999.
They switched to some paper in 2021 to be more green. Recently they announced they are bringing back limited plastic - https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/mcdonalds-makes-major-change-happy-34877188 The last recall I can find for choking hazards was 2014 Hello Kitty whistles - https://www.econotimes.com/McDonalds-Most-Notable-Recalls-Chicken-McNuggets-Happy-Meals-and-More-Shocking-Cases-1687194
That's why we can't have Kinder Eggs cause of some law that toys can't be inside food.
my kids have gotten some mario and sonic plastic toys, and even some jurassic park toys. they're not entirely gone, but probably more in rotation.
Same could be said for Cracker Jack. Used to have actual toys in the box. Now it's just some paper "let's see who's face it is when you fold it right."
We could not use the hallway lockers in school because idiot neighbor brought a gun just because. (But you could use the gym lockers.)
They took away breakroom lockers at work because idiot worker stored years-expired food and junk in it. (But you could use the new "desk day lockers")
....The actual idiots were the ones in charge making those decisions.
Its always the idiots making the decisions. Like the Trump administration.
No, the actual idiot was the one who brought a gun in. Let me guess which country this happened in?
The land of the free, where people can carry guns everywhere like bubble gum or Kleenex
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The national paper had an annual literary quiz contest for years with questions so obscure that if you looked them up back then in the early days of google you’d have to virus scan your computer after. I was one of the winners twice, winning merch. The last time they ran it I teamed up with two other contests winners and we shared the questions and our guesses and answers on a bulletin board site. Little did we know that you could google search within the site where we posted them all (again, early days of google). They ended up with a flood of entries cribbed from our collected answers. A few months later they retired the contest.
They retired the contest because of too many entries??? Too many same entries???
Too many winners, I'm guessing. And/or they found out about the bulletin board just as all the other winners had too and realized the age of newspaper printed trivia quizzes had come to an end.
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Lowes stopped doing military discounts because a few started buying lumber in bulk and selling it among other stuff.
Well it is back if it did go away, can even use it online if you registered correctly. Only cannot use it on discounted items, as they are already discounted. After tax saves me 2%.
My local Lowes has signs saying that you can't get a military discount at the self check out registers so I assume they offer it at human run registers. Now of course they usually only have the self check out open so I don't know how that works out as I'm not military.
When I was a kid, pokemon was banned from tv in my country because some idiot kid decided he was pidgeotto and jumped out of a window.
When I was a kid George Reeves made commercials telling kids that "they could NOT fly like Superman" and not to try. Moe Howard made commercials telling kids not to eye poke people the way the Three Stooges did
Giving a new meaning to "Gotta catch them all" . (Sorry, Dark, I know.)
The first thing that popped into my head was the creator of Flappy Bird having a breakdown and deleting the app.
The creator of the game was shocked at how addictive the game became and then deleted it from the app store.
UK motorways originally had no speed limit, until a team from AC motors decided to use one to test their 185mph Cobra they were preparing for Le Mans.
The 70mph limit was introduced the next year.
That is not the reason. Speed limits were trialed as a way of reducing accidents on the motorways. The trials took place over a period of around three years, accident rates dropped and so the 70mph limit on motorways was made law in 1967.
It was three years later that the 70mph limit was applied full time, full story here https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motorsport/day-jack-sears-hit-185mph-m1-motorway
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Whoever leaked the cutscenes for Smash Brothers single player. As a result, Nintendo just cut the entire thing out.
Someone revealed little tidbits of the story before the release of the game, so they just removed those parts.
Load More Replies...Haven't bought anything smash bros related since. It's such a lazy excuse to cut content.
Worked in logistics with a bunch of men. They expected us women to clean up after them in the break room every day aka. Wash the dishes or put them in the dish washer. We females just didn't use the break room. The manager lost it over the pile up of dishes and warned the men that anything left in the sink was going straight in the bin. Over a week there was suddenly no communal dishes left, just a teaspoon on a chain for coffee. Men came into office asking for a cup or plate from us girls who had our own stashes from home. Suffer losers.
Similar happened in my year 12 common room, but it was everyone except about 3 or 4 of us that were leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Then one day during homeroom my friend and I had permission from the coordinator to throw them out if front of everyone.
Load More Replies...A place I used to work at used to allow us to surf the net when things were slow, but then blocked all websites except CNN, Fox News, and Weather.com because some moron got caught looking at, ahem, inappropriate material.
A bully in my school grabbed other kid’s swimming goggles, stretched them and let go. Poor kid went blind in one eye. So instead of expelling the bully from school and be done with it, goggles were banned during swimming class for everyone. This was municipal swimming pool shared by all schools in town, it was chlorinated on extreme level. Entire class would have stingy red raw eyes for rest of the day.
But you know how dangerous swim goggles are! /s of course!
Load More Replies...Many years ago I worked at a place where the employees worked 8:00am to 4:00 pm. We got a half hour lunch, but we didn't clock out for it, so we worked 7-1/2 hours and got paid for 8. Then someone got fired (for cause) and complained to the state labor board that she hadn't been given a lunch break, which was not true, but since we didn't clock out for lunch they couldn't prove it. After that we clocked out for lunch, and worked until 4:30.
My brother came to visit me at Uni for my 21st birthday. A group of us went out, but he got really hammered really quickly, so I ended up stopping drinking and took care of him. He ended up a crying mess. Woke up the next morning, not remembering anything, thinking it was a great night.
Worked in logistics with a bunch of men. They expected us women to clean up after them in the break room every day aka. Wash the dishes or put them in the dish washer. We females just didn't use the break room. The manager lost it over the pile up of dishes and warned the men that anything left in the sink was going straight in the bin. Over a week there was suddenly no communal dishes left, just a teaspoon on a chain for coffee. Men came into office asking for a cup or plate from us girls who had our own stashes from home. Suffer losers.
Similar happened in my year 12 common room, but it was everyone except about 3 or 4 of us that were leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Then one day during homeroom my friend and I had permission from the coordinator to throw them out if front of everyone.
Load More Replies...A place I used to work at used to allow us to surf the net when things were slow, but then blocked all websites except CNN, Fox News, and Weather.com because some moron got caught looking at, ahem, inappropriate material.
A bully in my school grabbed other kid’s swimming goggles, stretched them and let go. Poor kid went blind in one eye. So instead of expelling the bully from school and be done with it, goggles were banned during swimming class for everyone. This was municipal swimming pool shared by all schools in town, it was chlorinated on extreme level. Entire class would have stingy red raw eyes for rest of the day.
But you know how dangerous swim goggles are! /s of course!
Load More Replies...Many years ago I worked at a place where the employees worked 8:00am to 4:00 pm. We got a half hour lunch, but we didn't clock out for it, so we worked 7-1/2 hours and got paid for 8. Then someone got fired (for cause) and complained to the state labor board that she hadn't been given a lunch break, which was not true, but since we didn't clock out for lunch they couldn't prove it. After that we clocked out for lunch, and worked until 4:30.
My brother came to visit me at Uni for my 21st birthday. A group of us went out, but he got really hammered really quickly, so I ended up stopping drinking and took care of him. He ended up a crying mess. Woke up the next morning, not remembering anything, thinking it was a great night.
