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.
More info: Reddit
#1
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.
Image credits: SisterSparechange
#2
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.
Image credits: ermghoti
#3
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....
Image credits: berfthegryphon
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.
#4
I heard someone ate an apple once… and someone else took it way too personally.
Image credits: Echo-X9
#5
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!
Image credits: Nancyis
#6
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.
Image credits: anon
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...
#7
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.
Image credits: Busty--Bunny0
#8
The angry deaf person who got all UC Berkeley lectures removed from YouTube because there were no captions.
Image credits: this-aint-Lisp
#9
Twitter.
Image credits: Arkvoodle42
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?
#10
Olympic breakdancing.
Image credits: renb8
#11
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.
Image credits: fatguywithaplan
#12
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.
Image credits: smr312
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.
#13
The communal office fridge at my last job. Someone decided to store their experimental kimchi there for three months.
Image credits: TeasinggCutie
#14
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.
Image credits: Soggy_Willingness_65
#15
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.
Image credits: Any-Competition-4458
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?
#16
Wearing shoes through airport security.
Image credits: OldJames47
#17
Pokemon cards. Watching grown a*s man-boys fight each other in a parking lot for a box of cards.
Image credits: Emotional-Hair-1607
#18
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.
Image credits: TheLeechMan
#19
Coupons. They're not what they used to be because of some people taking advantage of them to such a horrible amount.
Image credits: werat22
#20
Halloween candy bowls that are left unattended. People can't just take 1 nowadays smh.
Image credits: SleepinGTiger5
#21
First thing that popped into my head was the creator of flappy bird having a breakdown and deleting the app.
Image credits: jimmybaseball11
#22
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.
Image credits: tangcameo
#23
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. .
Image credits: Rickus
#24
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.
Image credits: Whirlwindofjunk
#25
McDonald's stopped giving out *real* Happy Meal toys and switched to paper ones. Thanks, some random kid who choked in 1999.
Image credits: Terrible_Ask_9531
#26
Lowes stopped doing military discounts because a few started buying lumber in bulk and selling it among other stuff.
Image credits: smorosi
#27
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.
Image credits: bagdf
#28
Whoever leaked the cutscenes for Smash Brothers single player. As a result, Nintendo just cut the entire thing out.
Image credits: SKK329
#29
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.
Image credits: TheOriginalSmileyMan
