What do you see as the cardinal sin in your vocation or profession?

What really grinds my gears:
Using too many subdivisions when using a spline as a base object for a surface. Dude, you do not need 30 subdivs. 10 is enoug for most things.
Or, for example, when you have a set of furniture (sofa plus armchair and coffee table), you turn the entire group into a vrayproxy instead of each piece of furniture separately. Now I have to turn the entire thing into a poly object to separate the pieces, defeating the whole purpose of the proxy.

Leave the wine in a hot car.

I was a lab tech, and the worst thing I can think of is turning out test results that are wrong – whether it’s one person’s results being released as someone else’s, or the machine had a failure which compromised the results, or you didn’t run controls when you got an off-the-wall result.

We entered results into an 800-bed hospital-wide computer. In hematology, you’re looking into a microscope and without actually looking at a standard keyboard, you’re typing in the number of each type of blood cell you see on the slide. Just like any time you type, if your fingers aren’t centered on the correct ‘home base’ keys, you’re typing gibberish.

One time I wasn’t centered on the correct keys, which caused me to type in the wrong cells on a 5 year old in the ER. To make matters worse, I didn’t look at the results before hitting the ‘enter’ key – the ultimate in errors. Within 10 minutes we got a call from an ER doc saying he wanted to double check the results before he performed a bone marrow on this little boy. I’ll never forget how relieved I was that he called to check before doing it. I was able to figure out what I’d done wrong (besides not checking before clicking ‘enter’!) and apologized profusely for my mistake. He was just relieved that the kid didn’t have cancer. ~~whew!~~

Librarians who are shushers and nay-sayers but luckily that old stereotype is dying out mainly.

@smudges I feel your terror. Clinical lab tech work is a very stressful and generally thankless profession. I was a general Med Tech for 38 years with many horror stories to tell (retried in 2015). Worked most sections of the clinical lab (hematology, chemistry, microbiology and blood bank). I never really felt comfortable to trust completely any analyzer. I got into trouble a few times because I used up too much calibration and control reagents. I’d run a couple controls every hour or each critical result and recalibrate and ran more controls each time I loaded a new reagent or did any maintenance on the analyzers..

One time I got 3 critical chemistry results on 3 different patient specimens in a row. My first thought was, “That’s impossible!”. But all controls were in and rerunning the specimens with the critical results generated the same critical results.

Thank you for all you did.
Stay strong!

Lying.

Same, lying. Possibly ignoring safety procedures.

I was a software engineer for many years, and I’m now a data analyst. There are plenty of things that one can do wrong in these professions. But the worst thing you can do is: be an asshole. There is nothing more destructive to a team/workplace than the cancerous presence of someone who is a jerk and who feeds off drama. Be a nice, forgiving, generous coworker first. The job-specific skills are honestly secondary.

I wish cops would get that message.

The profession: CPA. The transgression: being greedy to collect fees, thus getting work by lying about skills and experience.

If a health care professional – for example, a dentist or OB/GYN – finds a suspicious lump or skin anomaly, that person won’t say, “Sure, I can handle cancer. On your way out, make an appointment for next week.” Of course that won’t happen! The individual will refer the patient to a qualified oncologist or dermatologist. The same is true for any treatment beyond the person’s training and expertise.

Many accountants agree to engagements that they have no ability to do. They think they can “wing it” and get the job done.

So many times, I’ve annoyed clients by telling them that I don’t do certain types of work. They don’t like the idea of hiring someone else, so they think I should step in and help them. I explain that hiring incompetency isn’t a good thing, but that my honesty is.

So many more times, I’ve cleaned up messes caused by unskilled people, serious violations of federal and state tax law. Such people collected high fees to do bad work with worse consequences.

Same as @hat. If someone cannit communicate effectively or professionally, I disengage and leave to upper management.
Literally happened yesterday and is very toxic.

That would be cheating, or plagiarism, in the academic world. I think it’s always in the back of the mind of any academic. Especially since it can occur unintentionally (which doesn’t make it any less sinful). As we’ve seen in recent sensational media spectacles, it will be your undoing, if your undoing is called for some day.

I work in satellite manufacturing. Cardinal sin is someone ignoring procedures that have proven to work. A good percentage of our rework/repairs are due to someone taking a shortcut.

For me, this references a thread from earlier this week from @Reddeerguy.

My career was working on and around securities trading floors: options exchanges and stock exchanges. The motto of the Securities Trader Association is dictum meum pactum,
“my word is my bond”.

Trades on an exchange floor are done verbally. If one agrees to buy or sell at a price, but then reneges, it is an egregious violation. If repeated, people will not trade with you anymore.

For the attorneys, it’s not attending a hearing. For paralegals, it’s not making sure the attorney attends the hearing. :/

I do online communications at the world headquarters of a twelve-step addiction recovery program. We have to be careful to protect the anonymity of our members, and to maintain the standards of the program, which includes avoiding the appearance of endorsing brand names, religions, political beliefs, medical products and procedures, and basically anything to do with the conventional world outside of the program itself.

What’s fantastic about working in this milieu, however, is that because the program members I answer to are very far along in their spiritual and emotional recovery, I can own up to any mistake and it is guaranteed to be forgiven and forgotten.

Aerospace falsifying documents.

I was involved with three FAA / Government audits for altered or false documents in 25 years.

I answered a little glibly before but I would say the cardinal sins of librarians would be not helping patrons get access to the information they seek and/or going along with book bannings.

I worked in libraries many years ago and virtually the only cardinal sin was being disrespectful towards a reader. Being respectful to the books was a given and might lead to a major sin if one was returned to the wrong place on the shelves.

PS I remember reading somewhere that when texts were copied out by hand they were copied exactly as they were and no attempt should be made to correct them.

@gondwanalon I’d run a couple controls every hour or each critical result and recalibrate and ran more controls each time I loaded a new reagent or did any maintenance on the analyzers.

I’m surprised they would say anything – that was standard procedure in the places I worked. Over the years, I, too, was a generalist and worked most areas – and all shifts at one time or another. I miss the work as well as the good friends I made. You get close when there’s just 7 of you on the night shift.

Kudos to you on your work as well!!

@janbb Going along with book bannings?

Yeah. What’s your question about that? That would be a cardinal sin for a profession that believes in the freedom to read.

@Blackwater_Park Oh I see. The wording of my response was a little awkward. But I meant that going along with book bannings and not fighting them would be a cardinal sin.

Auto accidents, drinking on the job, going into a manhole without proper ventilation, sexual abuse, and not showing up for work were all super bad, but I only remember two that would instantly end your career: First, downgrading electronics equipment to a previous version. If it’s on Version 12.4, you better not switch it to 12.2
I never heard of anyone who did that.
Second, bringing a gun to work. I know many who did, and a few who got caught. All got fired.

@janbb Ah, I feel all is right with the world again.

@filmfann I have done that on several occasions. “You opened what ports on the new firmware??!!” We had one person accidentally bring a gun. They were disciplined but ultimately were too important to continuity to be fired.

Telling your boos that you know more than they do. Typically in Technology you do. Just don’t tell them that.

general Med Tech for 38 years with many horror stories to tell (retried in 2015)

I hope you were acquited!!

Six months ago I was hired as a hospital transporter. My biggest worry is not recognizing a heart attack or stroke.

And I have experienced both. I had a heart attack 4 years ago, and my mother had a stroke in my arms before that.

I move patients to and fro, working with everyone from victims of sniffling colds to severely maimed emergency-room admissions to dying and dead folks. It’s a radically new field for me. I have had one patient die under my care, and I believe I performed well, but nagging doubts remain.

But the job is mostly stress-free. Nurses, aides, and doctors handle all the hard work. My role with the patients is mostly “friendly uncle”. I chat, tell jokes, listen to their stories, and make them feel comfortable and safe. It’s a great job.

@Call_Me_Jay You’re the guy who soothes our nerves. Thank you!

Doing child protective work, the biggest screw up would be if you missed something or had an error in judgement and the parent (s) killed the kid, or their neglect killed the kid, and it would be the caseworker fault. The caseworker would be put on trial for what happened, when did they do the safety assessment, what did they see, when did they verify the parent’s attendance with drug treatment, mental health treatment, etc., when were the kids last seen, how did they appear, what was the condition of the house, etc. Knowing that your screw up would make you be held responsible for some kids death on your caseload is a huge responsibility. It would be a thought that every caseworker brings home with them at night and on weekends, the feeling of, “did I cover all the bases?”