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
Read More: 29 Netizens Share Stories Of How One Idiot Ruined A Good Thing For Absolutely Everyone
#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
#4
I heard someone ate an apple once… and someone else took it way too personally.
Image credits: Echo-X9
#5
The angry deaf person who got all UC Berkeley lectures removed from YouTube because there were no captions.
Image credits: this-aint-Lisp
#6
Twitter.
Image credits: Arkvoodle42
#7
Olympic breakdancing.
Image credits: renb8
#8
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
#9
The communal office fridge at my last job. Someone decided to store their experimental kimchi there for three months.
Image credits: TeasinggCutie
#10
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
#11
Wearing shoes through airport security.
Image credits: OldJames47
#12
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
#13
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
#14
Halloween candy bowls that are left unattended. People can’t just take 1 nowadays smh.
Image credits: SleepinGTiger5
#15
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
#16
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
#17
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
#18
Lowes stopped doing military discounts because a few started buying lumber in bulk and selling it among other stuff.
Image credits: smorosi
#19
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
#20
First thing that popped into my head was the creator of flappy bird having a breakdown and deleting the app.
Image credits: jimmybaseball11
#21
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
#22
Whoever leaked the cutscenes for Smash Brothers single player. As a result, Nintendo just cut the entire thing out.
Read More: These 29 Historical Facts Will Mess With Your Perception Of Time
Image credits: SKK329