Bank Clerk $293 Million Error Blamed on 'Sleepiness,' Costs Supervisor Her Job
A German bank clerk made a huge mistake while nodding off at work, and the mistake could have cost the bank nearly $293 million. The teller's supervisor was fired, but she sued the company and was told that she should be given her job back.
According to court testimony in the case, the unnamed teller fell asleep while processing a funds-transfer request. He accidentally kept his finger on the number 2 on his keyboard, which changed the amount of the request from 62.40 euros to 222 million euros, CNN reported.
Thankfully a routine internal system check caught the error, but not before the request was processed by a colleague who was found negligible for the mistake. The colleague failed to spot the error and only spent seconds examining hundreds of payments; she was promptly fired for her inefficiency.
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The woman then took her case to the regional labor court in Frankfurt, and was told that she should have her job back. The judge said that while the mistake was serious, she should have been given a warning before being fired. It is unknown if she did get her job back or was even offered the position.
It's not the first time a bank has made a critical error that could have cost it millions of dollars. Commerzbank, another German institution, accidentally deposited 200 million euros in a customer's account after he sold stock worth 20,000 euros. The bank was able to reclaim its 200 million euros, but it came with a hefty loss of 12,000 euros in interest.
Closer to home, two guards at JFK International Airport were caught sleeping on the job. Stephen Jackson, a former manager for the security agency that employs the guards, said it's common for employees to fall asleep on the job.
"It was a regular occurrence finding the guards sleeping," Jackson told the New York Post. He reportedly supervised between 58 and 65 guards during an eight-hour shift and would routinely catch six of those guards asleep while on duty.
