On purpose or on accident?

Yes, I'm sure OP dropped her pearl earring on purpose, you know, because she obviously wanted to get fired!

You don't know if it was pearl it could have been a cheap earring

"By" accident. Not "on" accident. *proudly waves Grammar Police badge*

Please see OP's name.

Next time, when it comes to things like that, honesty really is the best policy. If it was truly an accident, an employer will not go to harsh on you. If they do, then maybe you shouldn't be working for them in the first place. By lying, you put yourself at a huge disadvantage now. The potential for consequences has exponentially increased since the machine is essential and you never reported it, even while they tried to fix it. This is a long way of saying that for things of the may magnitude, the truth can go a long way.

Sorry for the grammatical errors. It's pretty late ^^

As well, it could have been a minor issue and already fixed if they knew what had caused it. Rather than letting multiple servicemen puzzle over it and possibly cause more damage to the machine - costing the company time and money for payment of the servicemen and loss of profit from whatever the machine's job was.

are.. are you a time traveller? How did you know Johannes Vermeer? And more importantly what machine is this expensive and essential machine? I'm kinda curious. &&Why didn't you say something when you first dropped the earring? Is the reason it broke have anything to do with it running after the earring fell in? Because then maybe if you said something immediately the servicemen would be there fishing out an earring so the machine could be used rather than fixing it? I'm a little uncomfortable tbh as it seems like you are currently being paid to cost your employers money....

someone explain how this has to do with time travel?

Vermeer painted The Girl With The Pearl Earring.

I'd say you should go to your boss and tell him that you may know why the machine is broke. Just say that you've realized that there's one of your earrings missing. He won't be too hard.

I like this suggestion! Which would have worked if OP had done it the next day. How is she going to explain it took her a week to notice she didn't take off an earring? (Unless this is totally possible. I don't wear them, but unless it is a clip on, I imagine taking them off bears some notice)

#38 I wear earrings that are not clip on, and I've had them fall out.

Sad..

You know, Van Gogh had a way of dealing with stress that I think would really help disqualify you as a suspect if the earring is ever found…

So you saw that documentary, too? I like the part where he wrapped said piece of meat in some paper and gifted it to a cleaning lady of his favourite brothel.

You do realize that "cleaning lady" is a euphemism there? :)

This joke is extremely under appreciated. You deserve way more likes

Definitely come clean. It's better than being caught after the fact.

Buy another set of them, wear both and say it isnt yours.

Aren't you supposed to avoid wearing jewelry around heavy machinery?

Only dangly jewelry. Earrings usually aren't inherently dangerous around machinery other than MRI machines.

It really more depends on the company how that is handled. For example my company doesn't allow earrings or any jewelry at all. I would imagine if OP's was like that they would have been seen and OP would have been told to remove them.

Gotta say YDI, you know what the problem is and can help them get it fixed and business back up and running but you choose not to