Forgive me for this sombre topic but. . .

Today I found out that I have made a significant mistake at work. I was responsible for formatting some documents and carrying out final checks before issuing for print. I was a little unfamiliar with a particular process used in the final formatting of the document and as such a significant error went unnoticed and has manifested itself in the completed work.

Obviously the client expects this to be fixed at no cost to them so at the end of the day the money, which isn’t a particularly small amount, will come out of my bosses pocket.

I’m not prone to making mistakes but I feel crap. There is no point in making excuses for it and I have apologised and accepted responsibility for the error.

Has anyone else had experience of this sort of thing? How did they deal with it?

Hold your hands up and apologise. Look to learn from it and ensure it does not happen again.

Everybody makes mistakes now and then

Yes, been there…

Learn from it, and demonstrate that you have learned. No-one can ask any more than that.

Rachel

Sounds like a training issue to me, I’d blame your boss for having you work with unfamiliar processes on expensive projects.

The fact that you’ve posted about it on here means that you obviously care. A lot of people would have laughed it off or made some bullshit excuse about how it wasn’t really their fault. You also accepted the blame and apologised.

By my simple logic you therefore seem like a decent person.

If you worked for me I’d probably ask you to help fix the systems and procedures so you can’t mess it up again, but if it was a genuine mistake, and you’ve not got a catalogue of similar mistakes behind you, we could chalk it up to experience.

Unless there’s lasting repercussions, learn from it, put it behind you and move on.

🙂

It could be worse. You could be Nick Leeson; the top man at Barclays, or the BoE

Always get someone else to check your final work if a cockup would be a big deal (especially if you’re not familiar with the process you’re undertaking).

___________
Pies.

Oh bum. Not a good feeling but like others say, fess up, learn and carry on.

I freelance (photo) and broke a studio’s flash bulb the other week. £200 quid to replace. Since then I have done a couple of jobs for nowt or very reduced rate. But when I did it I told them straight away, not the best reaction but better to be straight up.

Edit. They are still booking me into Aug tho so I don’t think there are hard feelings! Stuff happens.

Cougar sounds like he works in the public sector…….

Shit happens, identify what went wrong and fix that and move forward having learnt and improved something.

Years ago a mate of mine screwed up some promotional packaging design for a confectionary company that effectively breached Nintendo’s copyright (he got Mario slightly wrong on a Kit Kat wrapper or something like that). It cost the company he worked for a six figure sum and could only apologise for his mistake. He was devastated at the time but it hasn’t held him back at all and he’s now at the top of his trade.

Human error innit

Sounds like a training issue to me, I’d blame your boss for having you work with unfamiliar processes on expensive projects.

Self employed? If not you soon will be 😆

Seriously, I’d spend some time (away from work if possible) looking at how to stop this kind of error; tightening up process documentation, that kind of thing. This is much better than an apology.

What was this significant error that manifested itself in the finished article AAMOI?

Your boss will hopefully recognise this as being a one off aberration amongst many good pieces of work.

We’ve all made mistakes at work – and will continue to do so … biggest thing is own up (as you have done), which shows honesty/integrity and learn from it.

It’s not the mistakes you make as such, it’s the way you deal with them. If I eff up I admit it, and apologise just like you have. As others have said, you’ve done the right and decent thing so hopefully lessons will be learned and it won’t happen again. Trying to cover up or blame someone else is never good.

You’ll he fine. 🙂

Join a union and then sue the m*&%£$%”*(£rs!

😉

Hand up here.

We had a supplier contract where if we purchased above a threshold volume we got a rebate on the total volume bought. i tracked sales on a monthly basis to make sure we hit this threshold, and then for some stupid reason (actually, it was overwork and not paying enough attention to a simple task because mind was on more complex matters) we fell 4 tonnes short of the 1500 tonne threshold. as a consequence we paid full price on the 1496 tonnes for the year which cost us €149,600 more than if we’d spent an extra €32,000 on the other 4 tonnes. Hence i cost the company ca €120,000

I fessed up immediately and my boss and the finance director were equally embarassed as my calculation had been there in plain view on an email to them 4 weeks before the rebate period ended, and they hadn’t read it properly.

Seriously – assuming it doesn’t bankrupt the company, admit it, apologise and learn from it. If the company can’t deal with that then you’d be better off out anyway.

Today I found out that I have made a significant mistake at work. I was responsible for formatting some documents and carrying out final checks before issuing for print. I was a little unfamiliar with a particular process used in the final formatting of the document and as such a significant error went unnoticed and has manifested itself in the completed work.

So youre the one who wrote the contract for g4s, and said the taxpayer would pay whatever they wanted, and supply police offers free of charge along with army and all their toys.

You naughty mischeavous man.

All humans are fallible, it is well documented that they screw up occasionally. So, having a system in place which doesn’t take that into account is negligent.

You screwed up, it happens, to the best of us. Don’t let THAT screw up happen again (not that you were going to anyway). Perhaps implement (or suggest) some system of checking that mitigates against the effects of it happening again?

If it makes you feel any better. A few months into a new job I put through a print run of 150000 leaflets with a table formatted incorrectly. We were only a small firm and I felt sick when I told the MD.

He just put it down to experience.

FIFY and the business going forward now you have the knowledge to sort it:

If you worked for me I’d probably ask you to help fix the systems and procedures so it cant be you can’t mess it messed up again,

Honesty is always the best policy rather than trying to tuck it away…

An ex OC had us digging trenches in a WWII minefield.
I compare all of my mistakes to this. Serves me well.

Thanks for the supportive words of encouragement. It’s what I know to be right. It’s hard to make myself think that way at the moment but I’ll get back to it tomorrow and do my best to minimize the damage done.

I have to say my boss was good about it and tried to assure me that it was just one of those things but it’ll be on my mind for a while no doubt. I certainly won’t be making that mistake again.

Best foot forward and all that!

I certainly won’t be making that mistake again.

+1

Are you by any chance the “numbers” guy for G4S?

As a freelancer you can get Professional Indemnity insurance which covers cockups like that. Is the same thing available to companies?

Could be worse……someone at our place accidentally shutdown a major international 0nline banking system the other week…couldn’t even blame offshore, i fully expected to see a head on a spike outside the office a few days later.

If you have not messed up once in your life you never lived.

Once I quoted a price to a multinational chemical company only to realise that I undercut my senior colleague. I admitted it because it was approved by my line manager but it was too late because the company snapped up my price quote immediately and I just had to listen to her furious scolding … in front of everyone … 😯

A man who has never made a mistake
Has never made anything !

It might seem a little naff but If I’m feeling stressed, under pressure or on occasions lacking in a little confidence at work, or I’ve made a mistake – I remind myself of what Theodore Roosevelt once said concerning ‘The Man in the Arena’.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”.

HTH 😀

What PP said.

Them that does nowt make no mistakes …..

My brother lost a drill bit at work last year ….. It was the size of a car and made out if complex robot electronics and diamonds . He is still in work. The bit is some where east of Aberdeen if anyone finds it.

I’m not prone to making mistakes but I feel crap. There is no point in making excuses for it and I have apologised and accepted responsibility for the error.

By saying that the cost comes from the bosses pocket I guess you mean your boss is the owner, rather than your line manager. If you are running a business thats bigger than you are then you have to accept getting other people to do things for you, and that sometimes includes making mistakes for you.

I used to work for an art transport business – we handled millions of pounds worth of irreplaceable art on a daily basis and the boss at the time was a sole-trader, not ltd, so we ran the risk of loosing him his livelihood, home and everything if something went wrong. We were insured, but a major claim would make increase premiums to such an extent that the business could never operate again. But the real heart ache was dinging the vans – they were all his personal assets so denting or scratching one during the 600 miles of multi drop we’d do each day was like pranging his car. I wasn’t a common occurrence – I can only think of 3 or 4 occasions any of us damaged a van in the 3 years I worked there – but what made it worse was in 10 years the boss himself hadn’t had a single mishap.

If you collected a bit of damage A) you felt terrible B) you quietly hoped someone else would do something a bit worse soon to take the heat off you 🙂

Eventually the bosses accident-free run came to an end when he drove an 17 ton truck sloooooowly across the bonnet of someones car. It was like a massive weight being lifted off all our shoulders!

I forgot to upload our customer monthly payments to our collections company. Queue discussion with our md about the £50k shortfall. I felt sick and wanted to run off and hide.
Put my hands up and apologised. I still have my job….

My brother lost a drill bit at work last year ….. It was the size of a car and made out if complex robot electronics and diamonds . He is still in work. The bit is some where east of Aberdeen if anyone finds it.

has he tried down the back of the sofa? I found a whole, wrapped Fruit ‘n’ Nut down there – never bought a Fruit ‘n’ Nut in my life!

I made a couple of mistakes on a large job prior to taking (voluntary) redundancy from a managers position. One of them could potentially have cost the (dying) company around £70k. It was the straw that broke the camels back for me though stress-wise.

I fessed up, offered my resignation (refused) and got stuck into working it out – with the backing and support of the directors.

One issue had to be resolved, but the main one, after a lot of hard work was pinned on the client and I came out of it looking ok. I’d had enough by then though.

Oh, where’s that video of the removal men dropping a priceless piano?

Cougar sounds like he works in the public sector…….

+1

If this makes you feel any better:

One of my first jobs after Uni I worked as admin on a research project and was tasked with arranging a conference. I diligently booked the venue, arranged catering, learning materials, speakers etc.

Come the day, I had an awful, horrendous sinking feeling when in the passenger seat of the Directors car halfway up the M6 on the way to the conference when I realised that I hadn’t actually sent the invites out to the delegates. I briefly considered throwing myself out of the car on to the tarmac as I sped to my inevitable doom.

Cue a team of 7 people arriving at a venue after a 2.5hr journey with piping hot tea, coffee and pastries awaiting, a dressed conference room, handouts etc….and about a million silent, empty seats. Was slightly awkward.

The thing is, that isn’t even my biggest **** up by some way tbf.

Honestly it happens a lot more than you’d think. Only way to deal with it respectably is to own up there is a problem before client reports it, mention your unfamiliar with the process, then just get on with rectifying it if possible.

^^^ LOL @ Duggan. We’ve had events that were like that even when delegates were made aware and booked onto them!*

*Tip for all free/subsidised events, yeah the delegates should be getting places for free, but tie them in by putting in the deal that if they don’t show, you will be sending them an invoice for £50 or whatever. As we’ve had TWO events now where not enough delegates (although booked/confirmed 48hours beforehand) turned up for the funds to be released and we lost thousands upon thousands over it. Reason being, people think anything free (to them) = not worth going to.