A Mistake that Could Render you Jobless
So guys, how do you deal with mistakes? Any mistake: — a misspelled word on an important memo. A terrible miss at work that will cost the client a few cents or the company a few thousand. A misconfiguration that stalls the system to a halt. Just any plunder that sends shivers down your spine and keeps you up all night thinking — Was that me being shitty like that? Ooh, Lawd!
Well, mistakes happen- every minute. No. Every second and millisecond. Mistakes that cause people to die, that drain investment portfolios dry, that strip honorable men and women off their power and their esteemed places at the high table. Seemingly, the problem is not the mistake in itself but the way people respond to it. Talk of Elon Musk’s comments on bitcoin that have sunk the e-currencies value by 10% in a matter of days. The investment that millions of enthusiasts globally have mined and curated like a fragile baby for it to get to where it is — only for a noble man’s comments. Was it not prudent if such a man would just shut up — only if.
This past week I made a terrible mistake at work. The kind of mistake your superior will frown at the entire day irrespective of how many rights you thrive at while trying to redeem your image. The kind that will send your colleagues (especially that silly friend-cum-enemy that derives passion out of your torment) bursting out in laughter the entire day, wondering how you could possibly afford to miss such a routine. Though the mistake was nothing to do with money. Surprisingly, there is this unwritten rule in the corporate world that mistakes to do with money are never forgivable — even if you offer a pound of flesh in return. Never.
You see our kind of work is extremely time-sensitive and procedural. You miss a step that takes a second to execute and you are in for what I can call the “real digging” — spending hours on calls and emails trying to correct the little silliness that has now ballooned into a calamity waiting to explode at the manager’s desk.
On procedures and routine, do you guys remember the story of Moses and the Israelites and how he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land after navigating the 40-year desert journey? That is the kind of situation I got myself in. And don’t forget the inconvenience the client has to endure plus their wasted time and opportunity, plus those of their client and their clients-clients.
Undoubtedly, for such a job, the stakes are insanely high and so are the expectations. It’s like a premium-paid traveler tasked with delivering an illegal vaccine or drug from the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan to Washington DC via Abakan (Russia), Aberdeen (UK), and Boston(US), obviously with a limited no-security check timeframe at every airport — only to miss a connecting flight due to carelessness. Imagine the risks involved, the resources deployed to make the journey a success, and the unfathomable thought that the client will never get their precious jab as a result of someone else mistake (and not only a normal mistake but dereliction).
Now, what do you do in such a case? Of course today I woke up with a sore head trying to figure out how I could afford to make such plunder. Not that I didn’t solve it. No. I did. Of course with dear empathies and going out of the way to make sure the client was satisfied. However, the mistake would serve as a learning point, one that is deeply ingrained in your skills and senses it won’t allow such a thing to ever happen again. Bruce Lee — the revered Chinese American martial artist, instructor, and philosopher whilst fist-fury-ing the mistakes out of his life noted mistakes are forgivable if we dare to admit, and most importantly, learn and improve from them.
Reporting to work tomorrow, I hope the balloon never exploded — Happy Holidays.
