You know that sinking moment of dread when you realize halfway to work that you left your straightener on? The increasing panic that eventually convinces you that you'll be coming home to find that all your belonging are now a large (okay, moderately sized) pile of soot?
Well, that's the exact feeling of realizing you made a mistake at work.
I know because I felt it just a few weeks ago, when I realized I had made a not quite catastrophic but damningly conspicuous mistake. The type of error that wouldn't bankrupt a company, but also wasn't something my boss would ignore.
You see, as hard as I try to not make a mistake, I'm neither Jesus nor Beyonce—so it eventually had to happen. People make mistakes. But the good news is that my mistake didn't cost me my job. In fact, I escaped the situation without much "soot" at all.
Now, I can't tell you exactly how to handle your specific situation when you make a mistake, because every situation is different. But I can tell you what I did when I realized I had made an error, and what helped keep me and my job soot-free.
1. I didn't hide it.
The thing about hiding stuff is that it usually come out one way or another. (I'm looking at you, Lance Armstrong.) So while I didn't want to tell my boss about the error, doing so let me control exactly how he found out about the mistake. Sure, it meant that I was the bearer of bad news, but at least this way he wouldn’t be getting a sky-is-falling version of events from a panicking co-worker.
2. I explained what happened without excuses.
When I told my boss about the mistake, I explained what had happened and briefly explained how. In this situation, part of the reason for the mistake was that I had assumed something it turns out I couldn’t always assume.
However, as hard as it was, I didn't try putting my blame on anyone else.
Although I would like to say that it was my morally responsible inner-Nicole acting, in reality, I know how I feel when someone gives me an excuse for something that is clearly his or her fault: I just get more annoyed. And annoying my boss further is exactly what I didn't want to do.
3. I showed that I understood the significance.
Although I'm sure it wouldn't have helped if I ran panicked and screaming into my boss's office with my hands in the air, I also wanted to make sure he understood that I took the mistake seriously. This isn't a first date; you don't want to seem too blasé, or your boss might think she needs to start looking for an employee who actually cares.
4. I made clear what I'd do to prevent it from happening again.
In this case, preventing this mistake from happening again was simple—I’d never again assume the thing I had wrongly assumed before. Like an over-pinned Pinterest quote, I had learned from my mistake (and I made a point to let my boss know).
This isn't a first date; you don't want to seem too blasé, or your boss might think she needs to start looking for an employee who actually cares
5. I offered a solution.
This is the big one: Before I told my boss about the mistake, I came up with an option for solving the problem my mistake had made. That way, when I told him about the error, I was able to follow up it up immediately with a "fix."
Although it didn't make the mistake go away, it did soften the blow because by the time he had processed the error, he already had at least one solution. Offering a solution also showed him that I care about my job, and that when I make a mistake, I don't just shrug my shoulders and go to lunch.
6. I apologized.
I debated this one briefly because apologies in the workplace can be tricky: some people see apologies as a sign of weakness, and sometimes people just apologize the wrong way.
But in the end, I decided to think like Miss Manners and say I was sorry. The apology was brief and to the point—I didn't lead with an excuse or a pointed finger—but also sincere. After all, I did really mean it.
Luckily for me, this decision turned out to be the right one: my boss told me he appreciated the apology, and the situation was essentially dropped. We carried on with my proposed solution without any additional damage, and certainly not a large pile of soot.
Of course, not all stories of work-related errors have this happy of an ending, so I mentally needed to be prepared for the worst. And although I can't say this situation particularly helped my career, it did let me practice handling uncomfortable situations without totally breaking down (which I'm sure will come in handy again and again in the future).
Because like I said, I'm not Beyonce; the straightener is going to be left on from time to time. But I’ll be fine as long as I learn how to handle it without the house burning down.
Have you ever made a mistake at work? What did you do about it?
