so what's the BIGGEST mistake you've ever made...

[andrea843]

And how did you own up to it? what were the results of your mistake, and what steps did you take to correct it?



Enquiring minds want to know! dish! (worked related please, first person who says,, my ex-husband gets fifty lashes with a wet web page!)

[jadegrniiz]

Well, gosh... Andrea...



Dontcha know I'm just perrrrrfect in the workplace, and my biggest mistake IS my ex husband?  Sheesh.....



<giggle>





Seriously though, I can't think of any particular mistake that was BIG enough to even mention.  I don't have any major regrets because without those experiences, I wouldn't be where I am today.  

[andrea843]

Okay so no one wants to climb out on the limb, so please, allow ME to get the ball rolling as to mistakes.



When I was a younger Admin I was given a great deal of responsibility in a small Florida firm. I was given the responsiblity because I had everyone bamboozled into believing I knew exactly what I was doing ALL the time.  (now this skill has served me well in later years, but in the early admin years it was mostly bluff and bravado).



A corporate officer came to me one day and asked me to take their existing FoxPro data base and convert it to this new "access" program, could I do it?



"Can do! No doubt about it!" I replied and proceeded to completly corrupt their existing database somehow, (to this day I don't know how and I am now REALLY the Access Diva I pretended to be then).  AND to make matters worse, there was no backup. :shudder: why? Because I didnt have enough sense to make one and this was before the days when everyone backed up everything routinely and took IT considerations really seriously, so I had no where to turn.



what did I do? well for starters, I put off telling them about it for nearly two weeks, until there simply was no other choice, then I sucked it up went in and told the biggest lie that I've ever told in my life,,, that my computer had gone down in the middle of working on the new program and I couldnt seem to get anything back.  (we were famous for lightening strikes and intermittant power failures so it sounded plausible to me.)



Im not sure to this day if my boss ever figured out that it was my ineptitude that caused an error that eventually cost the company thousands as data had to be reentered by hand, but you can bet your bottom dollar I never EVER took on another assignment without being very VERY sure that I could carry it out.



The moral of the story? never lie about skills, Acquire them instead!



 

[execsec]

I can laugh about this now.... Back when I was a word processing typist and typed millions and millions of pages of engineering documents I had to type something about public participation however I typed PUBIC participation and the spell check didn't catch it (hey, it was spelled correctly!).  Anyway, we did catch it before it went out and all got a good laugh about it (it was going to a city council meeting can you imagine what they would have thought?).

[countrigal]

My biggest mistake was when I took a memo and put it in "proper" format.  My mistake was that instead of listening to the other admins who were all telling me different *right* formats I did it in the format that I had been taught was right at my last company.  Even went so far as to re-do memos, policies and letters to my *right* format instead of going to the ones who should know and getting the correct format to use.  And I made it worse when someone challenged my formatting by saying "Well, this is the way they told me to do it" without specifying that this "they" wasn't even in this company.  And I had argued this point with the Associate Director's secretary, who is the goddess of formating for this company.



What happened?  She caught me, because she had worked for the same company I had just come from and recognized the formatting (not all government facilities use the same format, but each branch puts it's own signature on their formatting).  She took me aside, asked me point blank who had told me that was proper formating for this company, at which time I confessed the truth.  She then became my mentor and my friend and I learned a lot from her over the years.  Most importantly, never try to bullsh*t the lead Admins and to ask for proper formating, forms and such instead of pushing through with what I'm familiar with.



Nothing major as far as mistakes go, but I've always tried to be somewhat conservative in my job.  I gladly accept new tasks but always own up to not knowing a lot (or anything as they case may be) about the requirements while at the same time sharing my willingness and desire to have the chance to learn.  This hasn't ever steered me wrong and has allowed me to progress in a field where I keep being told progression is impossible.

[phoenix55]

This is a whopper of a mistake and I regret it to this day.



I work for a government agency who drug tests their "clients."  I was newly promoted to supervisor and the person I supervised who tracked the results of these drug tests and distributed the results to the parties who needed to be informed was out on vacation.  Since I hadn't had her cross train anybody to perform this very important duty, I did it myself (I never had her cross train me either, but I thought--hey, hard can this be?).  Well, unfortunately, I wasn't as diligent about checking those anonymous numbers the tests are submitted under and I matched up a client with the wrong number.  The poor guy kept protesting the results and spent several hundred dollars out of his own pocket to prove he didn't do drugs.  When this particular staff member came back, she checked the work that was done while she was out, caught the mistake right away and corrected the error, but not before this client had already paid out of pocket for more testing.



What I learned from this fiasco:  the importance of cross-training my staff and the humiliating fact that just because I'm the supervisor, doesn't mean I'm the expert!!!  Quite a lesson, but I'm probably lucky my boss forgave me.  Thank goodness I had learned years before:  when you make a mistake, own up to it and apologize ASAP.

 

[chris68]

I mispelled warehouse, and spell check didn't catch it.  Fortunately I had a fellow Secretary read it as it was her document, and she caught it before it went out.  Laughingly she said, are you trying to tell me somethin.  I won't print the word, I promise.  Just use your imagination...The best little....in Texas ring a bell?  I was so embarrased.



Chris68

[Katie G]

Back when I worked for a warehouse, late on a Friday, a customer (we sold through distributors only) called looking for a particular part.  I looked it up on our inventory screen and it read "0 in stock".  The guy said, "OK, thanks anyway." and hung up.  



The next thing I know, we're getting threatened with a lawsuit for "unfair business practices" or some such.  It turns out that the distributor A's customer was desperate for this part and called distributor B in the same area who called the warehouse, got my boss, and was told that yes, we had one in stock.  They placed the order and it shipped.  



Turns out that when I looked and saw the "0" I missed a notation on the screen that said that this part was made up of about 10 smaller parts which were listed on a secondary screen.  (My product knowledge was still in it's fledgling mode.) Sure enough, we had the parts to make one up.  When Distributor A found out about it, he thought we were giving "preferential treatment" to Distributor B and threatened a lawsuit.  



Distributor A was kind of a hothead so we ended up getting the sales representative, and the Regional and National Sales Managers involved to calm him down.  I ended up writing and calling with a personal apology for the mistake (only the right thing to do, of course, but he milked it for all the humiliation it was worth!)  He never would speak to me on the phone again--insisted on talking to the boss.



Lessons?  Two of them actually:  1 -- NEVER let your concentration slide even for a minute, even 45 mintues after "quitting time" on a Friday!  If I hadn't missed the notation on the screen this all could have been avoided.  2 -- KNOW your company's business/product as well as you can!  Had my product knowledge been better, I'd have known off the top of my head to look for the list of parts.  But I hadn't been aggressive enough in getting myself trained.



 

[mlm668]

I made my biggest mistake ever just a few weeks back.  I was doing payroll as a back up for a Asst. Controller who was on vacation.  Now its my responsibility every week, but that week was the second time I'd done it in a year.  When I was check our auto deposit register, I found out that I had paid one of our equipment operations a net of over $21,000.  I'm sure he would have loved me, but the boss would have definately been upset.  Seems that I went into habit mode from routine entrie I usually make every week and entered the G/L code for his rate.   Thank God I caught it before the auto deposit went out. I guess my guardian angel was really watching me that day because I couldn't get the encryption program to work.



Hard to believe that after that, the Controller still has enough faith in me to let me have that job weekly now.   Of course I quadruple check it all before I finish.   B)





 

[solargal]

A small mistake compared to some of the previous posts but several years ago I typed a letter to a customer and instead of typing factory-trained representatives I typed factory-strained!  My boss thought it was so funny he still has a copy of that letter to this day. Needless to say, spellcheck didn't pick up on it either.    

[spitfire78]

This only happened a few months ago. One of our technicians called and asked me to place an order for "test packs like we ordered before."  Usually I don't accept an order over the phone.  I have developed forms that I require be completed and given to me.  I did this to avoid the very situation that happened - but I didn't follow my own rule!  Anyway, I looked back at the last order I did for that technician and ordered $1,500 worth of test packs.  When they arrived, it turns out they were the wrong test packs.  They wanted ones like we had ordered several months ago, not the ones they had last ordered.  So, I called the vendor to return the items.  Guess what - it has a limited expiration time and cannot be returned!  To make it worse, bossy in that department decided to proclaim that she had never authorized the purchase.  Now, of course, the technician didn't take it upon herself to order it.  She had verbal authorization from bossy.  Because nothing was in writing, bossy claimed she knew nothing about it.  In the end, there was nothing to do about it.  We kept the test packs.  I ordered another $1,500 of the correct test packs and bossy had to pay for both out of her budget. Technician and I have since put our foot down and insist that bossy sign off on all orders from now on. This covers us on two bases:  1) it prevents me from ordering the wrong thing, 2) bossy can never claim she didn't authorize it because her signature is on it.  



I have to say, when this was happening I thought it was the worst thing that could happen and I felt really horrible about.  My supervisor kept telling me not to worry - there are far worse mistakes.  After reading some of the other posts, I feel a lot better about it!

[peacelily54]

Geesh!  I still can't believe I did this but.....here goes.  Quite a few years ago, I was an admin for a Roman Catholic Church which also happened to be my parish.  Just as I was walking out the door on Friday of my first week, one of the priests ran after me (he looked like Wimpy) and said he'd forgotten to tell me that one of my duties was to type the petitions for Sunday Mass.  In this particular part of the Mass, you ask the congregation to pray for the sick, dying, deceased, etc.  The priest and I both were running late and as he fed me the information, I typed.  Finally, almost an hour later, I was headed out the door once again.  It had been a very long week.  



On Sunday, my daughter (5 yrs. old at that time) and I are sitting in church and they begin to read the petitions.  I was thinking I was pretty cool beans that I had a part in this service.  My daughter thought so too.  Then came the bomb!  As they read the prayers for the deceased, I had typed in the widow's name instead of the deceased!  She was sitting 3 pews in front of me and very much alive!  I scooted down in my pew and was sooooooo embarrassed.  I think the hair on the back of her head stood straight up!  



Took me awhile to live that one down!  

 

[bethalize]

200 that I had given him...

 

[lioness70]

My last admin job.  Enough said.  Even if hubby tells you "we need the money," DON'T go back to a field that you don't really like but had a lot of experience in.  You're only going to make yourself, as well as the people who hired you, miserable.  Not fair to everyone involved.

[lioness70]

I'm staying at home, raising baby #1, waiting for baby #2, and I just sent out an application to join a professional organization in the career field I want to go into.



Being an Admin was just not my cup of tea, and it's far better to leave the field to people who want to be in it.  If you don't want to be where you are, you're only dragging down the morale of everyone around you.