I am participating in 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes 2019 (all of my submissions can be found here).
Today’s prompt is: AVOID
I am developing a whole little sub-genre here on my blog of posts about “I made an error at work today and am coming to terms that we are all human.” Errors are unavoidable, I know. And I would tell any other individual (mostly) to give themselves grace, but it sure is challenging to do the same for ourselves.
Obviously, there are myriad other choices I could have made for the prompt “avoid,” but this situation is fresh in my mind and they always say “write what you know,” don’t they?
When I discovered the problem, which wasn’t a typo and wasn’t a death knell, I had a choice — let it pass and see if the client noticed (because a reader wouldn’t have known) — or be proactive and tell the client right away.
I told the client right away (which is what I always do), with no small amount of self-recrimination. When I want to be self-deprecating among my co-workers (which, let’s admit, is often because that’s how I am), I usually say something along the lines of “What do I know? I’m a home ec major.” It is not lost on me that in a time of severe cutbacks in the publishing world, I have been given an opportunity to do something that others do so well and would probably want the opportunity to try.
I also worked for 20 years in a quasi-governmental space, so it’s a whole different world working at a for-profit venture.
I’m going to go with the idea that being upfront when something didn’t go right is better for the bottom line than avoiding discussions about what needs to change.
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
THIS: “ I’m going to go with the idea that being upfront when something didn’t go right is better for the bottom line than avoiding discussions about what needs to change.”
That’s the goal, for sure, Tara.
Thanks.