#work mistakes

Damage Control at Work

Some of my worst moments at work were when I pissed somebody off. Fortunately, I can only remember a handful of times when someone was really angry with me. And even more fortunately, I learned early on in my career how to do damage control. I took a 12 week Dale Carnegie course that changed my life for the better in many ways, and learning to recover when someone became angry with me at work is…

Most of us will make a mistake or two at least a handful of times in our professional lives. For many of us, it is easy to pick up the pieces, keep moving and to recover from the error with many of our co-workers quickly forgetting about the blunder. However, every now and then, there are few cases in which workers begin to create a reputation that fosters a negative attitude in the office. Avoid these recipes for disaster and the three sure-fire ways to ruin your reputation at work:

1. Take credit for someone else’s work:

Taking credit for something that you don’t deserve is a sure fire way to invite scandal into the office. In order to avoid earning the reputation as someone who steals the credit, analyze the successes of the business. Consider the role that you played, and whether or not it is even necessary for you to stake claim to the overall outcome. Experts suggest that you avoid taking credit in the first place. Let the work speak for itself and avoid irritating your co-workers or manager.

2. Cover up and error:

People have been fired over smaller errors. Regardless of the mistake that you make, the severity of the situation and who was involved, covering up a problem at work will not end well. Instead, fess up to the error right away. The sooner you come clean about the mistake you made, the sooner everyone can begin to deal with the problem and remedy the situation. Allowing the mistake to stay hidden or purposefully covering it up will simply create a ticking time bomb that is guaranteed to go off, and ruin your reputation.

3. Let your tasks slide routinely

In work setting, no one is really expecting you get every single project done exactly on time. Things come up, plans change and sometimes we get swamped at work. But when the problem is frequent enough that you begin to earn a reputation for not completing tasks, then it may be time to address the situation. If you miss the mark on a few tasks, work extra hard to compensate on the next project and to regain your positive reputation. People are more likely to be forgiving if you finish your work early and do everything in your power to fix you previous errors.

Me: "No, I would have heard something about this. Let me check." (I check.) "Huh, so it does. Well as long as the library website isn't wrong -"

New coworker: "The website is wrong too."

Me: (getting up to stick my head in my boss's office) "Hey according to this document and the library website we're closed for a week in late December. Just wanted to notify you of our impending vacation."

My boss: *grumble grumble grumble stupid admin no of course we're not closed grumble grumble*

The rest of us: *cackle gleefully*