How to (almost) pull a save after major job screw-up
It’s been a stressful couple of weeks, and we now have proof that there are no functioning brain cells left in our house.
Exhibit A:
- My cell phone, for some reason, failed to notify me of a voicemail message I received in response to my recent application for a nice job. “Please call back,” someone asked, sometime in the last two weeks. Moreover, I had submitted a version of my resume with that application bearing a defunct email address on it.
- Two weeks. S.H.I.T. — but what are you going to do?
- When I finally discovered the message on my phone Sunday morning, I immediately sent an email AND left a phone message, e.g., my apologies & please know I’m still interested in the position.
- ((if you haven’t written me off already as the total twit I obviously am))
Basic Competence: what a damnably elusive beast.
Exhibit B:
- My husband is in charge of a unit that is having a ”mid-cycle review” beginning today, and so my husband made an additional effort to look respectable this morning (e.g., he shaved!)
- Unfortunately? He also discovered he’d forgotten to pick up the external reviewer at the airport yesterday evening.
- That’s bad. That’s really, REALLY bad. That’s like rear-ending your judge’s car, right before your trial.
It would serve both of us right to never work again. And if you want to glean any appropriate career lessons from this post, you should stop reading RIGHT NOW.
I sucked it up and called the organization back first thing this morning, ready to be told to go to hell.
I was offered a job interview later this week, instead.
And my husband? He apologized to the external reviewer, who fortunately is also a friend, and the reviewer readily forgave him. In fact, the man had been feeling a little incompetent himself as he’d forgotten to recharge his cell phone before the flight. Believing his dead phone had cost him making a successful connection at the airport, he hadn’t waited long before hailing a taxi and getting himself to the hotel.
Later tonight, they’re going out together. My husband is buying the beer.
Please don’t make career mistakes like these.
Ever.
But if But when you do screw up? Suck it up, get back in there, and go for the save. You were an idiot, and if the stakes are this high, you need to admit it. Can’t stand the idea of looking even more incompetent than you already are? The model here is not that of a snivelling, defensive groveller, but that of a mensch. Stand up and face your enormous mistake like a mensch. You may go down in flames, but do it anyway.
The world doesn’t need more perfect people, but it definitely needs more menschlichkeit.
Plus also, you may just pull a rabbit out of the hat, after all.
Any wisdom to add or rebuttals to record, dear readers?
