Yesterday, I spent an incredibly tedious day in a meeting. I did chat to my new boss who starts on Monday though. I did already know her, but it was nice to catch up with her and be reminded what she was like. I then went back to my desk for about an hour to then be contacted by the big boss to say that someone in my team had made rather a big mistake while she was out on a visit. He had found this out from the place she had visited, but she phoned him later and explained herself what had happened.
I think she was absolutely mortified by it all and for her to have phoned the big boss showed that she knew she had messed up. He’s a nice bloke though and will have been pretty decent about it. She’s not in the office again until tomorrow so I will have a chat with her then. But as the big boss has already talked to her about it, it will be primarily to see if she is ok and so she knows I am aware what happened. I judge things on overall performance and she won’t face any further consequences of it – and I don’t think there is anything I could say that would make her feel any worse than she probably already does.
5 comments:
Sucks when that happens - making mistakes, that is. I am completely neurotic, and every time I mess up, I go on a completely neurotic OCD-ish panic spree, which leads to people telling me it's not a biggie, and it's not the end of the world.
My ex boss was fantastic like that - he always used to come up with a story where he (or someone else) had made an even bigger mistake. Am sure he was making it up as he went along!
WHHHHHAT? was it brain surgery? Oh, pls do be compassionate. sigh...
anothercookiecrumbles - it has now made me paranoid that I could make a similar mistake! I did try and think of examples of things where I have made worse mistakes, but couldn't think of one. She will be in the office today so I will try and think of some cheering things to say. I like your ex-boss!
Care - How did you know that I am a brain surgeon?
You are right that a bit of compassion is needed. She actually phoned yesterday, which was brave as she has never had to speak to me about something like this before so she didn't know how I would react.
I was very nice to her and she knows she isn't going to be in trouble with me.
I like your office's attitude. Afterall we all make mistakes.
Kahless - We do try and be fair where I work. I think some people would have got a harder time over it, but she is a good and reliable member of staff and clearly made a mistake - and is likely to take lots of steps never to do it again...
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