Today I really screwed up at my job. I apparently did not look meticulously enough at the schedule as I should have and had no idea that I was scheduled to work tonight. Because I didn't know this I switched shifts with another co-worker and ended up unknowingly double booking myself for the night. I went in early and put in some extra work to do some repairs that would benefit us for the night even though we will be done in 24 hours. I had another co-worker covering for me while I played in my hockey game, and when I finished I opened my phone up to a missed call and a text from my boss. I had no idea why he would be calling me. I then opened up his text and found out that I was supposed to be at a different facility than where I was.
To give you a little background knowledge, we often run (as we are right now 3 sports). People who come into my position are promoted from being a referee of any of our 3 sport tracks. Often supervisors work the majority of their shifts in the sport that they were promoted from. As this week is the final week and most crucial part of playoffs, I thought there was no possibility I was even scheduled for another sport. This mistake has been made by other co-workers of mine and I actually totally covered and solved myself this same situation in the fall for someone else, which fortunately for him and unfortunately for me my boss doesn't know about. He was able to find someone to go out to the field
I take a lot of pride in the work I do, that is why I blog about it so often. I really feel that what we do at Intramurals and organizationally at Campus Rec really does have an impact on a lot of students' college experience. So I was extremely upset at myself for making this big of a mistake especially at a crucial time for both sports that were involved. My boss asked if we could meet tomorrow to talk and I have thought over multiple times what I'm going to have to say. While this isn't a crisis situation, I actually learned some tools through our crisis leadership presentation that I can relate to this. A lot of our in class scenarios began with us fully taking ownership for the crisis. Fortunately, I don't even have to lie that this is entirely my fault, because it is. But at this point all I can really do is take ownership for it and make sure it doesn't happen again. But I am worried I will have to walk a very fine line, depending on my repercussions, between defending myself and the extensive number of great things I have done this year and just laying down and taking whatever my boss decides to throw at me. I have done a lot of things for my group this year and stepped up often when others wouldn't. I feel that my work speaks for itself. I just hope that my boss knows how hard I work in my position, so that I don't have to do a lot of defending, and that one mistake doesn't discredit how much work I have put in for the last 12 months.
Admittedly I am also pretty curious to see how my boss handles this. I made a truly genuine mistake, but I am both up for a promotion and in the running for Supervisor of the Year which will be awarded Friday. He does have a reputation for being lenient and a very small record of punishing people. But I still did make a stupid mistake. I am, lets not say excited, but eager to examine his leadership techniques. So will he know that I genuinely slipped up and recognize how much hard work I have put in for 12 months? Or will one night taint everything that I've done up to this point? Stay tuned I guess.
It definitely is important to own up to our mistakes when we make them. This semester has been so busy, it's no wonder you double booked yourself! Hopefully everything went well when you met with your boss!
ReplyDeleteAccepting your mistake is very important because it shows that you own your mistake, rather than trying to make excuses for it or trying to put the blame on somebody else. Being honest is the best thing you can do in a situation like this with your boss. I hope everything worked out for you!
ReplyDeleteHey Shayna! (If you haven't guessed, I'm reading your entire portfolio right now.)
ReplyDeleteI hope that this incident went over okay with your boss. I think it's so cool that you used some of the lessons from the crisis leadership chapter. I think that as people, we all know generally how to react when we've made a mistake: own up to it, be honest, show remorse, accept consequences, etc. It's always so much harder to do in person than in practice. I hope that it all worked out for you. One thing that I've started to ask myself when I make mistakes and start guilt-tripping is "how would I react if my friend did this?" or "how would I react if my coworker did this?" It helps me put my actions into perspective and be a little kinder to myself. I also think that your boss could have benefited from watching Caroline and Regan's presentation on giving effective performance evaluations. I would have been scared to death going into your meeting without knowing what your boss was going to say beforehand! I'm glad you're past the situation now! I hope it worked itself out.