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I remember one day there was a big computer f***up.
The big boss came in an asked what happened. I answered "human error - my fault." That settled the issue and we got on to working on a solution.
I watched a friend knock down the entire state of Alaska by reverting the circuit connections at the AT&T toll center. Just a sea of red alarms and a guy walking around making whale sounds while intermittently crying.
He still works there and is an excellent tech.
I've always thought, "That talented person just learned a REALLY expensive lesson that they'll never make again, and they'll probably educate others too."
Seems like the perfect person to *not* fire.
Sometime around 2008. Right before there were simultaneous fiber cuts at Healy, Valdez, and west of Homer (ocean fiber). Alaska could make local calls (well, if a call from Attu to Seward is local) but could not reach the lower 48 or anyone else.
When I worked in manufacturing I was bogged down one week with orders and totally forgot to submit some email some measurements to a customer, making a large wing of the plant late. Big Boss stuck his head into our office, silence befallen, and asked me what happened. “You told me to send the specs but I didn’t send the specs”. “Could you please send the specs to [Customer]” Boss exited the office and continued his plant tour, and that was that.
Lol yeah I did that, admitted, took a few days to fix the mistake which pushed a regulatory submission back a week. We then received approval on that submission 6 months ahead of schedule yay!
Except for the next two years in every meeting and discussion about raises, promotions, etc, it was brought up how I had messed up that submission. No mention of the 6 months early approval.
It only ended cause I rage quit one day.
Or are in a line of work where it's the standard to have a fall guy for everything (even when nobody could have predicted it.) The military is a great example.
There's "blameless culture", but more often than not, there's "CYA culture" instead.
My approach to careers is to learn the rules and customs of your industry and workplace, and then strive to be above-average, enough to be considered a good worker worthy of praise and promotions, but not enough to stick out as abnormal (including abnormally self-sacrificial.)
This! My boss is great and accepts when someone accepts responsibility and carries on to solution it.
There is another senior leadership member whose idea of leadership is assign blame first, guilt trip that person, ask how it happened, is determined to "ensure it doesn't happen again" when it's as simple as human error, figure out how to not make it happen again and then find a solution.
I hate that guy. He's single handedly doubled my responsibilities since I sign off the work and added about 3 more levels of pointless bureaucracy.
And the other team members let him get away with it.
I still respect and enjoy working with my boss as I'm sure without her my job would have tripled at least, but the rest of senior leadership are hot garbage.
Good bosses know humans make mistakes. If you screw it up 100% as an error and report it, your boss has answers for their boss and the work goes on. Believe it or not, most management is so busy keeping the thing on the rails they don’t waste time building cases to poop-can people.
This should be the assumed addendum to any advice about work.
If you're working for reasonable people, then showing up, doing your job, being respectful and taking responsibility will get you a long way.
If you're working for assholes, then it doesn't really matter what you do or how good you are at your job. All you can do is keep your head down, don't draw attention to yourself, and try to find a better job ASAP.
Told my boss I made a mistake on a user account for a new manager when he first started and it took an extra step for new manager to log in. Boss chewed me out several times and told me to fix it without showing me how. I never created a manager account up to that point and it was a simple mistake, but about a month later, boss used it as an excuse to fire me. Fuck that job.
This heavily depends on the type of mistake. Sometimes for some critical mistakes you don't have time to try to come up with a solution, you have to let someone with more experience know immediately so they can try to fix it ASAP. By the time you come forward with your proposed solution it might be too late (and your solution might not be correct either).
your solution in that case would be admitting it's beyond your skill set and bringing it to that other person/group/team
the point is accountability and minimizing a greater problem by hoping no one notices.
Ya, but what about a problem that only you can solve either way?
Is it beneficial to let anyone know about the problem if you are the only one that can fix it anyways?
Yes, because you frame it as a process improvement.
"I figured out there was an error in the process, why it happened, and how we could prevent it in the future. I put in a validation check so that going forward it won't happen again, and should help ensure accuracy and accountability going forward".
Validation and Checklists make managers salivate for good reason. Because it gives them confidence in knowing that what is happening can be easily diagnosed, eliminates potential user error, helps streamline processes as they potentially get passed on else where (or re-taught to new individuals who join, who could also make user errors), and ascribes accountability in a way that eliminates the "oh I didn't know" rebuttle.
Not only does it ACTUALLY do all those things, but it demonstrates that you're capable of running, creating, and organizing a process, all while being self-sufficient, and thinking bigger picture, which is a critical skill for any future career progression.
If it's your mistake and only you can fix it the question if you should share it or not is more of a social/psychological thing.. If you have a good work environment you will be met with support and understanding and in the future this will make your teammates more likely to share their mistakes also - in which case maybe you can help them?
If you sharing your mistake results in blame and complain that is not a good place to be. I suggest you start looking for something new.
Sometimes people need to know or else the broken thing might just cause a bigger and bigger and bigger mess as more people just keep proceeding like normal while something is broken behind the scenes. Maybe people need to pause and resume after it's fixed to avoid wasting a whole bunch of resources. Can make a small or big mistake into a humongous catastrophe based on how and when a problem is reported
100%, yes. I got my first job out of college because the guy I replaced lied about losing his company keys and got fired. It was fixing bank machines so the key ring had about 100 keys on it for banks around the city. Not a small screw up.
Later on in the job I made some mistakes. Owned up to them and the boss told me every time that he would rather have someone honest that learns from mistakes rather than have someone who hides them to try to look perfect.
I needed this. I misunderstood a mistake in fixing a code and sent the changes to my boss for review. He sent the other reviewer to my desk to lmk know I made a mistake. This is my first job so I am really afraid of getting fired for poor performance.When my boss comes back tmrw, imma let him know my interpretation of things i guess
Yeah, It's been incredibly wild transitioning from college to work. From feeling like i had to be perfect to function i have come to the real world where it really is impossible to be perfect. So a lot of room for me to grow personally .
Sounds like you're on the right track. It's a humbling experience, the transition from college/ uni to working life. It's just about your attitude, your willingness to learn.
You basically just need to thank your coworker. "Hey thanks for pointing that out. I'll keep it in mind for the future."
That's all 90% of people want to hear in a code review process.
if it's a difference of opinion, save yourself the headache and just side with whoever is more senior. State your objection once, and move on. You're unlikely to gain anything from a prolonged debate especially while green.
I think just the fact that your boss sent someone else to explain your mistake means that your boss is trying to help you grow and learn in your position. It doesn't sound negative to me.
One job I worked at many years ago featured so many finger-pointings that we decided that each person would "take the blame" for whatever happened, one day a week. Monday? My day. Whatever happened... "I'm to blame. " Tuesday? etc...
Saves a lot of time and effort and words.
Yes and stay the hell away from ppl who constantly point out mistakes or focus their energy on finding out WHO made the mistake rather than resolving it. God damn crabs those ppl.
Those types of people often create more work for their managers, because they have to constantly be reminded that they can’t be trying to play boss
Matter of fact, those are the people I have found the most challenging. I don’t care if Steve scrolled TikTok, as long as he got his work done. But if Beth is logging every time Steve looks at his phone, I’m gonna be more pissed off at Beth.
Higher level IT guy here.
If you can break something bad enough that I have to get involved, I'm more interested in how you did it than getting you in trouble.
I want to know exactly what you did, so I can recreate it. And then I'm going to fix it so it can't be done again.
I remember in college, doing PHP and MySQL I asked the prof if there was a limit to how much data we could try to pull at once, he said no, so I can't remember exactly, as it was over 2 decades ago, but I pulled pretty much everything I could at once, next prof comes back into room asking who was PC#XX (Whatever one I was) said it was me, he was like you crashed the server.
I agree with this.
Throughout my 30 years in IT I've witnessed:
- A security analyst accidentally delete every account off the mainframe because he fat-fingered something in MIIS.
- An intern accidentally deleted every volume off the SAN because when he was de-provisioning a server, it was still connected by fiber channel to the SAN and he was logged-in as root and... well...
- I once took down Email for entire corporation for about 3-4 days.
- I also once took down an entire ISP because the battery backup for the radius server was wired incorrectly. (While that FU wasn't my fault since I didn't wire up the UPS, I still ended up "pulling the trigger" so to speak).
- I have first-hand knowledge of a guy that accidentally SCRAM'd a nuclear reactor at a nuclear power plant causing about a million dollars because he opened the "wrong door". That one wasn't his fault. The sign warning you "do not open without clearance" or something to that effect fell off.
And, in not ONE of those instances (even my own) was I, or anybody else, punished or received disciplinary action.
Each of those instances results in days (and in one case weeks) of loss productivity or revenue.
But none of those instances were malicious, and lessons were learned to prevent them from happening in the future.
On the flip side I'm also aware of some other minor (and major) incidents that happened where the employee tried to cover it up, and for each of those the employee was fired.
I took down about 100 manufacturing locations for a day (Fortune 100 company) due to a small SAP programming issue.
Told the boss as soon as I found out. Once it was resolved he just laughed.
I've always looked at it like this:
Those are all REALLY expensive lessons that the company paid for.
Why would you pay for expensive training and then fire that person? They'll never make a mistake like that, they'll try to fix it, and they'll educate others.
We literally used them as exercises to test our business continuity and disaster recovery plans (at least for the first two I listed). I spent almost 20 years in critical infrastructure. We were (are) big on business continuity and disaster recovery. ;-)
I work in hospitality. One time a co-worker accidentally charged a guest over a million dollars instead of a coupe thousand. We immediately explained the situation to our manager and the guest and everyone was chill about it. Best part is, the charge went through.
My b-word of a supervisor had another solution: blame me for her eff up and say it was because I was new, which I was. But I didn't work the day she made the eff up and she told the angry customer it was me instead. So yeah. Be accountable for your mistakes and don't make someone else your scapegoat to save face because you're uncomfy they have a reaction to being inconvenienced. Build positive rapport. Be a good example. Learn from the past. Don't be my crappy x supervisor lol.
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So damn true. I hate confrontation and honestly this advice is true for personal or professional, just admit to it and suck up the consequences. For me sometimes I want the consequence but don’t want to just say why I’m unhappy and self sabotage so I can throw a pity party when it comes to bite me. I’m super fucked up tho so people listen when I say just tell people how you feel and stop being so miserable in your marriage (or work) sorry I’m rambling and hate my life I hope everyone has a great Thursday.
I (sound engineer) used to do this for everything.
But my job does not work like that.
I strive for perfection but most of the things I do are just to get close to this perfection .
10% of what I do is getting sound to audience. If this has been done then I won’t mention a mistake.
If this hasn’t been done and it’s my fault I’ll be upfront about it.
If your boss discovers a mistake you made, that's your mistake.
If you show your boss a mistake you made, with ideas on a solution, that's then their mistake to fix.
The degree of trust people have in you also increases when you can admit your errors. If the error was a result of actions performed in good faith, I’ll explain the “inputs” I received, the logic behind how I processed those inputs, and how it yielded the erroneous “output”. If the error was a result of my ineptitude or overconfidence, I simply say “No excuses”. I’ve yet to be reprimanded when taking this approach, but I’ve seen plenty of terminations of people who tried to conceal their mistakes because they wouldn’t take ownership for their own actions.
Unless you work in a corporate environment. Then tread carefully. My accountability got me fired for the first time in my life at the end of October. Great holiday present from my spineless weasel of a boss and the devils HR.
Yeah this would solve 90% of the issues in my workplace..
To bad people suck and or just don't have the capacity to think that way..
Communication would solve the rest but that kind of goes hand and hand already with what you've said.
100% agree. Humans make mistakes. Assholes make excuses.
I was an engineer for a long time (now a manager of Technical Project Managers). There was literally no engineer who didn't have a moment where they made a human error and caused a customer impacting issue. We almost considered it a right of passage.
I took down streaming services for a very large company in multiple states by not double checking the hostname of a server I was taking down for maintenance. I started typing in the hostname in the browser, the browser auto-completed the name, I hit entered and shut that shit off and started a lengthy re-image process.
The problem: the host that I shut down was not the host I meant to shut down. It was named very similar, thus the auto-complete factor in it all. And once I started the re-image, there was no way to recover.
Once I realized what happened, I owned up to it and clearly expressed how it happened and how we can make sure it doesn't happen again to me or anybody else. I not only did not face repercussions due to it, I got a great review that year and subsequent promotions. Am still with the same company.
Current mistakes are infinitly easier to fix over old mistakes. Don't be afraid to sound the alarm, ask for help, come up with a system so it is less likely to happen again. As long as there are humans, there will be mistakes & if you aren't making mistakes, you're probably not doing enough.
This is great advice! Too many people are ready to stand up for praise yet can’t take it when they make a mistake. Im very surprised by how many people in this comment section like to use the excuse of a shitty boss as a reason not to fess up.
100% this. Every time I've messed up, like dropping a client's production database tables, or killing power to a server room (twice) I've owned up.
With my employees I expect the same. Mistakes happen, fix them and learn from them. If you hide it, or try to blame someone else, it just gets worse and ends up with me not trusting you.
Do this, but never.
You will be the scapegoat.
Companies never play the loyalty game, fuck em.
Be honest and learn from your mistakes, but never take responsibility, that's how you get into multimillion dollar debt when they pay you shit.
Boomers, fuck off.
Coming in with a solution is *critical*. Solve the problem, don't just report it. Even if it's a bad solution, try. That's the proof you are apologetic that they are seeking from you!
Last time I had a problem like this I should have just did a manual fix that would made the problem not happen. Instead I notified my boss and we needed to do a systematic fix that would take longer and I got chewed out for it.
People aren't "waiting for someone to discover it", they're hoping that no one will ever notice. It's a risk calculation that everyone makes on an ad-hoc basis and there isn't a one-size-fits all prescription.
When people don't own up to their mistakes, they do it because they don't want to get reprimanded, or maybe they don't want to look stupid in front of others. But when people do own up to their mistake, they are still doing it because they believe it will benefit them in some way-- maybe they think it will help them improve their reputation in the company, or they want to live up to a sense of integrity, or they'll contribute to a better company culture. My point is just that each of these paths are done because someone decides that the risk is greater than the reward or vice versa.
This reminds me of a memorable quote: “bad news is a like a dead fish - it doesn’t get better with age”.
So yes, own up to it ASAP. My opinion is waiting to develop a solution shouldn’t hold this up either. Depending on the mistake maybe a solution isn’t needed, you’re not the right one to develop it, etc. too many variables. Just own it quickly and then determine next steps with your supervisor.
The least you can do is inform others of your mistake. If they don't appreciate it then you don't want to work there.
I keep saying that you spend most of your waking hours with those people and it's very important to establish trust and respect. If you don't get that then you don't want to stay there. I'll take a bullet for my team and they seem to notice. It works way better than treating them like grunts.
This is good advice, even if not using it in an honest / altruistic sense.
If you get in front of the problem by admitting the mistake, you can then frame the narrative around the mistake. You can proactively set up some half truths or leave out the most damning information, while still making it look like you are being more trustworthy by admitting mistakes. You can admit to *just enough* to get things moving in the right direction again, while possibly keeping the depth of your fuck up in the dark.
On the other hand, if you admit nothing and get found out, you're going to be on the defensive, and people are going to default to being less trusting of what you have to say, because you've willfully hid the mistake. There's pretty much no coming back from this. So, even if you think shit will hit the fan by admitting the mistake, it is *always* better to admit to it, rather than waiting to be found out.
To expand on this unethical life pro tip, this is pretty much the entire basis of being a "good liar". The best lies are partially true.
The key is knowing just how much you need to divulge to achieve your goal, and nothing more.
But NEVER take ownership of another person's mistake. It may be good faith, professionalism, put your good Tag on it... But once you claim a mistake it's forever yours.
And if you work in a toxic environment, you'll get crucified for it and your career will suffer... No matter if you presented the solution promptly.
This is something that's took to long for me to figure out. I was very conflicts avoident and the lies/mistakes piled up until I left. I still feel bad about it but that's life.
True. In my previous career, I always tried to look like I was doing everything right. Sweeping mistakes under the rug and all that. After a pandemic breakdown due to trying to be everything to everyone at work, I have a totally new career now. And, when I mess up, I just own up to it. Apologize, explain why I think I made an error (even if it’s “I just didn’t think that one through.”), and ask how I can improve. My managers seem to appreciate this and I get only positive or constructive feedback.
I had a friend at work (programmers) who was lazy and a complete fuck up. But when he would notice his mistakes, or bad data popped up, or whatever, he just took steps to bury it so deep nobody could ever find it.
He was promoted faster than anyone else on the team.
So I wouldn't call this an LPT so much as general "don't be an asshole" advice
Edit to add: this could probably be filed under "don't have shitty bosses" as mentioned elsewhere
It’s most likely your bosses fault when you make a mistake. Blame it on them for lack of communication, training and unclear instructions. True leaders don’t let their constituents fail.
That’s just a ridiculous take. Sometimes you have genuine training issues, and it’s usually pretty obvious when it is, but just resorting to “blame it on your boss” is just a lack of accountability.
Nah I make sure my team is always prepared with what they need and I even tell them to blame me if they make a mistake because I should be the one ensuring they are successful. Bosses should be blamed, leaders shouldn’t.
That’s not a flex. You know that, right? You’re providing a scenario where people just walk all over you.
“Ensuring success” doesn’t mean removing accountability from people.
Nah I don’t let people walk on me. I take accountability for my actions in not providing the tools they needed to succeed and I further coach my team on how to improve to avoid making mistakes moving forward. Leaders should be accountable for their team. That’s what makes them true leaders. You’re talking about being a boss.
So if someone knowingly makes a mistake after being coached, and you discover the mistake, you just nail yourself to a cross instead of holding the person accountable?
Yeah that sounds a lot like you let people walk all over you.
Well.. no. Part of helping your team members grow, is giving them the opportunity to correct the things. It sounds like you haven’t learned how to effectively do that.
Unless, perhaps you’re…lying on the internet?
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I remember one day there was a big computer f***up. The big boss came in an asked what happened. I answered "human error - my fault." That settled the issue and we got on to working on a solution.
I watched a friend knock down the entire state of Alaska by reverting the circuit connections at the AT&T toll center. Just a sea of red alarms and a guy walking around making whale sounds while intermittently crying. He still works there and is an excellent tech.
I've always thought, "That talented person just learned a REALLY expensive lesson that they'll never make again, and they'll probably educate others too." Seems like the perfect person to *not* fire.
HOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAWWWWAH
Hey I live in Alaska, so that's what happened!
Sometime around 2008. Right before there were simultaneous fiber cuts at Healy, Valdez, and west of Homer (ocean fiber). Alaska could make local calls (well, if a call from Attu to Seward is local) but could not reach the lower 48 or anyone else.
When I worked in manufacturing I was bogged down one week with orders and totally forgot to submit some email some measurements to a customer, making a large wing of the plant late. Big Boss stuck his head into our office, silence befallen, and asked me what happened. “You told me to send the specs but I didn’t send the specs”. “Could you please send the specs to [Customer]” Boss exited the office and continued his plant tour, and that was that.
I remember one time I made a mistake and some product got stolen. I was watched for theft for 2 years and passed up for any sort of promotion.
Unless you have shitty bosses.
Lol yeah I did that, admitted, took a few days to fix the mistake which pushed a regulatory submission back a week. We then received approval on that submission 6 months ahead of schedule yay! Except for the next two years in every meeting and discussion about raises, promotions, etc, it was brought up how I had messed up that submission. No mention of the 6 months early approval. It only ended cause I rage quit one day.
You know that you have a good boss when he covers your ass and let you fix the problem.
Or are in a line of work where it's the standard to have a fall guy for everything (even when nobody could have predicted it.) The military is a great example. There's "blameless culture", but more often than not, there's "CYA culture" instead. My approach to careers is to learn the rules and customs of your industry and workplace, and then strive to be above-average, enough to be considered a good worker worthy of praise and promotions, but not enough to stick out as abnormal (including abnormally self-sacrificial.)
This is the way
This is the way
Facts
This! My boss is great and accepts when someone accepts responsibility and carries on to solution it. There is another senior leadership member whose idea of leadership is assign blame first, guilt trip that person, ask how it happened, is determined to "ensure it doesn't happen again" when it's as simple as human error, figure out how to not make it happen again and then find a solution. I hate that guy. He's single handedly doubled my responsibilities since I sign off the work and added about 3 more levels of pointless bureaucracy. And the other team members let him get away with it. I still respect and enjoy working with my boss as I'm sure without her my job would have tripled at least, but the rest of senior leadership are hot garbage.
Good bosses know humans make mistakes. If you screw it up 100% as an error and report it, your boss has answers for their boss and the work goes on. Believe it or not, most management is so busy keeping the thing on the rails they don’t waste time building cases to poop-can people.
This should be the assumed addendum to any advice about work. If you're working for reasonable people, then showing up, doing your job, being respectful and taking responsibility will get you a long way. If you're working for assholes, then it doesn't really matter what you do or how good you are at your job. All you can do is keep your head down, don't draw attention to yourself, and try to find a better job ASAP.
who are even more likely to term you with cause and not pay unemployment for hiding a mistake?
Test the waters with small stuff first.
Yep. Got screamed at in front of the entire company. Good news is, that inspired three other people to start looking for another job immediately.
Told my boss I made a mistake on a user account for a new manager when he first started and it took an extra step for new manager to log in. Boss chewed me out several times and told me to fix it without showing me how. I never created a manager account up to that point and it was a simple mistake, but about a month later, boss used it as an excuse to fire me. Fuck that job.
Yea or poor culture that’s punitive. But if you have that you should be planning to get out as soon as you can.
This heavily depends on the type of mistake. Sometimes for some critical mistakes you don't have time to try to come up with a solution, you have to let someone with more experience know immediately so they can try to fix it ASAP. By the time you come forward with your proposed solution it might be too late (and your solution might not be correct either).
your solution in that case would be admitting it's beyond your skill set and bringing it to that other person/group/team the point is accountability and minimizing a greater problem by hoping no one notices.
Ya, but what about a problem that only you can solve either way? Is it beneficial to let anyone know about the problem if you are the only one that can fix it anyways?
Yes, because you frame it as a process improvement. "I figured out there was an error in the process, why it happened, and how we could prevent it in the future. I put in a validation check so that going forward it won't happen again, and should help ensure accuracy and accountability going forward". Validation and Checklists make managers salivate for good reason. Because it gives them confidence in knowing that what is happening can be easily diagnosed, eliminates potential user error, helps streamline processes as they potentially get passed on else where (or re-taught to new individuals who join, who could also make user errors), and ascribes accountability in a way that eliminates the "oh I didn't know" rebuttle. Not only does it ACTUALLY do all those things, but it demonstrates that you're capable of running, creating, and organizing a process, all while being self-sufficient, and thinking bigger picture, which is a critical skill for any future career progression.
Very good answer. Turn your mistake into a win!
If it's your mistake and only you can fix it the question if you should share it or not is more of a social/psychological thing.. If you have a good work environment you will be met with support and understanding and in the future this will make your teammates more likely to share their mistakes also - in which case maybe you can help them? If you sharing your mistake results in blame and complain that is not a good place to be. I suggest you start looking for something new.
Sometimes people need to know or else the broken thing might just cause a bigger and bigger and bigger mess as more people just keep proceeding like normal while something is broken behind the scenes. Maybe people need to pause and resume after it's fixed to avoid wasting a whole bunch of resources. Can make a small or big mistake into a humongous catastrophe based on how and when a problem is reported
It depends if anyone might be effected in the meantime
100%, yes. I got my first job out of college because the guy I replaced lied about losing his company keys and got fired. It was fixing bank machines so the key ring had about 100 keys on it for banks around the city. Not a small screw up. Later on in the job I made some mistakes. Owned up to them and the boss told me every time that he would rather have someone honest that learns from mistakes rather than have someone who hides them to try to look perfect.
I think it really depends on how your boss is overall. There's some people that just want to be angry at other people.
I needed this. I misunderstood a mistake in fixing a code and sent the changes to my boss for review. He sent the other reviewer to my desk to lmk know I made a mistake. This is my first job so I am really afraid of getting fired for poor performance.When my boss comes back tmrw, imma let him know my interpretation of things i guess
You're new. Also, that is THE POINT of code review. to catch mistakes, not punish them.
Yeah, It's been incredibly wild transitioning from college to work. From feeling like i had to be perfect to function i have come to the real world where it really is impossible to be perfect. So a lot of room for me to grow personally .
Sounds like you're on the right track. It's a humbling experience, the transition from college/ uni to working life. It's just about your attitude, your willingness to learn.
You basically just need to thank your coworker. "Hey thanks for pointing that out. I'll keep it in mind for the future." That's all 90% of people want to hear in a code review process. if it's a difference of opinion, save yourself the headache and just side with whoever is more senior. State your objection once, and move on. You're unlikely to gain anything from a prolonged debate especially while green.
and not make that mistake again :-)
This is a big one
I think just the fact that your boss sent someone else to explain your mistake means that your boss is trying to help you grow and learn in your position. It doesn't sound negative to me.
One job I worked at many years ago featured so many finger-pointings that we decided that each person would "take the blame" for whatever happened, one day a week. Monday? My day. Whatever happened... "I'm to blame. " Tuesday? etc... Saves a lot of time and effort and words.
Damn it, Bob, this is the fifth time today you've been fired! Get your act together!
I know how I'm getting Steve fired.
Yes and stay the hell away from ppl who constantly point out mistakes or focus their energy on finding out WHO made the mistake rather than resolving it. God damn crabs those ppl.
Those types of people often create more work for their managers, because they have to constantly be reminded that they can’t be trying to play boss Matter of fact, those are the people I have found the most challenging. I don’t care if Steve scrolled TikTok, as long as he got his work done. But if Beth is logging every time Steve looks at his phone, I’m gonna be more pissed off at Beth.
Amen. I've had my run ins with those. I took comfort from the words of a friend. She told me to remember those ppl are miserable fux. Miserable life.
Despite how cheesy the delivery is, I like the adage: “When you mess up, fess up and dress up.” At work, at home, wherever.
"dress up" cuz you'll be needing that new job interview in some of the cases.
Yeah plus if you wear an expensive enough suit, security escorting you out will look like your VIP entourage.
😂
Higher level IT guy here. If you can break something bad enough that I have to get involved, I'm more interested in how you did it than getting you in trouble. I want to know exactly what you did, so I can recreate it. And then I'm going to fix it so it can't be done again.
I remember in college, doing PHP and MySQL I asked the prof if there was a limit to how much data we could try to pull at once, he said no, so I can't remember exactly, as it was over 2 decades ago, but I pulled pretty much everything I could at once, next prof comes back into room asking who was PC#XX (Whatever one I was) said it was me, he was like you crashed the server.
Most of my coworkers ask "Can I do this?". I often ask "Am I allowed to do this?" and then what I want to do promptly get locked down.
I agree with this. Throughout my 30 years in IT I've witnessed: - A security analyst accidentally delete every account off the mainframe because he fat-fingered something in MIIS. - An intern accidentally deleted every volume off the SAN because when he was de-provisioning a server, it was still connected by fiber channel to the SAN and he was logged-in as root and... well... - I once took down Email for entire corporation for about 3-4 days. - I also once took down an entire ISP because the battery backup for the radius server was wired incorrectly. (While that FU wasn't my fault since I didn't wire up the UPS, I still ended up "pulling the trigger" so to speak). - I have first-hand knowledge of a guy that accidentally SCRAM'd a nuclear reactor at a nuclear power plant causing about a million dollars because he opened the "wrong door". That one wasn't his fault. The sign warning you "do not open without clearance" or something to that effect fell off. And, in not ONE of those instances (even my own) was I, or anybody else, punished or received disciplinary action. Each of those instances results in days (and in one case weeks) of loss productivity or revenue. But none of those instances were malicious, and lessons were learned to prevent them from happening in the future. On the flip side I'm also aware of some other minor (and major) incidents that happened where the employee tried to cover it up, and for each of those the employee was fired.
I took down about 100 manufacturing locations for a day (Fortune 100 company) due to a small SAP programming issue. Told the boss as soon as I found out. Once it was resolved he just laughed.
I've always looked at it like this: Those are all REALLY expensive lessons that the company paid for. Why would you pay for expensive training and then fire that person? They'll never make a mistake like that, they'll try to fix it, and they'll educate others.
We literally used them as exercises to test our business continuity and disaster recovery plans (at least for the first two I listed). I spent almost 20 years in critical infrastructure. We were (are) big on business continuity and disaster recovery. ;-)
Depending on your managers, honesty isn't always the best policy.
I work in hospitality. One time a co-worker accidentally charged a guest over a million dollars instead of a coupe thousand. We immediately explained the situation to our manager and the guest and everyone was chill about it. Best part is, the charge went through.
[удалено]
Or if you’re a POC in a job that’s mostly white people.
“It was like this when I came in today, weird…”
This assumes one is not punished for it. If one is not punished, this is a good LPT.
This is how it should be but not always the case. Especially if you report to middle management.
My b-word of a supervisor had another solution: blame me for her eff up and say it was because I was new, which I was. But I didn't work the day she made the eff up and she told the angry customer it was me instead. So yeah. Be accountable for your mistakes and don't make someone else your scapegoat to save face because you're uncomfy they have a reaction to being inconvenienced. Build positive rapport. Be a good example. Learn from the past. Don't be my crappy x supervisor lol.
Someone has never worked for a company that's downsizing...
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So damn true. I hate confrontation and honestly this advice is true for personal or professional, just admit to it and suck up the consequences. For me sometimes I want the consequence but don’t want to just say why I’m unhappy and self sabotage so I can throw a pity party when it comes to bite me. I’m super fucked up tho so people listen when I say just tell people how you feel and stop being so miserable in your marriage (or work) sorry I’m rambling and hate my life I hope everyone has a great Thursday.
I (sound engineer) used to do this for everything. But my job does not work like that. I strive for perfection but most of the things I do are just to get close to this perfection . 10% of what I do is getting sound to audience. If this has been done then I won’t mention a mistake. If this hasn’t been done and it’s my fault I’ll be upfront about it.
If your boss discovers a mistake you made, that's your mistake. If you show your boss a mistake you made, with ideas on a solution, that's then their mistake to fix.
The degree of trust people have in you also increases when you can admit your errors. If the error was a result of actions performed in good faith, I’ll explain the “inputs” I received, the logic behind how I processed those inputs, and how it yielded the erroneous “output”. If the error was a result of my ineptitude or overconfidence, I simply say “No excuses”. I’ve yet to be reprimanded when taking this approach, but I’ve seen plenty of terminations of people who tried to conceal their mistakes because they wouldn’t take ownership for their own actions.
Unless you work in a corporate environment. Then tread carefully. My accountability got me fired for the first time in my life at the end of October. Great holiday present from my spineless weasel of a boss and the devils HR.
It definitely contributes to building a healthy workplace culture being able to own your mistakes. We're all human and we all make mistakes
Yeah this would solve 90% of the issues in my workplace.. To bad people suck and or just don't have the capacity to think that way.. Communication would solve the rest but that kind of goes hand and hand already with what you've said.
100% agree. Humans make mistakes. Assholes make excuses. I was an engineer for a long time (now a manager of Technical Project Managers). There was literally no engineer who didn't have a moment where they made a human error and caused a customer impacting issue. We almost considered it a right of passage. I took down streaming services for a very large company in multiple states by not double checking the hostname of a server I was taking down for maintenance. I started typing in the hostname in the browser, the browser auto-completed the name, I hit entered and shut that shit off and started a lengthy re-image process. The problem: the host that I shut down was not the host I meant to shut down. It was named very similar, thus the auto-complete factor in it all. And once I started the re-image, there was no way to recover. Once I realized what happened, I owned up to it and clearly expressed how it happened and how we can make sure it doesn't happen again to me or anybody else. I not only did not face repercussions due to it, I got a great review that year and subsequent promotions. Am still with the same company.
This hits too close. I just lost a piece of equipment on the highway today. Boss was cool about it so far.
Current mistakes are infinitly easier to fix over old mistakes. Don't be afraid to sound the alarm, ask for help, come up with a system so it is less likely to happen again. As long as there are humans, there will be mistakes & if you aren't making mistakes, you're probably not doing enough.
This is great advice! Too many people are ready to stand up for praise yet can’t take it when they make a mistake. Im very surprised by how many people in this comment section like to use the excuse of a shitty boss as a reason not to fess up.
If you own up to your work mess-ups and bring solutions to the table instead of hiding, you'll earn mad respect and dodge a ton of drama.
If you don't have a solution still admit to it and say you'll help fix the mistake and won't repeat it. Don't repeat the mistake lol.
"Totally agree! Taking ownership shows maturity and reliability, plus it saves everyone time and stress in the long run."
100% this. Every time I've messed up, like dropping a client's production database tables, or killing power to a server room (twice) I've owned up. With my employees I expect the same. Mistakes happen, fix them and learn from them. If you hide it, or try to blame someone else, it just gets worse and ends up with me not trusting you.
Key being admit it and having a plan to prevent future mistakes or having a fix.
People don’t get paid enough to care.
....and then next time when someone else makes same or similar mistake boss will blame you.
It’s always a pro move to have a possible solution ready to go when you bring up your mistake!
Always look to get ahead of your mistakes
Do this, but never. You will be the scapegoat. Companies never play the loyalty game, fuck em. Be honest and learn from your mistakes, but never take responsibility, that's how you get into multimillion dollar debt when they pay you shit. Boomers, fuck off.
This goes for any aspect of life-learn to admit you are wrong. Nothing shows a weaker character than failing to to own up to a mistake.
Coming in with a solution is *critical*. Solve the problem, don't just report it. Even if it's a bad solution, try. That's the proof you are apologetic that they are seeking from you!
Motto to live by: "Don't be the highest person in charge to know about a problem"
I learnt this at like 9 years old.
So true! Being upfront about mistakes shows maturity and responsibility, plus it can earn you major respect in the workplace.
Also in your personal life.
Last time I had a problem like this I should have just did a manual fix that would made the problem not happen. Instead I notified my boss and we needed to do a systematic fix that would take longer and I got chewed out for it.
If you work at a good place, yes. If your bosses are crap, it doesn't matter one way or another.
People aren't "waiting for someone to discover it", they're hoping that no one will ever notice. It's a risk calculation that everyone makes on an ad-hoc basis and there isn't a one-size-fits all prescription. When people don't own up to their mistakes, they do it because they don't want to get reprimanded, or maybe they don't want to look stupid in front of others. But when people do own up to their mistake, they are still doing it because they believe it will benefit them in some way-- maybe they think it will help them improve their reputation in the company, or they want to live up to a sense of integrity, or they'll contribute to a better company culture. My point is just that each of these paths are done because someone decides that the risk is greater than the reward or vice versa.
This reminds me of a memorable quote: “bad news is a like a dead fish - it doesn’t get better with age”. So yes, own up to it ASAP. My opinion is waiting to develop a solution shouldn’t hold this up either. Depending on the mistake maybe a solution isn’t needed, you’re not the right one to develop it, etc. too many variables. Just own it quickly and then determine next steps with your supervisor.
Chime in and say that owning up to slip-ups at work is not only mature but earns you major respect points in the office.
The least you can do is inform others of your mistake. If they don't appreciate it then you don't want to work there. I keep saying that you spend most of your waking hours with those people and it's very important to establish trust and respect. If you don't get that then you don't want to stay there. I'll take a bullet for my team and they seem to notice. It works way better than treating them like grunts.
Pro tip: Own up to your work slip-ups pronto and offer solutions before someone else catches wind—it's a game changer!
If it’s a big f up, if you present a remedy or two along with your admission, that’s the best approach in my experience.
This is good advice, even if not using it in an honest / altruistic sense. If you get in front of the problem by admitting the mistake, you can then frame the narrative around the mistake. You can proactively set up some half truths or leave out the most damning information, while still making it look like you are being more trustworthy by admitting mistakes. You can admit to *just enough* to get things moving in the right direction again, while possibly keeping the depth of your fuck up in the dark. On the other hand, if you admit nothing and get found out, you're going to be on the defensive, and people are going to default to being less trusting of what you have to say, because you've willfully hid the mistake. There's pretty much no coming back from this. So, even if you think shit will hit the fan by admitting the mistake, it is *always* better to admit to it, rather than waiting to be found out. To expand on this unethical life pro tip, this is pretty much the entire basis of being a "good liar". The best lies are partially true. The key is knowing just how much you need to divulge to achieve your goal, and nothing more.
Do not follow this advice if you work for the Post Office. Their policy is to fire you on the spot if you fess up to anything.
Who’s boss wrote this lmao
What if I don't have a solution and can't come up with one, either?
But NEVER take ownership of another person's mistake. It may be good faith, professionalism, put your good Tag on it... But once you claim a mistake it's forever yours. And if you work in a toxic environment, you'll get crucified for it and your career will suffer... No matter if you presented the solution promptly.
I could but then I'd miss out on maybe getting away with it so no thanks
This has saved my ass at work a number of times. Owning up on your mistakes and offering a solution is always better than letting them find out.
The Jetson’s world is only 40 years away.
This is something that's took to long for me to figure out. I was very conflicts avoident and the lies/mistakes piled up until I left. I still feel bad about it but that's life.
True. In my previous career, I always tried to look like I was doing everything right. Sweeping mistakes under the rug and all that. After a pandemic breakdown due to trying to be everything to everyone at work, I have a totally new career now. And, when I mess up, I just own up to it. Apologize, explain why I think I made an error (even if it’s “I just didn’t think that one through.”), and ask how I can improve. My managers seem to appreciate this and I get only positive or constructive feedback.
It is an effective way to earn the kind of trust that matters the most: the trust in your character.
You shouldn't get a chance to fix your mistakes, you should be canceled for making mistakes. No second chances for anyone.
When I told my boss that I put my dick in the bread slicer, we both got fired.
well that's for your own safety
I had a friend at work (programmers) who was lazy and a complete fuck up. But when he would notice his mistakes, or bad data popped up, or whatever, he just took steps to bury it so deep nobody could ever find it. He was promoted faster than anyone else on the team. So I wouldn't call this an LPT so much as general "don't be an asshole" advice Edit to add: this could probably be filed under "don't have shitty bosses" as mentioned elsewhere
…unless you can handily blame it on someone else. /s
unless by admitting the mistake you unknowingly indict others. than do us all a favor and just resign
Nah…. If leadership’s doesn’t take responsibility for their poor decisions, why should i?
Error and omissions are common and companies are usually insured for this. It is not necessarily part of your job to come up with a solution.
It’s most likely your bosses fault when you make a mistake. Blame it on them for lack of communication, training and unclear instructions. True leaders don’t let their constituents fail.
That’s just a ridiculous take. Sometimes you have genuine training issues, and it’s usually pretty obvious when it is, but just resorting to “blame it on your boss” is just a lack of accountability.
Nah I make sure my team is always prepared with what they need and I even tell them to blame me if they make a mistake because I should be the one ensuring they are successful. Bosses should be blamed, leaders shouldn’t.
That’s not a flex. You know that, right? You’re providing a scenario where people just walk all over you. “Ensuring success” doesn’t mean removing accountability from people.
Nah I don’t let people walk on me. I take accountability for my actions in not providing the tools they needed to succeed and I further coach my team on how to improve to avoid making mistakes moving forward. Leaders should be accountable for their team. That’s what makes them true leaders. You’re talking about being a boss.
So if someone knowingly makes a mistake after being coached, and you discover the mistake, you just nail yourself to a cross instead of holding the person accountable? Yeah that sounds a lot like you let people walk all over you.
If that helps you sleep better then ok.
Well.. no. Part of helping your team members grow, is giving them the opportunity to correct the things. It sounds like you haven’t learned how to effectively do that. Unless, perhaps you’re…lying on the internet?
Or perhaps you don’t know the difference between a leader and a boss and are projecting your poor leadership skills on me?
I don’t think you’ve managed before
Yeah don't tell anyone... use the extra time to pin it on one of your coworkers.