8/21/2006
Lessons learned...
Managers as well as workers need to remember not to sweat the small stuff. Something is always going to happen. We need to deal with that. Chances are, there’s going to be things that drive us mad about our bosses. It’s just the way it is. Pick and choose your battles smartly. Let the small stuff go. You’ll have to or you’ll go mad.
On the other hand, managers really need to chill. Mistakes are not the end of the world. Sometimes, mistakes are needed in order to move forward or do things more efficiently in the future. If there’s a mistake such as, you left off a comma in a 10-page memo to a group, this is not a tragedy. There’s a big difference between mistakes like that and several grammatical issues that alter the meaning of a message, or the same mistakes over and over.
My big thing was always: Is the work correct? If yes, then get over the fact that I failed to bold a word on page 399, or left out a set of parentheses where there should be a set. It was a mistake. Let me know about it, I’ll fix it and won’t do it again next time.
If I make repeated mistakes however, that may be a little different. But still, it’s not as though I’m failing to report millions of dollars in company liability due to a glitch in the system that I should have caught long before. I mean, that’s something that could (and should) lead to termination. But commas, font style and color? Boss please… let me get back to work.
On the other hand, managers really need to chill. Mistakes are not the end of the world. Sometimes, mistakes are needed in order to move forward or do things more efficiently in the future. If there’s a mistake such as, you left off a comma in a 10-page memo to a group, this is not a tragedy. There’s a big difference between mistakes like that and several grammatical issues that alter the meaning of a message, or the same mistakes over and over.
My big thing was always: Is the work correct? If yes, then get over the fact that I failed to bold a word on page 399, or left out a set of parentheses where there should be a set. It was a mistake. Let me know about it, I’ll fix it and won’t do it again next time.
If I make repeated mistakes however, that may be a little different. But still, it’s not as though I’m failing to report millions of dollars in company liability due to a glitch in the system that I should have caught long before. I mean, that’s something that could (and should) lead to termination. But commas, font style and color? Boss please… let me get back to work.
