Mistakes made while stressed at work

[RadioDorothy]

I posted recently about how stressed I was at work, mainly with weight of workload and no support.

Things have eased up very slightly and I've been feeling better, but I'm still weeks behind and now I'm stumbling across my own errors. One was a simple oversight (that several others had also missed before me) but the client went absolutely mad, the second was a minor error in a date that has already been presented and circulated to clients. It's been spotted so I've had to confess to my boss that I got it wrong so we might need to issue a correction. I haven't heard back yet.

It's not life or death stuff, I'll own it and my boss will be perfectly okay (probably), but I just feel like such an idiot. I'm usually so conscientious and accurate in my work, I can't bear the thought of everyone in the office sneering and laughing at me. I feel sick and I'm here working from home bloody crying for fuck's sake, I don't know how much more I can take of this - I'm making mistakes and that just isn't me, I don't recognise this person.

What the hell is wrong with me? It's stress, the bloody menopause or both. I wish I knew what to do.

I think I've calmed down a bit. I've got to stop making stupid mistakes.

You're a human being, not a robot. We all make mistakes at work. How do you feel now?

Why will they be sneering and laughing?

Would you be sneering and laughing at someone who had made the same mistakes as you? I rather doubt it. I suspect you'd be much more professional and understanding.

I'm suffering anxiety at the moment, and your description of assuming what people will be saying or thinking about you is classic for the kinds of things I do. It's not rational, it's not right and it's actually probably untrue. Unless you can say categorically otherwise?

Gah, missed the point.

What I'm trying to say is, what would you be saying to a colleague in the same boat right now? Would you say she/he deserved to be sneered at and be beaten up for two minor clerical errors? Or would you be putting it into perspective for them and saying it is OK and helping them to make a cuppa and move on with their day?

I think it is important to remember that these errors are not life threatening. They have been picked up and can be corrected.
Your boss/manager should help you to identify the reasons they happened and also to see how your work load can be made more manageable.

I am not belittling your situation. I worked for many years in a stressful, short staffed situation where a mistake could have led to death and where management didn't care.

Always remember ‘no one died’ anything else can be fixed.

If it makes you feel any better, I once in the early years of computerised records, deleted a whole year's worth of reports - none with back up and no way of retrieving the information.
I survived, the department survived (and we all learnt a valuable lesson).
Do not beat yourself up over this, you haven't acted deliberately or in malice, you've made an error. We do this, we are human 😃

Thank you all for coming back and replying!

Right now I feel headachey and drained, and a bit weepy. You are right of course, nobody died and everything else is fixable - and the error itself is actually not that big a deal (think, saying new rules apply from a certain date, when on fact it's a year later than that so oh well, more time then).

I've spoken to my boss and although he was fine - even saying it was equally his fault as he didn't double check my work before we both delivered it at 10 seminars - he made me feel slightly worse by saying that we needed to establish exactly how I'd managed to interpret it incorrectly, as accuracy is important.

Well duh, I know that. It's not the actual mistake, it's that I've made another technical fuck up so close after the last one, and in 20 years this has never happened to me - all I can hear is other people enjoying the fact that I've cocked up and I'm usually miss bloody perfect.

My colleagues are generally nice, but everyone likes to bask in someone elses discomfort don't they. They usually spend their time loudly criticising our boss, who has made plenty of fucks up himself, and I'm terrified that now I'll be equally vilified.

I am rapidly losing confidence, it's not good. But thank you so much for all your comments, it does help!

I could have written your post, OP. Most days I feel like the old dog snoozing by the fire whilst the young pup (my colleagues) scamper around being brilliant. I know it knocks your confidence to make mistakes, but go easy on yourself. You obviously have an excellent work ethic, and that means a great deal!

My colleagues are generally nice, but everyone likes to bask in someone elses discomfort don't they. They usually spend their time loudly criticising our boss, who has made plenty of fucks up himself, and I'm terrified that now I'll be equally vilified
I honestly don't think most people would care that much about what sound like relatively minor errors. Most people are too absorbed in themselves and what's going on in their own lives to take that much notice of something that is so unimportant and whilst they might occasionally have a bit of a bitch about the boss, I don't think many people actively bask in others' discomfort unless they generally really disliked that person in the first place.

You sound like a perfectionist and someone that puts too much emphasis on being perfect yourself. Putting the whole episode into context, acting under a lot to stress you made a few minor mistakes that can be easily rectified. Nobody is laughing at you or delighting in your (non-existent) downfall so stop winding yourself up and adding more unnecessary stress to the situation. Be kinder to yourself!

If it's menopause I highly recommend visiting your GP. I found myself last year having panic attacks, brain fog, making stupid mistakes - feeling weepy and under pressure at work - and it stressed me to high heaven. I'm usually laid back, cheerful and calm.

After a visit to GP he prescribed anti-depressants and they've been a life saver. I actually feel like my old self again, although I'm certain it's menopause/hormones. I'm going back in a couple of months and will probably start bringing myself off the tablets, but they've worked well.

Oh thank you!

I am conscientious and my job is important to me - but I have been under pressure and my boss has acknowledged that. I've been pushing for a promotion, but I suppose I've just ballsed that right up hahaha!

I think I need to just slow down and stop charging ahead trying to get everything done, I'm paying the price for rushing. My boss is a decent bloke and he is kind, but he's not actually a great "manager" in the personal sense. So he won't go out of his way to reassure me that this isn't a catastrophe, he'll just meander onto some other topic!

God I've got a headache. I don't even bloody drink so a glass of wine won't help either.

Cross posted with Bumpity and Cotton Socks - good advice, thank you very very much.

I seem to be in pre-menopause, so GP hasn't offered much - but she did say to go back if I was having problems. I've never been so forgetful as I am at the moment, and making silly errors is new. Maybe it's all hormonal! I'm already on anti depressants, have been for years, but they are for a phobia.

In my job a mistake could potentially kill someone. Luckily there is a person who checks me so if i make a mistake its caught.

There have been a couple of times i have made a minor mistake (not life threatening luckily) and its not been caught. No harm was done and it was fixed but i always feel so guilty (even though i am human and always follow procedure) i always think about the worst that can happen.

But as i am always told beating yourself up does not help (easier said than done!) and to learn from it. So i do and i carry on, its all you can do.

If your colleagues will sneer at you it shows they are not very nice people, they should be showing you support. You are a team after all.

I hope you are feeling better xx

Thanks Mumma - yikes, a mistake in my role can cause inconvenience and sometimes cost money and embarrassment, but certainly won't kill anyone. We are technical consultants and our clients rely on us to get things right, so it's bad if we make an error.

I switched on this morning to an email from my boss asking again where I got the info from. I recall seeing a list of dates in a guide, that was what I had reproduced, but now of course I can't fucking find it anywhere.

My head is banging, I just want to run away.

Deep breaths, it will be somewhere, can you go for a walk or a breather/Cup of tea? It'll pop out of your brain eventually.

Its horrible making out of character mistakes, but its a heads up too.

Stay calm! Just be honest and say you recall seeing the dates in a guide and will search for that document and and send it on as soon as it's found.

You sound like you're becoming blinded by panic which is only going to make the situation worse. Practice seem deep breathing and try to relax a bit.

I have found something similar in a different article, but that wasn't it. I can see what I did now - the tiered dates apply to different sectors of the industry, and in having a dozen different guides and articles open while I was trying to write and practice the presentation, I've taken the date from the wrong sector.

I wrote the slides at a time when I was so stressed I would burst into tears at the slightest thing - I posted here then too. I had such a ridiculous workload that my colleagues in the office said they thought I might just walk out. My predecessor went off for months with stress before leaving.

In the grand scheme of things this is pretty minor and has no detrimental impact on anyone - it's just the fact that I got it wrong at all. Clients will probably be relieved that they've got more time rather than annoyed, but we still made an error, and I've got a meeting next week where I'll probably have to explain myself. One of the other directors will be a total arse about it, they LOVE someone else getting it wrong so they'll want to maximise my discomfort for bants.

I'm making mistakes and that just isn't me

But everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. Don't forget, to err is human.

Nobody will be sneering or laughing. They'll either be feeling real sympathy for you. Or thinking "thank fuck that wasn't me". Nothing more, I guarantee it.

Be less harsh on yourself. Because the second half of the phrase "to err is human" is also important: to forgive divine.

Haha, yes when it's someone else I always feel sympathy and I'm kind, whilst thinking thank fuck it wasn't me. But I go out of my way to help them feel better and try to minimise it for them!

A couple of senior colleagues have done worse, that's for sure. That makes me feel slightly better...

See? Everyone everyone makes mistakes.

Drop your shoulders op. Let it go.

At the meeting next week, own it, apologise and move on. No harm done.

Your job sounds very similar to mine. Whenever there is a mistake we always have to trawl through everything that led to it to determine how it happened - I'm always silently thinking 'it's because we're human and massively overworked and stressed!!'

But, these things do happen daily and it could be a lot worse. There was no data breach or anything that will cost clients large amounts of money, for example. Clients will really not give it a second thought after their relief of having more time to react to the new regs.

Hopefully in a few days your initial mortification will have passed and you can let yourself off the hook!

Boss called...we've chatted it through, he is more interested in damage limitation and moving swiftly on than in a post mortem.

Unfortunately we've had to go back to rummage around the other issue (prior to my date fuck up) because the client is now making a steep claim.

I can't do this.

I’m sorry you’ve been feeling so stressed at work. It is a horrible feeling which I know well.

Your manager saying that we “needed to establish exactly how I'd managed to interpret it incorrectly, as accuracy is important” i think is so he can say to his bosses - accuracy is important to us, we’ve reviewed our processes and have implemented steps to improve in the future”.

But it sounds like actually the reason for the error isn’t that you interpreted it incorrectly it was just a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes but a big part of the reason for the mistake is workload. So I would put it back to him that a) of course this error means you’ll be ultra vigilant (which I’m sure you will be) but more importantly b) you would like to discuss your workload so that you have the opportunity to give your best performance (as your track record shows).

I’d then come in with suggestions of how to manage the workload - what is non-essential and can be de-prioritised or stopped, can anything be streamlined or simplified to cut down work, can you get more resource from another team to help in the interim? Obviously I don’t know the logistics of your job so these options may not be possible but try and think of sond solutions that could ease your burden but whilst getting the core job done.

I think you could then turn this into an good example for promotion of how you’ve owned a problem, proactively looked for a solution and implemented it.

And the other thing. I was in a meeting yesterday and was just having a bad day and felt like I was really incoherent and sounded like I didn’t know what I was talking about. I know that I will feel really anxious and low for a couple of days but then it won’t seem so important and I will feel better. So although you might feel really crap about this mistake now and upset the strength of these feelings of anxiety are likely to get better. And if you notice that happens then it’s a good tool to use where you feel completely overwhelmed next time. (My long winded way of saying - This too shall pass!)