Mistake at work

[WelshRach5l]

Opinions please. I made a mistake at work today which has big consequences for other people, especially the top guy's reputation. I fully accept I made the mistake and feel terrible about it. When boss spoke to me about it today I was really taken aback and didn't say much, I'm the lowest rung employee by a lot shot & I didn't think what I did held that much weight! It's extremely basic, quick work (so obviously duh me for getting it wrong) and this specific part tool max 5 mins.
There's several people in between me & him including an officer who's specific job it is to organise, collate & run the thing related to what I got wrong. It didn't occur to me that my part went straight from me direct to the client without any checks in between.
I'm not sure what I'm asking an opinion about but I've been holding it in all day & got no one at home to talk to about it. I feel wretched & also a bit annoyed at the officer mentioned above I feel he might have passed the buck down to me? But then again maybe I'm just trying to justify my mistake!

Many years ago I made a mistake in the bank I worked in.

My work was supposed to be checked by a senior manager but he set me the project to work on my own and waved me off when I asked him to check it before I completed it.

There was a meeting about it and I made it clear that the responsibility was very great and in my enthusiasm to do well I had overlooked one aspect which I felt my senior manager would have picked up if he had checked.

When there is an element of things to go wrong then there should be a system in place that allows for work to be checked and mistakes to be prevented.

Don’t beat yourself up over it, your company have failed you.

My guess is that you aren’t paid well enough to have the responsibility of whatever consequences come from your mistake. If that is the case and there are people above you who should be checking your work, then they are responsible and probably looking to cover themselves.

Thanks both, yes true re responsibility & pay. There is no system in place as such but that's one thing he said to me that will have to change now. I felt very stupid, the way he said it came across as now we'll have to change the way we do things cos you're such a dunce! I'm not actually, I have a degree and used to have a good job. I deliberately took a job with little responsibility & less pay because I have a disabled child and find life easier that way!

Everyone can make a mistake. You can, I can, the top CEO of your company can. All you can do is try to think if there's any automatic type checks you can personally put in place to avoid it in future? If not then clearly your manager should have some checks in place. Well, if possible both you and your manager should do your own checks. At the end of the day you have some responsibility for producing correct work but your manager has greater responsibility for your work and his/her own.

Agree with Damia above and if the consequences really were so far reaching, these checks should have been put in place before. Don't worry about your boss getting ratty - this shows he knows he cocked up by not having proper procedures in place to avoid said outcome. You've probably actually done them a favour by highlighting where there was a gap. Doesn't make you feel any less annoyed or worried though I know. Forget about it if you can and enjoy your weekend.

Mistakes are inevitable. Good workplaces/managers assume that mistakes will happen and have systems in place. And when a mistake happens they're like, 'What can we learn?'

Bad managers find the lowest ranking employee involved, and scapegoat them.

I agree with PP, if it had the chance to have been as bad as you say, someone more senior should have checked it.
Unfair to leave the blame with you.

I would also say that sometimes the quick simple things are the easiest to mess up - because it’s a quick job to fit in amongst other jobs, if you get distracted or do it in a rush you don’t notice as much and there isn’t the time doing the overall task for you to be doing it and for warning bells to go off in your head. Also it’s easy so you don’t check it as much and so on...

It’s similar to doing a maths test and racing through the easy questions at the start then not bothering to check them at the end because you’re checking the tricky ones... and then you discover that you’ve lost marks because in your haste you put 1x1=2 because you had just done a load of addition sims and you were worrying about the tricky questions coming... Silly mistake as you know the answer without having to think about it.

As the op have said, if it’s that critical it needs to go through a check before leaving the company no matter how simple. A good boss would be annoyed with themselves for not ensuring that check was in place.