F*cked up massively - work related. Perspective needed

[Stupidworkgirl]

I have an important business trip abroad tomorrow which myself and several other colleagues are going on. It is a major event in our industry and we have been planning it for a while. I have done the majority of the planning and have enjoyed it and was excited to attend. Our company director is going along with my boss and several coworkers, one of which reports to me.

I have lost my passport. I only realised this at 4pm today when packing. I am meant to fly out on an early morning flight. We have a very tidy minimalist home and have searched everywhere, it is definitely not here. I last travelled a few months ago and can only think I dropped it somewhere between security and my car.

I have called my boss who has told the MD. My boss was understanding and kind about it, I don’t know what the MDs reaction was. I’m absolutely gutted. Missing out on the event is a horrible feeling but is actually the least of it, that will wear off once it is over at the end of this week. It is more the damage to my reputation and how people might think of me going forward. I’m honestly considering leaving and finding a new job, as I don’t know how I will mentally bounce back from it.

Looking for reassurance or perhaps any similar tales or fucking up at work.

well they must have had proof of culpability (although goodness knows what)

@Truestorypeeps

Would love to know where you do live that hopping on a ferry to another country without a passport is a possibility?!

Come again??

This "mistake" is something that could happen to anyone. I am the same as you- I normally know where everything at home is kept and I know losing something like that would drive me mad. But I think you are being too hard on yourself. This isn't an error to do with your ability to do your job. This is completely separate, and it's understandable that you would not have anticipated a lost passport because it's out of character for you. While of course you can feel awful about it, in my opinion this is a very minor mistake compared to other bodge ups people can do in their work. For example, my builders made so many hidden mistakes, we can't get a certificate and it looks like our extensions have to be demolished and rebuilt. Now, that is a mistake!

Hopefully your boss is sensible and recognizes that this is not at all an indication of your work performance. I mean, you could have gotten sick and had to cancel - lots of things happen that aren't fully in our control.

Can you get an emergency passport and arrive later?

Now you’ve cancelled the passport it’ll be on the coffee table when you get home.

It absolutely will. I'm half expecting to get in my car to drive home and find it on the drivers seat.

Coming to this a bit late, but for the future:

I once lost a very important document down the tiny sliver of space between car windscreen and car dashboard. I casually threw the very important document on the dashboard, I had not even known this space existed. Was able to retrieve it with tiny thin tweezers but took me a while to work out where it had disappeared to.

Hopefully your colleagues in the office haven’t clocked that you’ve spent most of the day on your phone or work’s internet on mumsnet and reported to your boss!

I would have well and truly got my head down today and worked like a dog.

but that’s me!

Hope you’re feeling calmer now OP- I went on a school ski trip many moons ago- the teacher collected all the passports for ‘safe-keeping’ before the trip (us 16 year olds couldn’t be trusted 😀). When we arrived at check in she discovered she’d left all 35 passports at home 😂Her neighbour had to break into her house, find the passports and drive to the airport at 100 miles an hour.
We laugh about this 35 years later 😀

This brings me out in a cold sweat!! That poor teacher!!

You must have got to the airports with about 5 hours to spare!

In my first week in a senior job I choked on a fish bone in the canteen and ended up in A & E having it removed with long tweezers

A month later I fell down the stairs and broke my ankle.

Six months later I trapped my hand in a taxi car door when arriving for a train to an important meeting.

It was all brought up in my leaving drinks speech a number of years later.

@Stupidworkgirl I'm sorry to read you've been through so much stress over something so damn irritating. When things like this happen to me, I like to think it's gods way / the universe's way of redirecting me from a place of danger or just somewhere I shouldn't be.
Years ago one Sunday morning, my ex was about to leave the house to go to Morrisons. I stopped him as he was walking out the front door and asked him to wait two minutes whilst I wrote a quick shopping list. Just as I passed him the list and he was heading back out, we heard an almighty crash. It was a massive RTA on the main road behind our house. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have been killed in that crash, had I not have delayed him for two minutes to write a shopping list.

When I was new to the role, I cost my firm £50k.

My manager was very nice about it, bless him, and i could have cried with relief.
I was on my best behaviour afterwards! 😇

Oh yes, works like a charm. It's just that he seems to work in his own time. I lost my driver's license in New Orleans, not long after it opened back up to tourists post-Katrina. I looked absolutely everywhere and was pretty freaked out because I needed it to fly home to another US state.

I ended up getting through security on an expired passport, by the skin of my teeth. They didn't have the scanners back then and the person just didn't notice it was expired.

More than a year later I found my driver's license in a pocket in my wallet. I almost couldn't believe it. Thanks St. Anthony!!

Stephen Merchant had an anecdote similar to yours.

He said he was being flown to LA, in business class, to meet executives to discuss remaking The Office.

He said a chauffeur driven Mercedes picked him up from home, he was wearing a suit and was really feeling successful.
He got to the airport and the member of staff at Check In told him his passport had expired.

He then had to muck about and go to Petty France to get a new passport issued. All while sitting there in his nice new suit, and his luggage getting under everyone's feet.

And he laughs about it now!

You do know though that if you ask St Anthony for help and you find what you are desperately searching for you do have to put a fiver or a tenner ( or more if it was really valuable or its finding was beyond beneficial ) in the St Anthony box in a Catholic church. Or donate it to any charity of your choice.
This is not optional 😀
In fact it shows you really trust him if you donate before you find said item. 😀

Dear God. Will you just give it a rest with your snarky comments? 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Bamboozleme

And she hasn't spent 'most of the day' here either 😑

🙄

Oh yes, works like a charm. It's just that he seems to work in his own time.

So basically lost things just turn up as and when, almost as if it's nothing to do with a saint? I mean I've never prayed to him, and yet I find things. Mainly by not looking for them and waiting for them to re-emerge at some point.

I'm glad you are feeling a bit better now OP. I'd have found it stressful too. I'd have been so mad at myself.

You know you can do this between Britain and Ireland right? No passport necessary. And presumably the Schengen area. It's not actually that uncommon.

International drug smuggler?

As far as I know it’s only between the U.K. and Ireland as part of the common travel area, not other countries.