Do you still make mistakes at work?

[Flatsgoas]

I made some really silly mistakes and didn't QA properly. PM doing the final QA, spotted and made comments for me to fix. I fixed them, but kicking myself for not being more thorough.

Everyone makes mistakes all of the time. I've been working for the NHS for 46 years and still make mistakes. Don't put yourself down.

They were quite silly and I hadn't checked things properly. Fixed them all one by one (not too many TBF).

I’m the boss and I make mistakes. Everyone does.

I think you need to explain a bit more. What does QA & PM mean? How long have you been in the job? Were they damaging or serious mistakes?

However to answer your question, yes everyone can make mistakes. It is important to correct your mistakes, not cover up what you’ve done, learn from them, and take action to avoid in the future.

QA - quality assurance

PM - the project manager.

Over 2 years. Not super damaging. I fixed them, and if there were queries I showed how I did it.

Yes had same job for 20 years it even surprises me the absolute stupid mistakes I have made at times

Until recently it was my job to investigate when things went wrong in healthcare.

People make mistakes. Even silly ones. Especially silly ones - if a task is easy, you've done it 1,000 times before etc your brain is not trying as hard as it is for more difficult tasks.

Definitely accountability and being open about mistakes matters, as does learning from your mistakes.

But we don't get safer by blaming people for mistakes or pretending that the best people don't make mistakes. They do. We learn from mistakes at a system level - could we make it easier to prevent or catch mistakes? A classic one is nhs administration staff sending someone else's letter in with your own (less likely now). You can't prevent that mistake by reminding people to be careful, you prevent it by designing work so they have quiet space to focus and so only one task at once. Or you automate the task.

I encourage my colleagues to look for my mistakes. Default is to assume I made them.

@Eskarina1 that's a lovely response. I worked in admin the NHS once upon a time and that incident happened. We all got hauled into a meeting and really told off by a manager. It was so horrible!

Yes of course everyone makes mistakes all the time! Even AI makes mistakes and that’s not even human.

One of the best pieces of advice I have read is that often when we are reviewing our own competence against that of our peers or that of people we admire, we are sure we are not as good as them, because we have FULL information about all the mistakes we have ever made, but our culture doesn’t encourage people to talk about all the mistakes they made in their journeys - so we get the false impression that other people’s careers have been seamless and easy and it is only ourselves that struggle and make cock ups and blunders and feel stupid regularly.

But, if we opened the lid on everyone else we would see that they have achieved success despite/because of all the mistakes they have made - that the path to mastery is ALWAYS littered with mistakes and missteps - that is simply life!

This is why it’s so so important for young career starters to be in the office with more experienced colleagues and not just online - you need to see and experience the directors and CEOs etc messing up a presentation or seeming a bit nervous to realise that you can be a human and successful.

My other piece of advice (and please forgive me Mother Earth, because it’s not very sustainable) is to always print important documents out to proofread them - it’s the only way to spot the errors.

An old boss of mine used to say people who don't work don't make mistakes
everyone does its easily done. it's how you deal with it after that maters don't try and cover up hold your hand up and admit it.

Assuming you work in tech from your terminology, can you use AI to help you QA your queries?

There should always be someone doing compliance checks to pick these things up. That's what your QA exists for.

Unfortunately in my role, our compliance officer is mince and doesn't bother looking at anything until audit rolls around. Then it's panic stations and all hands on deck clearing up any errors that have been made during the year.

Audit is next week, I'm feeling a little nauseous.

Yea I have today. I feel so stupid. It’s not a big mistake but it has wasted someone’s time which has made me cross with myself. I need to concentrate more.

No, never.

Then again, I don’t have a job.

Yeah I'd sack you. Immediately. For using acronyms.

Almost never. I double check every single thing every single time as a matter of course, and then check again.Years of training as a cashier in a high street bank, followed by many more years in finance and accounting have drilled it into me.

Yep I do! Me and my closest colleague often check each other’s work as we know how easy it is to make silly mistakes, especially as we both have menopausal brain fog!

Yes, I did today and got myself completely knotted up about it. I’d missed an email .

I make decisions on templates that need to be checked all the time and proof read. There's always something that needs to be removed or changed. We're only humans x

Really depends what the mistake is.

Everyone makes mistakes. But your error checking should be proportional to what the impact of the mistake is.

If a mistake might cost your business £10, then the mistake is of little consequence and if you aren't making the odd one now and again you are probably being too diligent and spending too much time error checking.

If the mistake might cost your business £100K then it is a different issue.

The values £10 and £100K of course scale with the business size. Although even if you are in a multi million dollar business a £100K mistake is probably frowned upon.

As long as you acknowledge your mistake and learn from it.
We ALL make mistakes.
In the grand scheme of things it's no biggie.
I'm a Nurse and if I make a mistake it could literally be life or death.
Don't sweat the small stuff.

yes, i do. i'm a solicitor and have made some pretty bad ones. ultimately i've learnt from them, but no doubt will continue to make mistakes. it's a part of life!

My other colleagues also on this project. Made mistakes. I staid up late (alongside the PM) to get make the changes and get the report out.

Yep we ask each other to proofread each other's work and mumsnet will hate this corporate speak but to act as 'critical friends' for each other. It's so easy to miss mistakes in your own work so it's better to get someone else to double check it.