Was this unprofessional?

[smthngStupid]

I am graduate working in law.

Left to go on hol for a few days recently and my manager left me a list of tasks to do while he was also away (there was a crossover between our hols). Unfortunately I got ill and only had one day in the office - I cleared down the outstanding tasks that I could but there really weren't many as I was awaiting info from elsewhere (beyond my control, my team were aware of this).

I emailed my manager upon his return letting him know what I'd done (I was still on hol at this point). However I then realised that there were a few tasks to do on another area of work which I hadn't seen, and which were not in original email - I mentioned this to manager, apologised for the oversight and said if necessary I was happy to catch up with them from home that day. They were not urgent and other people in the team would have been able to help in my absence, but I do feel guilty as my name was on them!

No reply as yet from manager and feel a bit like I could have handled things differently. Sort of dreading going back to work now too!

It's not unprofessional not to complete work if you are sick - and make your cover aware of that.

It may have been unprofessional to miss the other items - you say they weren't on the original email, but they must have been somewhere? So if you were aware of them, then yes that was unprofessional - whether other people could deal with it, and whether you offered to do it during leave doesn't make the origival omission less unprofessional.

Everyone makes mistakes though - and unprofessional is quite a strong word for a mistake. I think you've covered yourself as best as you can, and I think the reason your boss hasn't replied is simply that these non urgent omissions that are now back in hand with you are not a priority when he has ongoing work and holiday catch up!

Relax - it happens to everyone and you have responded as well as you can when you realised your mistake.