Work Advice Please

[justwantapizza]

Hi. I've had an overwhelming, tiring week for various reasons. I also suffer from bouts of insomnia. It was getting better but I only had about 5 hours sleep last night. I felt dreadful today and made a fairly serious mistake at work.

I have apologised to my line manager. If this is escalated higher up I'm not sure what to say. I don't want to play the "poor me I have so much going on in my life with little support" card.

I have worked really hard at my job and was getting good feedback. I am so annoyed with myself for messing up.

Luckily I work in admin and I'm not a brain surgeon.

Advice please.

Try and put it out of your mind for now. We are human and we make mistakes, sadly it's part of life. You owned up and escalated to your manager and beyond that, there is little you can do!

Honestly though, if it did get picked up by anyone higher, I'd absolutely be honest about what you've got going on. Again, you're human, and you have a life outside of work. That impacted work briefly despite a good record. It shows that you've recognised it, you're honest about it and you're putting things in place to prevent it becoming an issue again.

It isn't so much 'woe is me', it's more self assessment and recognition of impact on work.

But for tonight, try not to dwell too much. Easier said than done I know, but it definitely won't help matters!

The chances are your manager also makes mistakes sometimes, everyone does, you just don’t hear about it!
If it is escalated all you can do is own up, and help repairing the mistake. Personally when people make mistakes, I don’t need a grovelling apology, but an acknowledgment that you know it shouldn’t have happened, fix the mistake, think of how it can be avoided in future, and then move on.
Don’t overthink this and try to rest this weekend.

Thanks for the replies. I have made the organisation look unprofessional. Yes, my manager has made a mistake in the past but it wasn't that bad.

But you're owning that and rectifying it as best you can. It's all you can do at this point!