Wednesday, January 26, 2011

How To Gracefully Acknowledge An Honest Mistake

We all make them.  They are as ubiquitous as Facebook friend requests and text messages.  They are Honest Mistakes.  Every one of us has made one.  To me, it's not the mistake itself that is the problem, though that is a problem, but it is how the mistaker treats the mistakee when the mistake is discovered.  The mistakee has a right to be upset, and certainly should react in an appropriate manner, but the mistaker also has a responsibility to acknowledge what they did and try to atone for the mistake.  Let me give you an example.

There is this teacher I know that had to be out for a conference.  The absence was approved in advance, and the teacher wanted an specific substitute that they knew was excellent and knew would assure that the work would get done and would know the material and be able to actually help the students.  The teacher went through the right channels after checking with the substitute teacher to assure they were available.  It probably bears stating that at the school where this took place the teachers are not permitted to input their own substitute teacher requests, though that is their responsibility.  To get back to the story, the teacher went back to the appropriate administrative official and asked them to input the substitute they requested into the system. The administrative official stated that they would do so.  The teacher, believing that the school administrative official would do the job correctly, went back to their job.  The administrative official went to input the absence for the teacher, but was unable to request the substitute.  When they were unable to get the requested substitute, they went back to the teacher, explained the situation and then told them they would get them another substitute.  Life went on.

The substitute spent the time between when they got the call to the day of the job waiting for the job confirmation to appear in the system.  Said confirmation never appeared.  Being the conscientious person that they were, they showed up for the job, thinking there had been a mistake.  They were right, but it wasn't in a good way.  Upon showing up, the administrative official expressed surprise that the substitute showed up, stating that they were not able to get the system to accept them as the substitute.  The substitute expressed surprise, given that they had specifically kept that day open for that person.  The only time the substitute had made unavailable was the day prior to the day requested, as they had a previous engagement.  The substitute expressed this to the administrative official, they essentially said that they didn't understand why it happened, but they definitely didn't make a mistake.  Now, given the facts in evidence, it is a very strong possibility that this mistake had been made, and probably was.   Instead of acknowledging that such a mistake was a possibility, the official patently denied it and exhibited an "I don't care" attitude.  The official then turned away from the substitute, dismissing them like a king dismissing a peasant from their presence.

Now, what should have happened was that the requested substitute should have been contacted to assure that there was no reason why the system would not allow them to input the job. Perhaps then, the person inputting the job would have caught their mistake, and then things could have been made right.  Barring that, the official could have profusely apologized, and stated that an honest mistake that could have been made, and for the substitute to accept a sincere apology and that more care would be taken to assure that something like this didn't happen in the future.  That didn't happen.  The substitute was treated like trash by the administrative official, when they had always been treated wonderfully by the teachers.

My point in all this is this:  Honest Mistakes do indeed happen.  Everyone needs to react with grace, and most of all, both sides need to and should acknowledge that they do happen and should admit that humans do make mistakes.  No one should profess to be perfect or above mistakes.  To do so is to have an amazing sense of arrogance and entitlement.  So, I simply say to you, please treat others with kindness and acknowledge the humanity on all sides.  Acknowledge that mistakes happen, and own up to them, and be understanding when they happen.

Peace Out!

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