The next story comes only a couple of years after the first one. I had left Nevada and was now in Washington working for a small manufacturing company. I had answered a job ad for an admin “who’s not afraid of computers” and was spending most of my time doing tech support and database administration. One of the things I did was create part numbers for new products as well as new materials.

One day, I was working at my desk (which was in a big open area, facing our production line) when one of the company founders, the machinist, and my boss came up to my desk. The founder was not in a good mood. He was working on a new invention, or at least an innovation for one of our products, and had needed a certain screw. The screw we ordered was NOT the right screw. Its thread count was wrong. (I know thread count is what you use for sheets, but basically, on this screw, the threading was at the wrong incline.) Believe it or not, this makes a difference.

They were at my desk because the screw was wrong. The purchaser claimed it was not his fault because he ordered the screw that went with the part number he was given. The machinist was positive he would not have told anyone the wrong specification for the screw. My boss was there as the VP of purchasing and head of research and development (I mentioned it was a small company, right). And they were at my desk because I was the one who had created the part number and therefore entered the specifications into the computer system.

By this time, our founder was frustrated. I said it must be my fault, and give me the right specification, and I’ll change it in the computer system right now, and then our purchaser can order the right screws and get them overnighted, if need be.

The founder and the machinist walked away. My boss stuck around. He told me he knew that could not have been my fault, because I did not know enough about screws to make that kind of mistake (this is absolutely true). He knew that when I created the part number, I only would have entered the information given to me and that information would have come from him (but in this case he knew it had not), the machinist or our purchaser. I shrugged and told him that it was pretty obvious that by that point, our founder was as unhappy with no one taking responsibility as he was with having the wrong screw. It was no skin off my back to claim the mistake, and more importantly, I was then able to fix it.

After that, the founder took a liking to me, and would call on me to help him with projects (there were only two admins in the entire company) when he needed it.

While these may seem like two very different stories, I see them very much the same. In both cases, I admitted to a mistake, did my best to rectify it, and then moved on. The real difference was not whether or not the mistake was mine, but the attitude I displayed (I had learned from the first mistake), and also the attitude of the people around me.

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. What is important is how we handle the aftermath. As in so many things, attitude is everything.