#and they'll be like 'lmao ok we'll reset those and change that system'

[other-peoples-coats]

coats hello :( weird question but i think i semi-majorly fucked up at work, do you have any general advice on dealing with that?

Hi anon! disclaimer up front: I am not a professional at anything related to like, mental health or employment law, I'm just a potato with some fucked brain chemistry and a willingness to read a lot of legal documentation.

that said: first up, I'm sorry, I fucking hate when that happens, you're 100% not alone and you're allowed to feel bad about it, but also, try and chill out. brains are shit. jobs are extra double shit. sometimes you fuck up and that's ok, you're human, you're allowed to fuck up and this isn't the end of the world.

second up: I don't know anything about what you fucked up, or how major it was, but like. there's probably been bigger fucks ups, likely even at your specific company/department. I can almost guarantee you that.

I also don't know what your particular job situation is re:how much going to your boss/leader/team and being like 'whoops there is a problem and I made it' will be detrimental to you - on the scale of 'your boss/person who keeps you employed' will be like DEATH TEN THOUSAND YEARS POVERTY (in which case: fuck them, most mistakes can be rectified and learnt from) to 'haha that's ok, lets work to fix it and make sure it can't happen again, no worries anon it happens', but you...will have a better idea of that.

either way, on the practical front: if what went wrong is something fixable, come up with a plan to fix it. doesn't have to be a huge apology tour /I will work day and night without food nor water nor rest until the kingdom is safe the fuck up is fixed / whatever, but y'know, if it's a 'I approved a print run and we printed 10,000 copies of this book which is missing chapter 6 entirely, has 3 chapter 9s, and misspells the author's name' (True story my wife has seen happen! on the milder end of the moderate fuck up scale!), maybe you're like 'I will re-read more thoroughly the approved document and run a shorter print run for quality/ work out how to organise our print schedule so everything is still done on time/what the fuck ever'. Leave room for your bosses to change stuff, because.... some people loooove to be able to Have Input, but be prepared to run with whatever you've got as a patch.

This will depend on your boss/organisation/field, obviously, so apologies for the generic sort of answer here. Some bosses fucking love it when an underling comes to them and is like 'hey problem (mea culpa) BUT it's not a you problem because I've already planned to fix it, just need you to ok the fix which you do not have to do any more work about', some bosses really want to be involved and micromanage it. or collaborate, or have eyes on something else that you don't know about that is also impacted.

Ideally, you also come up with a way you can try and avoid this sort of mistake in the future. not that you 100% will! but it looks good if you can be like 'I have learnt from my mistakes and in order to avoid them or similar in the future I will [whatever]'. Don't pitch this as a 'there's a problem with The Company's Processes'; that looks like shifting blame. (even if it's true.)

non-ethical corollary here: if your boss/job is the kind to be like 'you forgot to cross the t on page 15402, you're FIRED', and your fuck up doesn't actually endanger people (so like, you accidentally approved 40000 books to be printed wrong, not you accidentally put arsenic in the communal sugar pot) you might have to sort of. fudge it. a little bit. which I am not recommending, but also, like, sometimes you gotta 'haha whoops the technology demons anyway here's a fix to this totally unrelated to me problem'. This is not recommended. Do not do this if you are likely to be 1)dealing with the law about it 2)internally investigated about it 3)caught out about it or, frankly, 4)rewarded for the fix, but also, sometimes you just gotta throw some tech under the bus to make rent. It's shit. that's late stage capitalism for you.

Don't throw anyone else who's not related to it under the bus for your fuck up, though. That's dogshit behavior.

(please decide how comfortable with lying here you are. and how good at it you are. before you commit to this path. Which, again, I am not recommending, but also, I've definitely had jobs where 'haha the tech demons anyway here's a patch for this weird issue bye' was the thing standing between me and uh not making rent that month)

Emotionally, dealing with the 'oh fuck I fucked up I fucked up I fuckedup'...yeah. it's fucking rough. acknowledge (to yourself! fuck your boss, this is your emotional health not their business) that you did, that you didn't do it on purpose, and try and put into place strategies to stop it happening again, because even if your boss is like 'lmao no wukkas mate she'll be right we'll just patch it in post', you are probably in the 'I could walk into the sea' mindeset, and that's just how it sometimes be, because...brains bad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

second: be kind to yourself! watch yr fave shows or play some games to not think about it for a bit. do your hobby. talk with friends. talk with friends about times they fucked up at work even! talk to your partner/s if you've got 'em about it; my wife was the one who started me on the keeping a book of communal fails to have an outside perspective on how mcuh everyone on my team fucks up.

I would probably recommend documenting everything related to this in a separate file NOT ON A WORK DEVICE cannot emphasize that enough, just so you have like, a clear timeline of events should you need it. ideally you end up with like:

-[thing you should have done]

-[thing you messed up AND WHEN YOU REALISED]

-next steps you took

-what your boss did in response

-any other stuff - your plan to not have it happen again, potential fall out, etc etc, any messages you have abou this or related yo this, who you've told what and when.

Hopefully you have this just as reference for yourself later - both as a 'last time I fucked up this is how it went!' and also, honestly, as a story for job interviews when they're like 'so tell us about a time you fucke dup at work'. (which is a cruel interview question, tbqh, but an increasingly common one, in my opinion.)

or to give to HR. like, I hope it doesn't get there, but like. y'know. cover thine own ass.

And finally -- again, keep that record of ways other people in your team are fucking up, to just kinda reassure yourself,. maybe even make it retrospective, if you can remember any other issues! remember last month when Jenny accidentally emailed the client briefing to George in accounting instead of George in accounts? in your note book of communal fails it goes. not to throw people under the bus, but to get a more objective sense of how bad this actually is on the scale and how unusual. (weight it though; you're more likely to remember your own fuck ups than anyone elses).

But also like. it's ok. you're allowed to fuck up sometimes. I'm sorry that you did, and I'm not saying that it's gonna be fun or easy to deal with, but like. You're human. You're allowed to fuck up sometimes.

(also, anyone who is actually a experienced in uh. an even related field feel free to chime in here; this is hugely biased by both being Australian and the labour laws/work culture on the whole here.)