Day Two Hundred Fifty-Six

There has been a whole hell of a lot going on in the world I don't talk about in this space, but there's one tiny piece of it that just keeps sticking with me. So, reader, sit back and prepare to be bored by a story from that grown-up world I exist in for a whole bunch of hours every day.

For those who don't know, I'm a Product Manager at a Pittsburgh manufacturing company. Or, at least I am for another week. That's a separate story, but I'm moving on from the place that I've been very happy for the past five years because ... a whole hell of a lot has been going on. It's time to move in a new direction.

ANYWAY.

Basically I'm responsible for $200 million in revenues as I have total and complete ownership over several product lines. Like I said, I pretend to be a grown-up sometimes. One of those product lines had a little oopsie earlier this year.

Okay, a big oopsie. It wasn't a "people will die" sort of oopsie, which is entirely possible because WHO THE HELL ALLOWED ME TO BE A GROWN-UP, but it was an expensive oopsie. It will take months to fix, though it will have absolutely no impact on anyone outside of the place I work because sometimes you get lucky like that.

When something like that occurs, the normal course of action is to do a little root cause analysis and blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day, one person made a mistake and that mistake escaped. There are systems in place that should have been prevented it from escaping and, thus, as far as I'm concerned, it's evvvvverrrrybody's fault. Including mine. That's how I see it. I should have asked the question that led to the mistake getting caught and the engineer should not have made the mistake and the quality team should have had test cases to prevent the mistake from escaping and, look, we all had a chance to do better.

And we will next time.

All of that is exactly the attitude that I've had since the exact moment when we figured out what had happened. I had that attitude even as I jumped over processes that are supposed to slow down a knee-jerk reaction because hooboy. I absolutely did walk over to an engineer and say, "TAKE. IT. DOWN. NOW. ... I'll go start on the official process in a minute." Processes are great, but acting fast is sometimes greater.

ANYWAY. As all of this was going down and for the weeks that followed, I swear I was on suicide watch for the engineer who made the mistake. That person is so very customer-focused and wants very much so to do the best job possible at all times. They were legit heartbroken that the mistake was made. I was all, "Mistakes happen. It won't happen again. We've got work to do, so let's move on." It became my job to assure that person that it wasn't the end of the world.

Fast forward several months ... people are not amused that I'm moving on to a new role with a new company. Everyone understands because SO MUCH GOING ON, but apparently I don't suck at my job? That's what I hear, anyway. But THAT person. The one that made the mistake. That is the person who is taking the news the hardest.

I had the privilege of having someone passionately explain how appreciative they were that I stood by them even when a mistake was made. It was a lot and I'm really grateful for the feedback.

But.

BUT.

Why the hell do we allow a world to exist where someone feels appreciative because a co-worker stood by them when they made a mistake? Because we should all be like that. Always. Mistakes happen. Let's be forgiving, please.

For real, go be forgiving tomorrow. You just never know when that will be the thing that means the most to someone.