pushing the envelope for getting fired
I screwed up at work this week, pretty big. I've spent a lot of time working on different sections of a big document (the prospectus). The other law firm is in charge of putting the prospectus together, and I was responsible for sending them certain sections. We've done this a lot of times, and so there are times when I distribute the sections but they don't go into the prospectus. Each time I distribute the sections, there are changes from the last time I distributed them, and so I have to send a 'red-line' with the documents, and the red-line shows all the changes that have been made since the last distribution.
So, one of the sections was last sent on April 25, and I was sending the May 12 version. I attached the red-line and then incorrectly attached the April 25 version, not the May 12 version. So, when the other firm put the prospectus together, it had an old version of that section. When I started reading the prospectus, I noticed some things that seemed weird, like changes that hadn't been taken, and I didn't think much of it until I came to a table with the depreciable lives of assets, and I know we got rid of that, and so I went and checked, and that's when I discovered I had sent the wrong file to the other law firm.
I went to my boss right away.
"Hi, how are you?" she asked with a smile.
"Sarah, I screwed up."
She kept smiling a little. "How bad?"
"Bad. I sent [other law firm] an old version of the MD&A."
She could tell I was upset, and she stopped smiling. "And so the wrong version of the MD&A is in the prospectus?"
"Yes."
"Well that's OK. Just send them the new version and they'll have to redistribute the prospectus. I doubt anyone's started reading it yet!" She started smiling again.
"I'm really sorry about this."
"Don't worry about it; it's not a big deal." [It took the other law firm about eight hours after that to send out the new version of the prospectus--I did have to send an e-mail to the working group and apologize for my screw-up and tell them not to read the prospectus yet, but that doesn't bother me. I did feel bad about the other side having to do more work.]
As I walked out of her office, a senior associate was walking in, and I looked at him and just said, "I really screwed up!" And as I left, they were laughing.
A few seconds later, my boss ran into my office (we sit next to each other) and said, "Hey, when I was a first-year, I had to send two documents to two different places, and I put the documents in the wrong envelopes, and they went to the wrong people, and it was confidential information! So don't worry about this." [With the subtext of, "I was an associate at Cravath [fanciest of Wall Street firms], and so if I'm here now, as head of US corporate for Europe and Asia, well, figure it out!"]
I still felt really crappy about it, but I really like my boss. It was certainly a lesson to be more careful. And I'm ready for a vacation. One more week--here's to no more big screw-ups in the meantime!
Stay ever vigilant--
/B/
So, one of the sections was last sent on April 25, and I was sending the May 12 version. I attached the red-line and then incorrectly attached the April 25 version, not the May 12 version. So, when the other firm put the prospectus together, it had an old version of that section. When I started reading the prospectus, I noticed some things that seemed weird, like changes that hadn't been taken, and I didn't think much of it until I came to a table with the depreciable lives of assets, and I know we got rid of that, and so I went and checked, and that's when I discovered I had sent the wrong file to the other law firm.
I went to my boss right away.
"Hi, how are you?" she asked with a smile.
"Sarah, I screwed up."
She kept smiling a little. "How bad?"
"Bad. I sent [other law firm] an old version of the MD&A."
She could tell I was upset, and she stopped smiling. "And so the wrong version of the MD&A is in the prospectus?"
"Yes."
"Well that's OK. Just send them the new version and they'll have to redistribute the prospectus. I doubt anyone's started reading it yet!" She started smiling again.
"I'm really sorry about this."
"Don't worry about it; it's not a big deal." [It took the other law firm about eight hours after that to send out the new version of the prospectus--I did have to send an e-mail to the working group and apologize for my screw-up and tell them not to read the prospectus yet, but that doesn't bother me. I did feel bad about the other side having to do more work.]
As I walked out of her office, a senior associate was walking in, and I looked at him and just said, "I really screwed up!" And as I left, they were laughing.
A few seconds later, my boss ran into my office (we sit next to each other) and said, "Hey, when I was a first-year, I had to send two documents to two different places, and I put the documents in the wrong envelopes, and they went to the wrong people, and it was confidential information! So don't worry about this." [With the subtext of, "I was an associate at Cravath [fanciest of Wall Street firms], and so if I'm here now, as head of US corporate for Europe and Asia, well, figure it out!"]
I still felt really crappy about it, but I really like my boss. It was certainly a lesson to be more careful. And I'm ready for a vacation. One more week--here's to no more big screw-ups in the meantime!
Stay ever vigilant--
/B/