Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Work Woes (Blurb)

 
 Do you have any idea what it is like to totally mess something up? .. I do .. it is not fun - and the way a leader deals with it .. can either make it better.. or make it way.. way worse.

My leader helped to solidify a mistake I made forever to be in my mind, but in a way I am grateful for and wish to share with you... so you may likely get to partake in sharing this wisdom one day or another.

Part of my job is to input information in our material system database.  This is a fairly simple job, but quite monotonous.  Numbers, Numbers, letters and quantities, over and over again.  At all times it only takes one off keystroke to make what could be a HUGE problem.  I made one of those one time.

How did I learn of this? My boss called me to his office handed me a print of a part and told me of a pallet of parts in our shop.  He told me to take the print out to the shop and take a look at what I could notice.  I walked out there and saw... pretty much what you can see in the photo above.  The part in the print is one very small piece of metal, and what was on the pallet was a complete weldment with many other parts attached to it.  I realized then what the problem was.  Because of me mistyping a number into the system we ended up with MANY parts and time spent on something we did not even need.  As well the part which was needed was not even made.

I made a mistake.  The mistake in itself was small, but the conclusion of the mistake was much larger.  Yes, it could have been much worse.  I have known of times where entire assemblies were created were not even needed.  So... for one thing.. just a small mistake can have very large repercussions, but my point in all of this to realize there are many ways we can learn/teach from mistakes.

We can gain the info and give up... or move on and do better the next time.  We can yell and complain about the things we do not like about what was done incorrectly, or we can calmly let those who made the mistake learn the problem and create a way to deal with it themselves. I prefer the second option myself, but am poor at actually executing it.  I need to always remember this moment and the way I can better deal with mistakes and problems.  Those of my making and as well those of the making of others.

How do you deal with mistakes?
 
 
 
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