An angry patron brought my boss to tears and it’s all my fault. Instead of passing on the phone, I could instead make the executive decision to say, “No, she is not at work and I will take your air pollution complaint to handle myself.” That’s progress towards adulthood. That’s what it means to take the reins of the previous generation and venture forth on my own. Not to seek perfection but to maintain adequacy to a standard where my employer doesn’t have to worry anymore.
One amazing thing about the part time work I’m doing now is that while there is much oversight and double checking, my boss also entrusts some day-to-day decisions to me.
So even when I mess up the ledger at work, forget to validate a keycard, or blunder certain basic policies, I don’t get flak for it. My coworkers humanize the moments when I get flustered by a crowd and skip steps. We address what went wrong, and leave room for new mistakes in place of the old ones. I have rows and rows of procedural instructions written on the desk yet somehow my oversight leaks and scrambles without cease.
If I had any other employer, I would get fired a long time ago. I hope my dutiful cleanly nature makes up for those small financial losses I incur.