By Anthony Balderrama
http://msn.careerbuilder.ca/Article...ticles_CA_EN418&cblang=CAEnglish&ocid=Article
Some nightmares from your school days will never go away. Whether you graduated from high school this year or two decades ago, some anxiety will always haunt you. Waking up and remembering you forgot to write a research paper. Walking down a hall of lockers and realizing you're not wearing pants. Oversleeping on exam day and thereby being ineligible to pass the class.
Only once you've woken up and realized it was all a dream do you exhale and the cold chills fade. Still, you'll never escape these nightmares. They keep coming back time after time.
Perhaps the only thing worse than being haunted by nightmares is being haunted by mistakes you can't undo. And if you've been in the working world for long enough you're bound to commit such a gaffe. Whether it's a small mistake, such as spilling ketchup on your tie, or a significant error, like accepting an offer for a job you know you'll hate, everyone has a few mistakes in their closet.
We asked some professionals to let us know what some of their biggest professional mistakes are. Some are minor, others are major, and several are in between. Regardless, at least you know that you're not alone in your missteps.
"I was the executive director of an organization serving juvenile offenders and had started a program to match firefighters up with juvenile fire setters. I had invited community leaders to my office to discuss the program and had a short film clip about fire setting. I had brought in my own VCR and started it rolling, but instead of the film clip, a steaming sex scene from "Body Heat" came on, which was the film my husband and I had watched the night before. I was completely mortified. At the time I was under 25, the youngest ED in all of Denver, and trying to be so professional. It was hard to regroup in that moment, pop in the other tape and continue. I did, and the firefighters found it hilarious, but I had a hard time finding the humour in the moment."
- Anne Belden, life coach for Sea Changes Life Coaching
"Just starting my career, I worked as an assistant account executive for a small PR agency. As low man on the totem pole, I often crafted the press releases for our client, a major pork products producer. The client had a toll-free phone number where people could call and get coupons and recipes. The client's toll-free number started with "1-888" but the press release that I wrote and was reviewed by two senior account team members had a "1-800" number listed. Only after major national distribution and calls from some of those newspapers did we find out about the wrong phone number. The number we had published nationwide wasn't a toll-free number for coupons, it was a porn number for phone sex services. To this day, I personally call and verify all phone numbers on any press release I'm asked to review. Now, I also check all websites." - Deanna H. Miller, marketing specialist for Goodwill Industries of Central North Carolina, Inc.
http://msn.careerbuilder.ca/Article...ticles_CA_EN418&cblang=CAEnglish&ocid=Article
Some nightmares from your school days will never go away. Whether you graduated from high school this year or two decades ago, some anxiety will always haunt you. Waking up and remembering you forgot to write a research paper. Walking down a hall of lockers and realizing you're not wearing pants. Oversleeping on exam day and thereby being ineligible to pass the class.
Only once you've woken up and realized it was all a dream do you exhale and the cold chills fade. Still, you'll never escape these nightmares. They keep coming back time after time.
Perhaps the only thing worse than being haunted by nightmares is being haunted by mistakes you can't undo. And if you've been in the working world for long enough you're bound to commit such a gaffe. Whether it's a small mistake, such as spilling ketchup on your tie, or a significant error, like accepting an offer for a job you know you'll hate, everyone has a few mistakes in their closet.
We asked some professionals to let us know what some of their biggest professional mistakes are. Some are minor, others are major, and several are in between. Regardless, at least you know that you're not alone in your missteps.
"I was the executive director of an organization serving juvenile offenders and had started a program to match firefighters up with juvenile fire setters. I had invited community leaders to my office to discuss the program and had a short film clip about fire setting. I had brought in my own VCR and started it rolling, but instead of the film clip, a steaming sex scene from "Body Heat" came on, which was the film my husband and I had watched the night before. I was completely mortified. At the time I was under 25, the youngest ED in all of Denver, and trying to be so professional. It was hard to regroup in that moment, pop in the other tape and continue. I did, and the firefighters found it hilarious, but I had a hard time finding the humour in the moment."
- Anne Belden, life coach for Sea Changes Life Coaching"Just starting my career, I worked as an assistant account executive for a small PR agency. As low man on the totem pole, I often crafted the press releases for our client, a major pork products producer. The client had a toll-free phone number where people could call and get coupons and recipes. The client's toll-free number started with "1-888" but the press release that I wrote and was reviewed by two senior account team members had a "1-800" number listed. Only after major national distribution and calls from some of those newspapers did we find out about the wrong phone number. The number we had published nationwide wasn't a toll-free number for coupons, it was a porn number for phone sex services. To this day, I personally call and verify all phone numbers on any press release I'm asked to review. Now, I also check all websites." - Deanna H. Miller, marketing specialist for Goodwill Industries of Central North Carolina, Inc.
