Own your mistakes

I have preached that to my kids and grandkids, and in fact, to everyone I know forever, but I myself sometimes have a hard time doing it and have been known to try to hide my mistakes so others don’t find out. 

God gave me a very strong lesson about that last week. 

I was filling in for Pam at the Basin paper office, which means that I answer phones, do the labels for the mailed papers and oversee the mailroom crew Wednesday evening. I thought I had done it enough to be very comfortable with the whole routine. 

I started off on Monday by thinking I could install a new version of the label program, then half way through decided I was getting in over my head. So I hit cancel and uninstalled the whole program. (AAAAACK!) I fretted for several hours just trying to figure that out and finally called the helpline for the program. That became the high spot of my week because I got a wonderful lady on the line who was gentle, kind, helpful and walked me through the whole system to get it back. 

So on Tuesday I started printing labels and grabbed the wrong box of labels. The address labels are printed on 1x4 labels. I grabbed the 2x4 labels we use on the post office tubs. To make matters worse I didn’t notice the mistake until Wednesday afternoon when we started labeling papers. 

From there it went from bad to worse. I tried cutting the labels apart (too time consuming). I printed another set. Now we were short of papers. I printed another set and thought we had it fixed. Most of all I thought it was all done and I could get by with not telling   what happened. 

Until Thursday morning. I get to the office and all ready there is a message that someone got two Greybull papers. Then the phone rings. It is the owner, David, “Hey Steva, I got two Basin papers here at the Chronicle.” 

Oops. Then Nathan from the Greybull paper emails both Pam and I, saying “A subscriber says she got three Greybull papers.” 

And lastly, our press run driver texts Pam and I to let us know that his brother got three papers. 

That is when I knew God had backed me into a corner and I was going to have to “own” that mistake and confess the whole thing to Pam. I fretted all day Thursday and Thursday night over how to do it and what Pam’s reaction was going to be. 

Turns out I really didn’t need to fret much. Pam was completely gracious and forgiving, accepting the fact that mistakes can be made. I assured her that I have learned that lesson and will be double-checking everything the next time so it won’t ever happen again. Even when I offered to pay for the extra labels she was gracious. 

And guess what? I feel much better about my relationship with Pam and Barbara in the Basin office, and in fact, with the whole Big Horn County Newspaper family. It is a great company to work for. And I feel better within myself because I know I did the right thing. 

So I will keep preaching, “Own your mistakes!” It is better for everyone. 

And a big thanks to the mail crew for putting up with me. You are all rock stars.