That annoying mistake has been made before. Here are 5 doozies.
Recently I wrote an article, a rant, really, about losing my writer’s notebook. It still hasn’t show up (but thanks for all the claps, which I hoped might lead it home).
Losing the notebook was the result of sloppy mismanagement I cannot explain. I’m generally pretty good at keeping track of stuff. Until I’m not.
I’ve moved on. The emotional self-flagellation gave way to the realization we ALL make stupid mistakes.
The litany of common mistakes
My (latest) stupid mistake got me thinking about the other stupid errors I’ve made. Some of them more than once. Simple, garden variety mistakes.
- Misplaced (sometimes forever) keys. Annoying.
- Left-behinds: earrings in the hotel room, credit card/wallet on the restaurant table. Sunglasses? Please. Strewn across continents.
- Overlooked email that goes unanswered. Embarrassing.
I’ve also swum with the Big Fish of blunders, common in our high-tech, attention-scrambled world.
1. Spilled drinks on the keyboard.
A bottle of water is more dangerous than a cup of coffee, both in terms of volume and stability of the container. An unwelcome flood waiting to happen and ruin your day.
Keyboards don’t like moisture.
A design flaw, if you ask me, that the iPad sealed keyboard cleverly addresses.
I’d say the design engineer had a run-in or two with keyboards and water.
2. I left something behind on a train, bus or airplane. I remembered it AFTER disembarking.
You land. You are reminded to collect laptops, phones, and other personal belongings from "the seat-back in front of you."
And, “items in the overhead compartments may have shifted in flight.”
Right. Like the safety message at the beginning of a flight, these verbal cues are often ignored, and to our peril.
I lost 2 pairs of prescription glasses this way, when they fell out of an unsecured bag I tossed over head. I still cringe at the thought.
I once lugged 2 liters of precious olive oil across Italy and on to the plane (when you could still do that). I forgot them in the overhead at JFK, excited to return home.
Remember there is NO WAY you’re going to get back on that airplane once you’ve walked down the jetway. You can kiss that stuff good-bye.
Trains and buses are a bit different but offer equal opportunity mistake potential. The security is less, but tight schedules mean the bus or train is down the line by the time you realize item didn’t come along with you.
Surely it’s possible to reclaim through Lost and Found, but somehow my prescription reading glasses/sunglasses are never among the thousands of orphaned pairs at the Lost Items desk. Go figure.
3. Go the wrong direction in transit.
It takes just a few seconds to process — North or South, East or West. Now or in a quarter mile? And it is so easy, especially in heavy traffic, to get stuck in the lane that takes you in the opposite direction.
Of course the sooner you realize the error, the better. Three miles out of your way is nothing; 30 miles is really annoying.
The New York City subway system, a grid of “Uptown” and “Downtown” lines, presents its own challenge.
New Yorkers will never admit it, but I’d bet that every single subway rider has, at least once, stepped aboard the “wrong” train. And has gone at least one stop before realizing it. Hopefully, not on an express line.
4. My cell phone falls out of my pants pocket.
We all tuck our phones into a pocket of jeans. Often, the back pocket. Until we lose them that way, sitting down. There are stories galore about phones meeting their demise in toilets.
I lost 2 phones, in succession, with a single pair of jeans. Once on a bus, the second time at a subway station. I even tracked the second lost phone on “Find My Phone” but without successful recovery. It had taken a subway ride to oblivion, in the possession of the finder.
The jeans went to the dump. I couldn’t bear to recycle them and pass along the problem, not to mention the bad karma, to an unsuspecting recipient.
My mistake didn’t have to become someone else’s mistake.
5. A needed receipt gets tossed, and I paw through the week’s trash to find it.
Often it’s wet garbage and the quarry is at the bottom, stained a questionable brown (it’s coffee), damp with matted gook. It’s the receipt I need.
If I don’t find it, or its condition is beyond restoration then so be it. I tried. It was a mistake to thoughtlessly through it away, then belatedly realize it was the Wrong One to chuck.
OK, I won’t get reimbursed. And maybe next time…I won’t make the same mistake?
The Upshot
Mistakes are common so give yourself a break.
We hope our mistakes remain undiscovered and we are spared the embarrassment of owning up to a lapse in judgement or inattention.
They are not an indictment of your personal integrity, value, or intellect.
Mistakes are, in part, a reflection of a hectic, info-laden world, loaded with too many stressors.
When immediacy is the driver and the emphasis is on speed, thoughtful decision making is compromised.
Most mistakes are just jogs in the path of everyday life. Sometimes what appears to be a mistake, what requires a change of plan or alternate route, turns out to be the luckiest day of your life.
Sometimes mistakes are serendipity in disguise.
Mistakes happen. To all of us. As philanthropist Charlie Munger says,
“Smart people do dumb things.”
No doubt he has done fewer of them than the average bear.
Copyright 2018 Jane Trombley
