I’m interning at a company and had my first mistake today. One of the guys that works with my boss had asked me to arrange some files for him. So I arrange them and even do some extra to show how much I valued the task. I walked over to his cubicle and tell him that I sorted them and he says thank you quietly. He then points to his phone and says ‘they’re having a meeting’ so I lower my voice and say ‘oh! Sorry!’ And then he slides his chair over and says ‘they’re having a meeting so’ and motions to be quiet. So I say sorry and quietly mouthed if he needed anything else. He replied ‘no. Thank you’.
My boss invited me to a meeting afterwards they were all having and I ran into this gentleman and said ‘I’m sorry I walked in your meeting earlier’ and he just kind of shrugged and didn’t say too much.
I’m so embarassed I don’t even know what to do! Does anyone has any advice or am I making a bigger deal than it is?
You’re making a bigger deal than it is. Really.
He got that you didn’t understand. Don’t fret.
This is a total non-event.
Thank you for all of your help! I guess I’m just worked up because when I handed the files to him while he was on a conference call and Im nervous that the people on the other side of the line heard me! And it might be me, but I just felt like he was getting annoyed with me, but I honestly didnt know he was on the phone!
If that’s the worse mistake you ever make, you will be very lucky! I made a mistake that cost our client $10,000! Now THAT is a problem.
At my very first job as a secretary, I sent in a payment in one of those envelopes with a window. Unfortunately, I put the statement in the envelope so that the address didn’t show in the window, and the letter was returned to the office. I remember my boss yelling at me! I was devastated. So I understand how you feel, but you need to let it go.
What you did is very minor and happens all the time. Don’t worry about it.
Once I walked into someone’s office (my boss on a contract) who was on a conference call. She had accepted a meeting with me, and didn’t show up at the conference room, so I stopped by her cube to see if she was coming. Turned out she was on a conference call – she punched angrily at the button on the phone to mute it (but hit it an even number of times so didn’t actually mute), and snarled at me, “What the f&%* do you want?” Everyone on the conference call heard her! I said, “Sorry, we had a meeting at this time, I will reschedule it”, and backed out. Later someone said to me, “Did you hear what said to someone who came into her office during our conference call with 30 people on it!!!” Me: “Yeah… that was me” We got a good laugh out of it. And when that boss asked me to extend my contract a few months later, I politely turned it down. And I think she knew why. She was generally abusive, but this was pretty much the peak moment.
Your work career is long. This is a teeny tiny blip, and you did not do anything wrong. Drop it and move on.
My DH has an intern this summer that is a grad student. DH was out of town at a conference the day the intern started. So he made arrangements for some of his people to take the intern to lunch, and then set up a special web-X meeting with the intern for later that afternoon. DH had stepped out of the conference to get on the web-x… and the intern… didn’t show up!!! When DH called him on his cell to see why he didn’t participate in the very first meeting with his boss, the intern said “oh, I was still at lunch”. Um… not attending the very first meeting with your boss-- now THAT is a mistake for an intern!
It could be that the people that took them out to lunch dawdled (and maybe they were at a sit down place), so the intern was torn on how to handle it. Guessing the intern on the first day did not have boss’s phone number or maybe even work email available to touch base, too. But the intern should have told the lunchers that he had a meeting, and contacted the boss & apologized as soon as they got back if they were late!
I thought of another work mistake I made! A firm in Maine hired my husband and me for our first engineering jobs. While we were still in Texas, my future boss sent me some drawings of a dam they were working on. I looked at them and tossed them (what was I thinking?!?). My boss was NOT happy with me when he asked me if I’d brought the drawings my first day on the job. Ugh. I still cringe, thinking about that.
Don’t fret! It’s not that big of a deal, I’m sure it’ll be forgotten about soon!