Would you make yourself ill over this?

[Japher]

It sounds as though other people were available to clean up your mess. The fact that they didn't fire you on the spot makes me think that they aren't going to. Also, it's clear to me that they still trust you, or they wouldn't of let you clean up your mess. I think they realize it's a mistake on your part, and that if any threat of termination comes from it, it will be because of complaints from your client. However, if they are really upset then I would think customer service would be partially to blame.

Anywho... I wouldn't beat myself over it. You made a mistake, it happens, everyone does, and everyone has to pay for it. I would be professional and apologetic, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[DAVOUT]

The nature of the mistake depends on several facts implying an increasing degree of fault:
- it can result from an inadvertence;
- it can result from a directive improperly applied;
- it can result from a directive deliberately omitted.

All these are badly executed orders producing mistakes identified, reported then corrected.
If you are an honest employee, aiming to become an excellent professional, you normally feel ashamed until the problem is corrected, then you recover and swear to yourself that you have learn something.

Whatever is the nature of the mistake, the really important thing for the company is to determine the causes of the mistake:
- if you were not in charge of the security of the records of the clients accounts, you can nevertheless reproach to yourself not to have identify this potential problem, even if it is not in your job description, and called the management attention on it; this is also a lesson not to forget;
- if you were totally in charge of the security of the records of the clients accounts, your responsibility is engaged, and also the one of your manager; this is of course much more serious, but the thing to do is not to become ill, but to propose a solution.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
The nature of the mistake depends on several facts implying an increasing degree of fault:
- it can result from an inadvertence;
- it can result from a directive improperly applied;
- it can result from a directive deliberately omitted.

All these are badly executed orders producing mistakes identified, reported then corrected.
If you are an honest employee, aiming to become an excellent professional, you normally feel ashamed until the problem is corrected, then you recover and swear to yourself that you have learn something.

Whatever is the nature of the mistake, the really important thing for the company is to determine the causes of the mistake:
- if you were not in charge of the security of the records of the clients accounts, you can nevertheless reproach to yourself not to have identify this potential problem, even if it is not in your job description, and called the management attention on it; this is also a lesson not to forget;
- if you were totally in charge of the security of the records of the clients accounts, your responsibility is engaged, and also the one of your manager; this is of course much more serious, but the thing to do is not to become ill, but to propose a solution.

You just topped DanQ as CORRECTBOT - the corporate correct response robot

Forget the nature of mistake.
He needs a beer, and sex

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov




You just topped DanQ as CORRECTBOT - the corporate correct response robot

Forget the nature of mistake.
He needs a beer, and sex

With the girl in your avatar!

[Sirotnikov]

heck, why not with arafat?

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
The nature of the mistake depends on several facts implying an increasing degree of fault:
- it can result from an inadvertence;
- it can result from a directive improperly applied;
- it can result from a directive deliberately omitted.

All these are badly executed orders producing mistakes identified, reported then corrected.
If you are an honest employee, aiming to become an excellent professional, you normally feel ashamed until the problem is corrected, then you recover and swear to yourself that you have learn something.

Whatever is the nature of the mistake, the really important thing for the company is to determine the causes of the mistake:
- if you were not in charge of the security of the records of the clients accounts, you can nevertheless reproach to yourself not to have identify this potential problem, even if it is not in your job description, and called the management attention on it; this is also a lesson not to forget;
- if you were totally in charge of the security of the records of the clients accounts, your responsibility is engaged, and also the one of your manager; this is of course much more serious, but the thing to do is not to become ill, but to propose a solution.

Here's how it happened in case anyone's interested. (This is going to be Pekkaeske so i'm expecting a few "Wtf Rich?")

Another tech is working on implementing a new system. She's been given a list of roughly 900 users to create in that new system. To create them we're using a custom program that uses a text file as input. That text file needs to be in a very specific format, with specific keywords being used to create / delete users and enter the information in the user account.
That tech hasn't used the program yet and doesn't have much experience in formating the file. So she put the file in the wrong format and sent it to the guy who runs the program. He comes in Wednesday morning, checks the file and *****es that it doesn't work. I'm sitting behind him, so i take a look at the file and i say that i'll put it in the right format. I open the file to take a look and notice something else is wrong.
This being Canada, we need to specify if the user's default language is french or english and the tech has entered the preferences as either FR or EN. But the program only accepts the complete word. The file is still in Excel format so i just do a replace all: where you find EN, replace with ENGLISH, and the same for French. That is my first mistake. I didn't select only the columm: i did it for the whole freakin spreadsheet.
So i save the file in the right format and send it to the guy. He runs the file and gets a bunch or errors because my error has changed a lot of entries in the file and the program doesn't recognize many of those. I have a look at the log and i realize immediately what i've done. The good thing is: these are all new users, so i haven't affected anybody's access. That's what i think, anyway. So i just decide to run the same file, but with a command to delete instead of create. Reverse my error. Without confirming first that none of the users already existed before i ran the file the first time.
Our system uses central user administration so i can have one user account for three or four different systems. And of the 900 that i created, roughly 400 already existed in systems other than the new one. I didn't know that and these users should not have been in a file to create users, since they already existed. But they were and i didn't check.
So when i ran my file in reverse to delete the users i had created, i also deleted 400 users that already existed prior to my doing anything. And of course - you know how these things work - as soon as the guy that runs the file clicked on the "execute" button for the deletion, i got that sinking feeling and asked him: none of these guys existed before, right? He looks at me and says: Nah. Well, i don't think so. They shouldn't anyway, right?

Right.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
heck, why not with arafat?

Just a personal preference.

I have to say it's the first time that Arafat and sex have come up in the same post in one of my threads.

[Solly]

"Postmortem" is an atrocious word to have reared its head in business.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Richelieu


Right.

The one who has never forget to make a backup of the file he intended to modify can throw the first stone

Now, if there is not a directive covering the backup policy of the company and/or department, one should be made; if one already exists, a strong reminder should be issued.

[Provost Harrison]

Look on the bright side Richelieu, if you'd have done this in Japan, you'd probably have killed yourself

[LordShiva]

Good job, PH, nobody's made that joke yet

Oh, wait