When was a time you were made to look like a total idiot because of the mistakes of others?

3 comments

1. I was tasked with setting up a Teams meeting with one of the most senior people in my organisation – the grandest of fromages and the person who’s absolutely the biggest stakeholder for my team.

   For some reason we had to reschedule it – so I put a new meeting in the diary and asked his PA to remove the old one. I asked her to do this both over the phone and on email:

   But she didn’t, and then she went on holiday.

   So this very senior, very busy guy ended up joining an empty Teams meeting and waiting around wasting his time.

   Oh, and I was new so this was the first time I would have interacted with him – it was his first impression of me and my project.

   It took me a while to get over that one.

2. I don’t think you looked like an idiot in that situation. It feels awkward, I had something very similar happen to me at a temporary job, but I don’t think you look like an idiot for it.

3. All the time because of customers.

   Customer tells me something.

   I ask a lot of questions about this customer continues to say this happened, its not right etc.

   I call a colleague who can help with this.

   Colleague says, what actually happened was that customer came in on Tuesday and spoke to me and

   Goes on to tell me the exact opposite of which customer said and if I had known this I would not have bothered colleague about it.

   Tell customer what colleague said.

   Customer replies yeah that happened but

   goes on to tell me what should have happened instead.