Consider the self-described boneheaded onsider the self-described boneheaded mistake of Marie Clark, a creative ser- vices director. It was a faux pas that she’s never forgotten, or, thankfully, repeated. “I grabbed a document o; of a superior’s desk because it had my cli- ent’s logo on it,” she recalls. “I read the document—an information sheet on preparation for a vasectomy—and then looked at my boss and said, ‘So what are you doing for my client? A media campaign about vasectomies?’ To which he replied, ‘No. I’m getting a vasectomy.’ He wasn’t even aware that we work with this particular facility that provided the operation. Boy, was I embarrassed. Moral of the story: If it’s not yours, don’t touch.” Let’s face it, if you’ve ever spent a day as a professional, then you’ve com- mitted at least one boneheaded o;ce mistake in your lifetime. It could have been an intentional act of hubris that you later regretted or a simple brain burp. Whatever the mistake, it was something you did that you can never undo. And that’s OK. Countless boneheaded o;ce mistakes are made every day amid the crowded cubicle communities that make up our corporate homes.
the Workplace Without Hanging Yourself.
“So, before you send that e-mail or make
the presentation, get an extra set of
eyeballs to read it first. Co-workers are
usually happy to do so. Or increase the
font size on the screen of the document
you’re reviewing. Read the words out
loud to make sure they read properly.
Small steps can go a long way.”
#1Mistake: You fail to pay attention to details. Pity the job applicant who—
attempting to make a football analogy
—said he specialized in “o;ensive marketing campaigns.” (No, he wasn’t hired.)
Or the Web designer who put the wrong
company phone number on a valued
corporate client’s new website. And then
there are the countless simple typos in
memos and e-mails. One missing zero in
a quarterly sales report could very well
set o; a layo; scare throughout your
department. To avoid this sort of thing,
make a couple of tiny preemptive strikes.
“The little stu; is important,” says
workplace expert Elizabeth Freedman,
author of Work 101: Learning the Ropes of
#2Mistake: You forget about the power—and reach—of social media.
With o;ce professionals now seemingly
addicted to Facebook, Twitter and other
social media hotspots, many lose sight of
how many colleagues are following their
every word.
“I had a co-worker who was widely
followed on Twitter,” says Mike Song,
a virtual meeting trainer and coauthor
of The Hamster Revolution for Meetings.
“He was once late for a meeting and
blamed the tra;c. But his boss read his
tweets, and shortly before the meeting
began the colleague posted, ‘Headed
into a boring meeting—need java to stay
awake—Starbucks here I come!’ ” Song
advises professionals to be discreet in
their tweets and to consider not opening
up social network forums to everyone in
the o;ce.
#3Mistake: You let e-mail get the best of you. Given the furious rate at
which company e-mails fly these days,
one’s inbox can display an entire volume
of classic boneheaded o;ce mistakes. In
fact, 89 percent of people say e-mail and
other high-tech communications get
in the way of good workplace relationships, according to an online poll conducted by Kerry Patterson, a workplace
expert and coauthor of the bestseller
Crucial Conversations.
There are many stories like that of
the human resources person at a foreign
