A couple of weeks ago I spent some time in a little town called Charlevoix, Michigan. It’s a town that’s about as far north as you can get without being in Canada. I have to tell you Charlevoix already has some history for my family considering this is the same little place my wife talked me into driving to from Delaware last 4th of July with our two little ones. That’s 14 hrs each way for a long weekend in case you want to know.
Now this trip to Michigan wasn’t your ordinary vacation situation for many reasons but I’m only going to tell you about one particular story.
To give you some context, my wife and I flew out a week early with our two kids and so did my other sister-in-law, her husband, and their three kids. Just to keep things interesting all of us plus the bride and groom stayed in the same house…his parent’s house.
So after almost a week of nothing getting broken by my kids, father of the groom mentions they have a new couch coming that morning and asks for a hand moving the old one to the garage. Sounds easy enough.
Within hours I’m sitting there on said couch with my son, looking at my phone catching up on some fantasy football draft prep when my brother-in-law says, “I think he needs to be changed.”
A couple of things about this caught me off guard. First, my son isn’t in diapers anymore other than at bedtime. Second, I was sitting there the whole time! He could’ve just told me had needed to use the bathroom. Yet I look down and the wet spot on the couch said it all. So then I’m faced with a dilemma – do i tell anyone? Just my wife maybe? Or try to bury the whole thing?
Well I called my wife and as expected she kind of freaked out. I also told yhe father of the groom we had a situation on our hands and I was trying to minimize the damage to their new couch. He took it way better than I thought, essentially chalking up to the old adage, “shit happens.” At least that’s how it played out when I was there. Whether or not he cursed inviting all these little people into his home we’ll probably never know.
So what does that have to do with you making a better impression at work? One word…ownership. If when you mess up, no pointing fingers or trying to pull off an elaborate cover-up. Acknowledge the problem and figure out how to fix it. Oh and it’s key if you don’t know how to fix it, ask for help. You’ll win a lot of people’s respect this way.
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