Whatever and the People Pleasing Grocery Store Blues
Living Happy
This week, I made a ridiculous mistake in my news blog. It was a rookie mistake. It was, dare I say, a terrible mistake.
Because I get really stressed out about misspelling people’s names, I put in placeholders, just like I do in novels. My favorite place holder is not LAST NAME HERE it is WHATEVER. Just like that. Big capital letters: WHATEVER.
So, I put out the article and it said something like, “Lisa WHATEVER of Harriman Engineering.”
It went out to all the subscribers.
Whatever.
Everyone was super kind to me about it, but still? That inner Carrie Wants To Be Perfect was cringing.
The thing is, I’m never going to be perfect. My ex-husband used to say, “You try so hard. You really just try so hard. I don’t know anyone else who tries so hard.”
It was his mantra for dealing with me, I guess. The poor man.
My WHATEVER experience made me think of another experience I had a long time ago at the grocery store.
I’m pasting that in here because I found it in my ancient Live Journal blog.
GROCERY STORY BLUES
Today, in the grocery store line a lady behind me dropped her bag of Cheetos. I picked them up.
She dropped her box of Wheat Thins.
I picked them up.
She dropped her onion. It rolled over to me, shed some purple skin, and hit my foot.
I smiled. I picked it up. I gave it to her.
"I must be missing the belt," she said.
So, then, it was my turn with the clerk. I opened my bag and my wallet was not there. My check book? Check. But the wallet? MIA.
I told the cashier, terrified.
She said "If you've written a check here before, you don't need an ID."
???
So, I said, "I don't know if I have."
I spent the next three minutes alternately explaining that I have visions of my red cloth wallet hanging out by the 12-grain organic bread in the bread aisle, or in the post office where I'd just used it, or in the middle of the parking lot, or, gulp, in some evil wallet-snatcher's hands. I looked for sympathetic glances from the food dropper behind me, but she no longer likes me.
I wrote out the check. The machine beeped. The cashier looked at me, apologetically. "You've never written a check here before."
"Okay," I said. "I'll run out and check in the car."
So, I raced outside despite the fact I was not wearing a sports bra, and unlocked the car, and... no wallet. I gasped. Really. I stepped back and there, beneath the tire, was a flash of red. I snatched it, clutched it to my chest (still without the sports bra) and raced back to the store.
"That was fast," said the clerk.
"You found it!" said the nice guy who came to finish bagging.
Glare, said the dropping stuff lady who was behind me in line. Glare. Glare. Glare.
It's like what I imagine happens to my books. I start off really well, everyone likes what I'm doing, and then -- bang -- I screw up. Drop the voice or something, make a character do something nobody wants her to do.
And then what?
Glares from one. Sympathy from others.
WHAT DOES THIS ALL HAVE TO DO WITH LIVING HAPPY OR MY WHATEVER STORY?
There’s an article on thehrdirector.com by Graham White where he writes,
“Don’t you just hate it when you mess up and some do-gooder colleague says don’t worry, we all make mistakes. The trouble is they are right, none of us are infallible, we all have or will have blown it at some time or another, somewhere, somehow, some way, in spite of all our best effort we mess up despite our best intentions. I still remember the fiasco of sending the wrong job offer to the wrong candidate and worse agreeing a workforce pay deal before getting final approval from the CEO.”
And he has some advice on how to deal with your errors, your oopses, your whatevers.
BE REAL ABOUT IT AND JUST TELL PEOPLE
He says that it’s smart to just say it. Own up to your mistake. Tell your boss. Tell your news blog leaders.
Swamping a mistake with lies and cover-ups only layers on mistakes.
He writes, “Great people verbalize their mistakes before someone else has to. Or as my mentor used to say “it’s easier to eat humble pie while it’s still warm.”
The moment I found out about my WHATEVER, I sent out a post to all my readers apologizing and claiming it.
Not because I’m a great person, but because it was the right thing to do.
Don’t Undersell Your Error
His next piece of advice is to just say, “Yeah. I messed up. These are the issues from my mess up.” Don’t pretend it’s not a big deal if it is a big deal.
If your error impacts others, don’t pretend it doesn’t. You don’t need to catastrophize, but being blasé isn’t a good look when you’ve hurt others.
Be A Part of the Fix
Once you mess up, don’t just walk away. Be part of the solution. Prepare a solution.
Or as White writes:
“Sitting in a Board meeting I watched what could have been a scene from a “Die Hard” movie as an exceptional finance director handled a major accounting error they had made. From the outset they owned the problem and not only accepted accountability they also ensured they were demonstrating from the very inception of the discovery that they were doing everything in their power to diagnose and remedy the situation. In spite of not having all the information they needed to make a full diagnosis their presentation to the rest of us on the Board that day clearly showed to all of us including the Chief Executive that they understood the significance of the error, they owned it and they were definitely part of the solution not part of the problem. As I briefly looked back towards the CEO it was clear from the look on his face that he had confidence in the FD to deal with this. Arthur Ashe the tennis player summed it up well when he said, “One important key to success is self-confidence and an important key to self-confidence is preparation.””
And finally, “fix the system, not just the problem.”
My issue as a news blogger on my own trying to give people information for free is that I don’t have a staff that checks all my work all the time and says, “CARRIE! YOU PUT IN A WHATEVER FOR LISA’S LAST NAME!” My system is not a great system that way, but I can create a new system where instead of writing just WHATEVER, I also highlight anything I need to check so that I don’t read right over it.
PEOPLE PLEASING
The other aspect of my stories is that I’m a bit of a people pleaser, which is a super annoying trait and not terribly health for me.
Here are the traits of that according to the Psychology Today staff:
Apparently, a lot of us with people pleasing tendencies had conditional love from our parents or are just super afraid of failing or rejection. So we’re always looking for outside validation. We act out of fear instead of love. I’ve grown out of this a lot, but there are moments where I think, “Ugh. There goes my reputation and then if I lose that I’ll lose my livelihood.”
To deal with that, you’re supposed to get to know yourself and your wants and beliefs, give yourself some compassion, set some boundaries, and, according to Psychology Today:
• “Think about your own needs first
• Examine your intentions, ask why you want to help others
• Examine whether something triggers your helping behavior
• Wait for the person to ask for help
• Try asking others for their help
• Realize you can be friendly without being a doormat”
STORIES FROM LAST WEEK!
LINKS TO LEARN MORE!
https://www.thehrdirector.com/its-okay-to-mess-up-but-i-wish-i-didnt/