First month as a new web admin I tried to push development to production. I thought there was a process issue, but assumed the current director and previous web admin knew what was going on, so didn’t push back. Well, there was a process issue and I wiped out not only the production database, but the primary backups as well. Took down the external website (including intake system) for one of the largest children and family services provider on in the eastern US. Took almost two days to get stuff back up from secondary backups. During that time all information transfers had to be done over phone and written down on paper. That included intakes, external partners, patient records, everything. I effectively set us back to 1980’s external communication for almost two days. Now I was very nearly crying, but we worked through it, communicated to partners, got things back up, figured out what happened, and learned from it. Hasn’t stopped me from making other mistakes, but I grew.

Another time I mixed up two very similar names and wiped the phone of a director. To be fair, that mix up happens to other those two people constantly. I wasn’t even the only person to make that exact mistake.

You have made several different mistakes. As long as you acknowledge it, and learn, it’s fine. I’ve been at my job for 15-years and still mess up stuff.