MISTAKES AT WORK

EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES

Of course we are all capable of making mistakes in our work. Small slips, which are of little consequence, can easily be forgiven. Huge errors, with very serious consequences, are dealt with by legislation and/or litigation. But in between there are many serious errors being made by people who should know better.

Take the NHS, for instance. There is plenty of bad publicity about the waste of money, but in my experience the main problem is the basic lack of communication within this Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

How about the time I went to my GP for the results of some hospital tests, and was told 'they can't find your notes, please come back and see me another day.'

Or the time when I took three days off work to support an ailing relative, who feared bad news at the hospital breast cancer clinic. The consultant peered at us over his glasses and asked, 'Why have you come to see me?' My relative produced the letter referring her to his clinic. After enquiries, it turned out that she should have been sent to the chest clinic: did someone simply mishear the instruction on the phone?

More seriously, when my relative was in taken into an emergency ward the doctors administered the wrong drug, with alarming results. I was later told they 'did not have access to her medical records.' This in spite of a twenty-minute interview about her medical history in the ambulance, on the way to hospital. Not to mention the fact that she had been an outpatient at that same hospital for several years.

It is not just the NHS that seems to be operating in a fog of ignorance and incompetence. When I first applied for my state pension I made sure that I did it at the right time and with the right details on the right form. So I could not understand why the pension was not paid on the right date. I eventually called in the local DHS trouble-shooter to investigate. The result of her investigation? 'Our employee had all the right information, she just forgot to implement it.' Really? But isn't initiating pension payments the very essence of her job?

This kind of incompetence is not limited to the public sector. Banks come in for much criticism for fleecing us, but I have found counter clerks ignorant of basic procedures. Twice I presented a US dollar cheque at my local bank. The first time the clerk began to deal with it as if it were a sterling cheque, and was surprised when I told him he could not do this but must fill in a form. The second time I was asked to 'come back tomorrow when the person who knows about it is here, so it can be done properly.'

Everyone, it seems, can provide similar stories, but I have struggled to find explanations for this widespread incompetence. Is life just too complicated nowadays? If so, we should surely be able to rely on the expertise of salaried employees to steer a path through the bureaucratic jungle. Yet I often find myself having to tell these people how to do their job!

Maybe lack of training is the problem. Yet all that any employee needs to be 'trained' to do is to look up the relevant information, either in a manual or on a computer screen. Much of the time I am having to do this myself, because I cannot trust anyone else to do their job, but they are being paid to do it and I am not. No one has ever compensated me for the time and effort it takes, not to mention the emails and phone calls, in order to ensure that work is done correctly on my behalf.

Is it all down to a 'don't care' attitude to work? Not in my experience. The employees I have dealt with usually want to help, but their own ignorance about how to proceed is frustrating to them, as well as me. I have known a doctor to roll her eyes when faced with communication problems and mutter, 'Story of my life!'

Maybe we are all suffering from attention deficit disorder. Or perhaps some of us are hung over, after alcoholic binges the night before? Or is it that over stressed working mothers have other things on their minds?

Whatever the cause, the unfortunate result is that I simply don't trust anyone to do their job properly any more. I check and double check, hoping to prevent mistakes in order to avoid having to correct them. I make extra calls and write letters that should not need to be written. I am putting in unpaid hours to ensure that my business is properly done by those whose business it is to do it.

Very rarely do I get any kind of apology for even the most obvious errors. Perhaps this is because, in our 'compensation culture,' an apology sounds too much like an admission of guilt. Yet organisations need to address these issues if they wish to retain the respect of their clients and customers. Prompt action to put things right, and a sincere apology, would go a long way towards compensating us for time lost and stress endured. Then, perhaps, we can take a more forgiving attitude: because we all make mistakes, don't we?

Image by johnhain, Pixabay