Describe a time when you made a mistake

I'd like to talk about a mistake I made at work about a year ago. I was responsible for preparing a monthly report with sales figures, which my manager would present to the company directors. It was a routine task, so I was working quickly and didn't pay as much attention as I should have.

I realised something was wrong on the morning of the meeting. A colleague mentioned that one figure looked unusually high. I checked and saw that I had copied the numbers from the wrong month into one of the tables, which made our sales look about twenty percent better than they really were. My stomach dropped, because the meeting was only an hour away and the report had already been sent to the directors.

I immediately went to my manager and told her exactly what had happened. I didn't make excuses; I just explained the error and showed her the corrected figures. She wasn't happy, but she appreciated that I'd told her straight away. Together, we sent a revised report before the meeting started, with a short apology note, and she explained the correction in her presentation.

The experience taught me several things. First, always double-check figures, particularly when they will be seen by senior people. Second, it's always better to admit a mistake quickly than to hope that no one will notice. Since then, I've created a simple checklist that I use for every report. I felt embarrassed at the time, but in the end it made me more careful and professional.