Screwed up big time

I screwed up at work, a couple of days ago.

Well, it wasn't entirely my fault - it was language and interpretation. When someone says "Three days after Monday". What do you think? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday! How about "Three business days after Saturday". ok, thats Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday! Simple as ABC right?

WRONG.

I was told "Three business days after the start of the month". Right.. so starting on the 2nd, I counted three business days. so if the first was a Monday, it would be Thursday, and if the first was a Saturday, it would be Wednesday. Right?

What they actually wanted was "First THREE business days of the month". NABEH. If you dont see the different go and write out the days on a piece of paper. I think I explained it to a thousand people a thousand times.

And there's more. I was told "Invest two business days before Friday". wah this wan damn subtle man. Sounds easy right? Invest on wednesday lor! So I used the closing price on wednesday.

KNN...

They meant to "Invest for TWO whole business days before Friday". So that means I should have used the closing price on Tuesday.



This whole screw-up blew way out of proportion because a lot of higher-ups were involved. Even the external press was involved. Of course the higher-ups will lose face if suddenly there was a gaping hole because of one lowly underpaid worker.

There was a flurry of activity on that day. All but one of the higher-ups involved were not in the office, but everyone communicated by phone and the conclusion was that I screwed up.

I was really thinking.. what would it be like if I was fired not even 3 months into the job?

Luckily my boss was very supportive and understood exactly where the mistake was coming from and how anybody could have made it. But my direct supervisor, really a collegue, bloody turned his back on me! KNN... CCB... (pardon my language - its a code word so people who don't know me won't understand me).

Next time I must learn to cover my ass a little better. DAMN.