Photo by *_filippo_*

Agita online

My company maintains databases on an intranet that can be accessed by anyone who has the proper rights.  These databases contain links to documents that have been scanned in a pdf format, such as contracts, purchase orders, invoices, etc.  It’s a step in the right direction towards the goal of a paperless office.  Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen in my lifetime.

404

Sometimes, though, the links are broken.  You try to retrieve a signed copy of a contract, and you get a 404 error.  Or, in a few cases that I’ve come across, the wrong document is attached.  Oops.  It was a good thing that I checked closely, because the billing terms were different, or the shipping address was that of another customer.  You can’t take everything at face value.

Human error

Sometimes, I’ll get an email that contains incorrect information.  If I know it’s bad dope, then I can dispute it.  I’ll reply to the sender that the info is wrong.  But what if I didn’t know better, and I ran with the bad info?  If I screw something up because of it, I can use the excuse that it was in an email, right?  It might not be my fault, but it caused me some agita anyway.

The awful truth

We’ve become conditioned to believe that whatever we read on the computer is the absolute truth.  Why would someone take the time to post mistakes?  It gives us the opportunity not to follow up, because, supposedly, some “expert” has done the heavy lifting for us.  We can easily shift the blame, because they made the mistake of disseminating the bad info.  Shame on them.

The buck stops here

OK, so someone else screwed up, not you.  It wasn’t your fault.  But now, it’s your problem.  But you could have avoided the problem in the first place by performing a little due diligence.  I’m not saying that you have to double-check everyone’s work; just do it on a Pareto basis.  You can bet your ass that if it’s of great importance to my company and to my reputation, that I’m going to ask the person to hand me a hard copy.  Then, I can check it myself, and avoid any problems before they get a chance to happen.  I hate paper copies as much as the next guy, but I can always recycle it later.

So, if you have a job of critical importance, either to your company or your career, give your paperwork another once-over.  It could save you some agita in the long run.

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