But it really wasn't my fault.
Here's one for my professionalism file.
As a forensic accountant, I work on litigation files. I'm not allowed to even discuss them with my wife, never mind posting stuff about them online.
Yesterday, I found out a report I was responsible for regarding a litigation case was sent to the wrong address.
Luckily, it was not sent to opposing council or anything. It went to a completely unrelated party. I had given it to the admin to bind it and send out, and she had bound it, and given the task of creating an envelope to a temp. Hence, the envelope addressed to the wrong person. That is bad when it's a privileged and confidential report. A big screw up.
I was not the first to hear of it. My boss was the first to hear of it. He is on vacation, so this was probably the last thing he wanted to hear. He sent me a not-so-nice email about it, indicating that my job was in jeopardy over this. This is a big deal to me, I love my job, and I can't afford to lose it. I am extremely paranoid about this, too, so I am very careful with everything I do at work because of that. I check and recheck everything. So the first thing I did was check the email I had sent. It was sent properly. So it was the hard copy that went out that went wrong. By this time at night, everyone else had left the office, so I didn't have anyone to discuss it with. So I immediately sent off an email to the admin asking what happened, because I didn't know. I then sent an email to my boss, who had asked whether the recipient even had a copy, which he did because I had emailed it as well. So I had to answer that right away, and I said I would talk to the admin in the morning about what had happened.
I go in in the morning, and the admin immediately apologized, told me what happened. Later my supervisor (not my boss) told me not to worry about it, that once it left my desk it was out of my hands and I probably shouldn't have had to check it anyway. That made me feel a little better. He also said that me emailing the admin was very professional and that he probably wouldn't have been so nice about it himself.
I just didn't want to get into a finger-pointing match. At my level, I don't believe it's my responsibility to tell the boss who is responsible for something going wrong. I will tell him what happened, but not in any way besides the facts. The truth is all you can tell, and I did not try to minimize any role I might have had, even though my supervisors both agreed that it was not my fault. I'm glad they think that, because it means they will go to bat for me if it comes down to it. Also means they'll come down on me when it IS my fault, which I'm fine with.