What’s wrong with this picture?
Pat McCrory is the 7-term mayor of Charlotte. Yesterday he threw his hat into the ring and announced that he is running for governor of North Carolina. Not even out of the starting gate his campaign made it’s first goof. News releases are always a big thing, but the first news release that went across the wire had the above graphic. Did you catch it? Yep, “Governor” was misspelled as “Governer.” Now, in parts of North Carolina this might not be a problem, because most of us natives don’t pronounce the word “governor” the way it was meant to be pronounced in old English. “Governer” would sound right to some of us…Gov’ner would be the most popular pronunciation for us who had our origins along the Appalachian spine.
But for ole Pat, who I like a lot by the way, this otherwise minor mistake was amplified, because his campaign staff vehemently denied that this mistake was made by them. “Oh, this is the work of a hacker!”, they cried. They are correct in their admission that the official mayoral website has been plagued by hackers over the last several months, but there was a lot of back and forth about whether this was indeed the work of a hacker or just an oversight by the people who were supposed to be QA-ing things like this. Pat himself finally admitted that this was a QA oversight and not the work of a hacker.
This story intrigued me for two reasons; first, because I’m a transcriptionist, and my job is transcribing people’s words and putting out a clean document that is accurately spelled and for the most part grammatically correct. I do a lot of verbatim sermon and interview transcription, so sometimes I have to go against the rules of spelling and grammar and type exactly what I hear. Still, it’s my job to put forth a document that looks good and is easy to read. When I was a medical transcriptionist a patient’s well being could be directly affected by whether or not I transcribed the correct spelling and dosage of a drug, past history, etc., so accuracy is everything with medical documents. I learned this early on.
Secondly, I continue to be shocked at the turn in our culture. No one will admit to a mistake anymore…even a simple spelling mistake, because no one wants to accept blame for anything. It’s always someone else’s fault. Integrity and “taking one’s lumps” is becoming a rare thing in our society. There have been several times in my career as a transcriptionist that I had to say, “Yes, I misspelled that.” It does hurt your ego to say, “I was wrong” or “I made a mistake” but more times than not the consequences are much more minor than shifting blame and then later having to take the lumps for the mistake and for shifting the blame. Then, you really look like a slimy creature.
The best thing about admitting to your mistakes is that it gives you a chance at personal growth. Realizing that you’re not the best thing since sliced bread in your profession…or more importantly, in your relationships…is a positive thing. We tend to beat ourselves up over our mistakes, and I think that’s why so many try to shift the blame. I also blame the tidal wave of blame shifting to a certain president who shook his finger in our face and said, “I did not have sex with that woman” and still remained in the office of the president despite lying to the people of the United States and under oath, but back to my point…by not admitting our mistakes we don’t want to admit to ourselves that we have room to grow and improve. By admitting your mistakes you’re actually being more truthful to yourself than to others. In a few days, most likely, people will forget your mistake, but you will be able to look in the mirror and know you did the right thing, and use that experience to benefit yourself and others.
With all of that said I’m still going to vote for Pat.
1 Comment
January 31, 2008 at 3:51 AM
I enjoyed this partly because I’m from NC, but mostly because I get what you’re saying. It is sooo hard at times to admit that you made a mistake, especially when you pride yourself on good work and have to sell yourself as a person that produces good work. Most people understand screw-ups and appreciate it when we own up to it. When you get the understanding from a client or employer after owning up, you can let it go and fix the problem. Thanks for a good read.