stupid mistake

I didn't even know what to title this post because quite frankly the topic is going to be somewhat depressing, well at least it is for me. Today at work I made my very first MAJOR mistake. Now maybe it really wasn't all that bad but it sure did feel like it. I was helping a colleague on doing what we call "call downs" which is basically calling editors and reporters and pitching to them either a story idea, or inviting them to come to a conference, or participate in phone conference we call a "virtual round table." I was making calls for the latter. My instructions were to take a list of people that was e-mailed to me and only call the ones highlighted. As I am sure you all can figure out what happened from here. I called more than just the ones that were highlighted. I called the whole list. Now you may be wondering why this was so bad. The reason it is so bad is because my colleague was calling and contacting the non highlighted people so we were basically double hitting each of those reporters and reporters DON'T like that. They are sometimes hard to convince as it is let alone when you have two people from the same organization calling and e-mailing about the same thing. They tend to get a little annoyed and rightfully so.

Once I recognized my mistake I had to do the most horrible and painful thing...confess my mistake. I felt like such an idiot because I had totally made not only a mistake but a STUPID mistake. My colleague was very understanding and really nice about it but deep down I know that he is going to have a harder time trusting me with something again later. Which really is what made me feel the worst. I am trying really hard to do good work for everyone that I help so that I can build trust. Making mistakes like I did today doesn't really ensue a whole lot of confidence. So in the end I felt pretty crappy about it but I accepted it and now I just need to move on. Hopefully I will have another chance to prove myself and this time impress instead of disappoint.