[Chrissy Scivicque]

Here is a great question and one that you might find in an interview one day: What has been the biggest mistake you've made in your career? How did you deal with it and what did you learn from it?

I once made a whopper of a mistake when my boss had a very important meeting with some very high profile clients. I forgot to tell them some critical information prior to the meeting, which resulted in them arriving unprepared which completely wasted my boss's time and made us all look like fools. The "good" part was that I realized the mistake about 10 minutes before the clients arrived. Though I was tempted to just cross my fingers and hope it would all work out (totally a ridiculous idea), I approached my boss and told him flat out that I had made the mistake. This at least allowed us to prepare (albeit for just a few minutes) our response. Later, my boss told me that he appreciated the communication and the fact that I didn't try to hide my mistake. It's weird, but that experience actually brought us closer....

Anyone else have a good one to share?

[lilysunshine]

My boss and his father work in the same industry, each owning their own respective and very successful companies. Needless to say, my boss feels he has some pretty big shoes to fill (not to mention a little bit of tension that he did not just go work for his father's company).

One of my first tasks when starting here was setting up a meeting between he and his father. Well, his father's assistant (who has been with him for 25+ years, I believe) and I, we managed to completely confuse the date of the meeting. I said Wednesday, she confirmed with okay, we'll see you then on such and such date. I thought we were good to go.

Unfortunately for me, the date she named was NOT in fact Wednesday's, it was Tuesday's. So Tuesday morning, 10 minutes after he was supposed to not be at his father's office, we received a call from his assistant asking where he was and if his father should wait because his schedule is really tight, etc. etc.

I don't think we ever got that meeting rescheduled, but it definitely taught both of us that we can deal with some pretty significant business (and personal) mistakes and acknowledge the mistake, work through it, and move on.

[Patricia]

I made travel arrangements for my boss to New York City, but was unaware that there were three main airports he could fly into. I had him landing at one airport, but the hotel and meeting were at the other end of town.

This one I heard about from another assistant in my office. We were planning a conference and had booked the venue and ordered the food. As we were approaching the date we noticed there were not many attendees registered. It was discovered that someone forgot to send the invitations out.

[Linda Clark]

Biggest mistake I made was transposing two letters in the CEO's first name (name is Axel and I typed Alex) on the return label for a custom made Christmas card going to all of his direct reports. Wasn't sure I should even show up to work the next day once my manager found out and send me a page. Give's a new meaning to proofreading ... and at least five sets of eyes had looked at it before it went out!

[jackiemenger]

I became friends with an employee, whom I supervised. This then undermind my authority and opened up my privet life into the office. I will never cross this line again.

[jayc]

My biggest career mistake was when I booked my boss' room at a plush hotel which had just opened. He had a nice room like he requested, but it was designed for a deaf/blind individual. He couldn't find the light switches, TV control, etc. You can imagine what I heard when he got back to the office. He had a good time, but the hotel and I will never forget they didn't have it designated as handicapped accessible when they opened. Jayc