Complacency

Perhaps one of the most dreaded attitudes at work. When the work cycle gets a little too routine, one tends to let our guard down, and then things happen due to that oversight.

This happened at work today.

There was a request from another research centre a few weeks back to use one of the lecture theatres under our charge. The email request came about a month before the date of the event. i figured there was still some time, and i did not follow up on it immediately. Blunder #1. Subsequently, I took a week's leave from work for a camp program for kids with learning disability. The guy in charge of the request text me for a confirmation, to which i replied I can only do so when i get back the following week. And when the following week came, i received an email which was mass addressed to all, indicating the talk which will be held at the requested lecture theatre. So here's blunder #2. Since the email was sent out from the Prof of that centre, there i was ASSuming that someone higher up had requested and confirmed with the higher ups from my side and gotten the approval. So i simply ASSumed that all had been settled already. Anyway, there has been a few occasions that i had been 'arrowed' to look after the theatre when there are events on.

So came today when they needed the space to setup for the event tomorrow, no one else in my centre knew that the theatre was booked. WTF?! No one confirmed their booking? Which means that Prof simply mass mailed and stated the venue? How come no one from my centre noticed it?

Now, the main person taking care of the place is my Boss Unit #2. And he is very strict about such procedures of the usage of the theatre. Now, the schedule for the theatre for the next 2 days is actually set aside for other purposes, ie, moving of ALL the equipment in there to another place/room/somewhere. And this schedule is arranged to fit my BU#2's ever busy calendar. So naturally he was damn pissed with all the 'sudden' arrangements.

In the end, we managed to get things resolved, which ended up with many other departments in the campus getting involved due to the change in the date for moving the equipment.

Feels that it's mainly due to my fault, for simply ASSuming that the reservation was confirmed. And that small blunder actually snowballed into such a large scale delay concerning a few other department and people.

Argh... a good lesson learnt this time round. Sometimes things are just too routine and I just took it for granted that things had been handled.

Darn... still feeling lousy about it.