Pride before the fall
Settling into our seats before the gala event started, the vice-president and I both leafed through the program. When I saw the sponsorship ad from my employer I was shocked. It was the wrong one! I had a moment of blind panic wondering how that could possibly have happened on my watch as department manager, then I leaned over to the vice-president to alert him to the problem. Eyebrow raised, he told me we would discuss it in the morning. I have no memory of that conversation, but I do remember clearly the feeling I had when I realized that I had played a major part in creating the problem. As I had gone over the chain of events leading to the program’s printing, I remembered that the event communication person had called me to ask if I was sure the ad we had sent was, in fact, the one we wanted to have in the program. With hardly a moment’s reflection, I had said, yes, it was. Oh, the person said, OK. And that was that. Problem cemented, though I didn’t know there was a problem unti