Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What has been your biggest mistake?
- Thread starter Reecedouglas1
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Exactly. Why is it like in the shower or driving down the road, the brain tends to send up thoughts of the many times I've screwed up? I do have some successes but those tend to get ignored.
Wow, breaking a TV while playing a video game is amatuer hour compared to a few of mine 
Not sticking with college after high school and not taking up a martial art around that time too.
Recently, school and friendship attempts.
Every other mistake I own and am working on learning from. Noone is perfect.
Recently, school and friendship attempts.
Every other mistake I own and am working on learning from. Noone is perfect.
I've learned from everything I have caused in my life. So no big mistakes, just big lessons.
[doublepost=1495942128][/doublepost]
Ouch... a least you did not marry a dream killer. Almost always a bright side. Yep, I suffer from a slight case of mania.
If I made a mistake, I blame it on my personality, I did not brown nose, was not social enough when I was in a position where the tactic could of helped me. However this did not hinder me significantly and I was lucky enough to have picked a profession (airline pilot, seniority number) that required no significant brown nosing to progress, although I was still required to exercise leadership, judgement, and people skills.
I had to laugh at that.
If I made a mistake, I blame it on my personality, I did not brown nose, was not social enough when I was in a position where the tactic could of helped me. However this did not hinder me significantly and I was lucky enough to have picked a profession (airline pilot, seniority number) that required no significant brown nosing to progress, although I was still required to exercise leadership, judgement, and people skills.
I had to laugh at that.
Yes, @Huntn, but would you have liked or respected yourself to quite the same extent if you had been a serial and successful brown-noser?
Those who respect themselves - and esteem integrity - rarely - in my experience - tend to be pronounced brown-nosers.
Actually, I remember the day my students explained the precise meaning of that term to me - I had to ask them, - as one had used it in class, in a polite and precise way describing some probably political action - and, as it happened, I hadn't come across it before, as the equivalent expression in spoken British English, used colloquially by one and all, does not readily lend itself to the printed page or the classroom, even informally.
Last edited:
Yes, an inelegant phase when examined.
Honestly I can say, I was/am who I was/am.
Some of this may be related to my infrequent argument that we as people have very little ability to change, or maybe I'm just making excuses. It was not in me to go out of my way to seek favor with the boss, plus I was not all that social when I was on my sea tours anyway, but I need to explain that statement. I spent a 3 year tour on Guam where during that time I was gone 80%+ of the time. Most of my time, my wife and young son, waited for me to return to island. The last thing I wanted to do when I got home was go hang out at the Officer's Club and be political (social politics) with the boss and senior officers.
The military was very competitive for advancement, so being competent or even excellent in your job was usually not enough. With the fitness report system, you could have 20 outstanding guys, but they all had to graded sequentially, number 1 through 20, so as a rough example, if you had 10 slots for advancement, the difference could be how much time you spent at the O Club drinking with the C.O. The Officer's Club had a very strong influence on the social culture of the Navy. It churned out a lot of alcoholics. Since then the Navy and I believe most of the branches of the service have cut out happy hour, but the clubs remain.
Later in the tour, they (wife and son) did come to Japan with me where the Officer Quarters were apartments with kitchens. That became a regular routine, but before that while I was out on a 4-6 week deployment, I was with a crew of approx 30 people, basically spending all of my time with them. I did not need to spend social time with them when I got home.
Before I was married, I had one or two good friends. I've never cared for large groups of people in a social setting. Besides admitting to not being a very social person, I mean I'm friendly and can engage, but I don't seek out friends to hang out with. Most of my available emotional energy is devoted to my marriage.
And while that might sound bad, my deployment routine continued in the airlines, where when I was separated for half the month, the other half of the month I wanted to lay low at home with the wife and family, not go play golf or racquetball with my work buddies.
Yes, an inelegant phase when examined.
Honestly I can say, I was/am who I was/am.
It was not in me to go out of my way to seek favor with the boss, plus I was not all that social when I was on my sea tours anyway, but I need to explain that statement. I spent a 3 year tour on Guam where during that time I was gone 80%+ of the time. Most of my time, my wife and young son, waited for me to return to island. The last thing I wanted to do when I got home was go hang out at the Officer's Club and be political (social politics) with the boss and senior officers.
The military was very competitive for advancement, so being competent or even excellent in your job was usually not enough. With the fitness report system, you could have 20 outstanding guys, but they all had to graded sequentially, number 1 through 20, so as a rough example, if you had 10 slots for advancement, the difference could be how much time you spent at the O Club drinking with the C.O. The Officer's Club had a very strong influence on the social culture of the Navy. It churned out a lot of alcoholics. Since then the Navy and I believe most of the branches of the service have cut out happy hour, but the clubs remain.
Later in the tour, they (wife and son) did come to Japan with me where the Officer Quarters were apartments with kitchens. That became a regular routine, but before that while I was out on a 4-6 week deployment, I was with a crew of approx 30 people, basically spending all of my time with them. I did not need to spend social time with them when I got home.
Before I was married, I had one or two good friends. I've never cared for large groups of people in a social setting. Besides admitting to not being a very social person, I mean I'm friendly and can engage, but I don't seek out friends to hang out with. Most of my available emotional energy is devoted to my marriage.
Understood.
Indeed, I am somewhat similar myself, in that work colleagues are work colleagues, and - while a small number, do, in fact, graduate into some sort of friendship, most don't, and, outside of a work environment, I really have little desire to socialise with them.
Deployments abroad are something different again, and there, one socialises with work colleagues (these are not family postings), and, as always happens, you get on better with some than with others, (irrespective of rank or position) and these are the people you end up socialising with.
But, agreed: I was never one to seek the company of those to whom I reported, whether in universities, or on missions abroad. If I liked and respected them, that was a different matter, and I would readily socialise with them beyond the minimum compatible with politeness and professional etiquette, but, if I didn't, (rate, or respect them) then, the relationship was strictly professional.
Last edited:
I would imagine in most human organizations, some more than others, that social interactions plays a definite part in advancement. Would you agree?
Yes.
Actually, I was about to write, "unfortunately, yes", - but, with some caveats.
Therefore, in my experience, different cultures (contrast Japan and the US - an extremely introverted and reserved social culture and society on the one hand and one that is the epitome of cultural extroversion on the other - to take two extremes, whereas Europe is a lot more introverted than the US, and a lot less so than Japan) - and different work places have differing requirements of what is considered 'social interaction'.
Some university departments - invariably those where the professor was accomplished, confident, exceptionally good and highly regarded as an authority in his field of expertise - (I had a few such bosses, and tended to get on well with them - they were reserved and meticulously polite by character, and expected - from those whom they employed - exceptional competence in the classroom, seriously solid academic achievement, integrity, and decency and fairness to students - and did not require schmoozing, though a dinner, glass of wine, or cup of coffee went down well, suggested by me or proffered - with reserve - by them - went down well) did not have a culture of 'brown-nosing'.
In my experience, the importance of social interventions for advancement was in direct proportion to how inept the head of dept was.
With the twenty twenty vision of hindsight, I recall when the mother of a man - who subsequently became my boss, one of the worst bosses I have ever had, a man who succeeded one of the best, who - as it happened - had been head-hunted elsewhere by an antique university - died. Most of the dept made the pilgrimage to the remote rural backwater where he had come from to drink for three days and mourn with him.
I was asked by a few colleagues (mostly male) whether I intended to travel to this funeral, and made it quite clear that I did not. I despised the man, he was a misogynist, a boor, - who brown-nosed wealthy US educational establishments & institutions but openly despised and was outrageously rude to those few academics from eastern Europe (invariably exceptionally well qualified) who had made their way west in the early 90s on EU funded schemes where I was involved with a few curriculum development programmes with eastern European universities - and a deplorably poor academic.
Anyway, there is a school of thought that I should have gone to that funeral; certainly, of those that did (especially the young, clean cut males) most received preferment subsequently (I don't think this was openly decided, or planned - rather, it was sub-conscious).
But, to this day, I despise that man, as a human being, as a man, as an academic, as a boss: Even now, knowing what I do, - and that attending that funeral might have served to perhaps enhance my career as an academic, I still would not have attended that funeral.
No, I only attend funerals where 1) I know, like and/or respect the corpse, or, 2) know and am friendly with - or, otherwise respect - the family of the corpse, or, 3) it is professional, and I am representing a professional body, or have some other professional reason to attend such a funeral.
So, sometimes principles, or personal preferences trump (all puns intended) professional pragmatism. However, then, you may be called upon to pay the price consequently.
Last edited:
My biggest mistake to date (I'm still capable of making really bad decisions), my first marriage. Without going into details, I found myself in a relationship that I shouldn't have been in.
With that said, I think everyone can learn from their mistakes and so I learned a lot about myself when I started picking up the piece of my life after the divorce. Also one of the biggest blessings occurred because of the ending of the marriage. I met the love of my life and in an odd twist, I'm exceedingly happy my first wife did what she did because that opened the doors to meeting my now current wife
With that said, I think everyone can learn from their mistakes and so I learned a lot about myself when I started picking up the piece of my life after the divorce. Also one of the biggest blessings occurred because of the ending of the marriage. I met the love of my life and in an odd twist, I'm exceedingly happy my first wife did what she did because that opened the doors to meeting my now current wife
Last edited:
Not making the most out of university. Knowing I was on the wrong course, but sticking with that rather than changing to what I really wanted to do. Wasting an academic year as a result, and getting so down about the whole experience that I neglected both myself and friends. I reckon that probably set me back five years life wise.
Would you say you recovered and learned from the experience (hopefully)?
Taking my first job out of college. I didn't have a lot of choice but I should have looked a little harder.
Learned from it definitely. I can never get that time back though. Hence I'll always have some regret about the whole thing.
