Confessions of a PR Intern: Oops! I did it again

Hi everyone,

If you are an intern like me and relatively new to the “real PR world”, I expect you’d have made some mistakes in the course of your work by now. That’s normal and part of the process of learning.  

In fact, I think if you went your whole internship – which in my case is 19 weeks – without making a single mistake, while submitting flawless, well-written, content perfect reports and press releases, your bosses would be falling over themselves in a rush to get your signature on the perm staff list. Wouldn’t that be fun to watch? I wish.

It’s not just interns who make mistakes, too. A colleague told me the learning curve is steepest when you first do something new – the transition from school to your first work internship, a mid-life career change, an inter-company department swap, et cetera. And along with that steep learning curve comes the mistakes. It’s like a 2-for-1 package deal.

An intern friend of mine also shared something that I thought made sense, too. It’s not always your fault when you get something done wrong. Maybe you weren’t briefed properly, maybe you needed more guidance, or maybe, more time. It can be really frustrating for both parties when one doesn’t get the other.

I’ve had days where I feel pretty dumb for messing up and wish I had the guts to kick myself in the shin. But after a couple of breaths, it also helps to know that won’t do much for the situation except to leave an ugly bruise on my leg.

So… I’ve established that everyone – and I mean, even Donald Trump – makes mistakes. The question is, how serious was the mistake? Was it an honest mistake or could you have avoided it? And, what did you do after you’d realised your big boo-boo?

My dilemma

Within my first two weeks at FH, I’d made my first mistake, and it was a pretty serious one. Also no one else’s fault but mine.

I spelt the brand name of a client wrong. That spelling error was splattered throughout a pitch e-mail that went out to a journalist.

Media. I know. (Buzzer goes off; fade in music; cue horrified looks from audience.)

Just penning this whole episode now – three months later – still makes me cringe.

How did I find out? I was sitting in a meeting for that account, and finally took my first long, hard look at the company logo. I remember thinking, “Something doesn’t look right here. Is it supposed to be spelt like that?” Three seconds later, “Oh, %&#@! Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

As soon as that meeting was over, I rushed out of the room, face pale. Checked my ‘Sent Items’ folder on e-mail – ta-dah! There it was! My glaring error plastered all over the pitch note.

The whole team was copied on that e-mail, but no one had realised it yet. My immediate dilemma was if I should tell someone so they could rectify the error. Obviously, I’d considered that in doing so, they might also reach for my neck and the nearest penknife.

Do I tell them? Admit to it, run away and never come back? Do I hide? Where do I hide? Who do I tell? When? Have I even completed 21 days here?!

It seemed like a long time to me, but I made my decision within the next five minutes. I told the two Account Managers on the team and apologised. Their reaction surprised me, actually.

One: They left my neck intact. Two: After the initial shock, they laughed and said they’d both read through the e-mail, thought I’d done a good job writing it, and never realised the error. Whoa. Of course, they also told me to be careful, but that’s to be expected.

My point is: I felt that the whole incident was an ethical and moral dilemma for me because I knew it wasn’t a mistake small enough to be overlooked. And in my mind, the incident could have been bad if the journalist had copy-pasted my e-mail into his story. I don't know. I can be pretty imaginative.

But it was a wake-up call to me to not take my awesome spelling skills for granted and check next time instead of assuming I’d be right. Complacence, you see.

At school, we learn the basic Code of Conduct for journalists and PR practitioners - being honest and truthful when telling a story, acting in the best interest of our company and our clients, respecting privacy rights, declaring a conflict-of-interest, et cetera. While this dilemma of mine involved none of the above (thank god), the act of owning up to my mistake wasn't an easy thing to do too.

An internship teaches you more than just work skills. Along the way, if you’ve got the willingness to learn from your mistakes, you might also pick up some life lessons.

For me, I was impressed with the way the two Account Managers handled things. They accepted that it was sent, that nothing could be done further, and they dropped the matter quickly. It’s one of the things I love about FH – the open, comfortable working culture helps that I’m not afraid to ask questions and own up to mistakes. I think that’s an important trait to remember when we become supervisors ourselves and have to manage a team.

Here are some articles by the experts, for your reading pleasure:

• “You’ve made a mistake. Now what?” by Amy Gallo

• “10 things you should do if you made a big mistake” by Calvin Sun

• “Owning up to my corrections” by Randy Cohen

Got a "Oops! I did it again" moment? I'd love to hear about the mistake and how your colleagues reacted. What did you do in the end?

Till the next time, cheers!

Cheryl 

15062105 / Curtin Singapore

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Still don't know the Code of Conduct for PR practitioners? No worries! See, PRIA's Code of Ethics here.

> To learn more on how I ended up at FH, see "Confessions of a PR Intern: Just Getting Started!"
> Some lessons you just can't learn in school. See "Confessions of a PR Intern: What School Doesn't Teach You"
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