Mistakes That Can't Be Fixed

World news has me thinking a lot about mistakes that can't be fixed. I'm not talking about enormous, screw-up-the-entire world, nearly-impossible-to-forgive mistakes that HAVE to be worked on no matter how hard they are to fix. I'm talking about big mistakes that upset people, and are hard to recover from, but are not a matter of life and death, like bad calls in a baseball game.

I made one of those early in my career that I'll never forget. In the mid-80s, I was an intern at KOMO-TV, Seattle's ABC news affiliate. I happened to be in the Producer's booth watching the behind-the-scenes magic, when I saw Dr. Bill Crounse, live on air, fumbling with the papers in front of him to read his script. I saw the look of horror flash across his face when he realized his script was not in the teleprompter. I didn't quite understand what was happening until the great and powerful Producer looked at ME and said something like, "Oops!"

You see, it was my job to organize and distribute the script for the 5pm news. One copy went to the guy who ran the teleprompter, a copy went to each anchor, and an extra copy must have gone to someone who managed other live segments. From the day I was trained until that big day, Dr. Crounse's segment had always been pre-recorded, so the script didn't go into the teleprompter. I assumed that Dr. Crounse's segment never went into the teleprompter and didn't understand the markings on the script that indicated whether or not a segment was pre-recorded. It was clearly the fault of the person who trained me--or perhaps I just wasn't paying enough attention.

The mistake was magnified in my mind by the fact that Dr. Crounse had twice saved me from excruciating pain and suffering while practicing at the Virginia Mason Walk-In Clinic in downtown Seattle. I was essentially sharing a desk at KOMO with him, although we were never at the station at the same time until now, which was just weird and coincidental. (Who ends up sharing a desk with their doctor anyway?) Thankfully, in spite of being my doctor, sharing a desk with me, and meeting me once at the station, I'm pretty sure he had no idea who I was, nor that I was the cause of his embarrassment.

Lesson Learned
The Producer said something to me like, "That's the news business. Nobody died, and there's nothing that can be done now. It happens to everyone. You just have to let it go and move forward."

I never did have a chance to apologize to Dr. Crounse, nor did I think to thank the Producer for teaching me an important lesson.

Dr. Crounse, if you ever Google your name, perhaps you'll see this blog post and accept my apology for making you look bad, live, on air, in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

And to the great and powerful Producer, thank you for easing my pain and guilt at the tender age of 19 and teaching me an important lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Mistakes happen. Learn from them, forgive, and move on--certain oil companies excepted.