Bad news is not always bad

As a friend of mine, a shipping clerk name Maurice, used to say, "You gotta clean your own mess... and some that ain't yours, too." This is simple advice akin to what you'd read in "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulgham. It's like politicians. They inherit the problems from the guy in office before them. And anyone in any job really. Maurice shared a story of an incident that occured at the factory he works at. He was helping the plant manager expedite a shipment of product to an important client. He loaded the pallet in the front of the shipping lane leading to the dock in order to ensure that the lane didn't become blocked with normal loading/unloading. In other words, he planned ahead. He stepped into the breakroom for a second, to get a Twix to keep his blood sugar up, and when he stepped out, to his horror, he observed Raul, the fork truck drive proceed to plow over the pallet in his souped-up electric fork truck. Needless to say, the product was destroyed. Now Maurice could have walked away, hoped Raul would work it out with a supervisor and continued about his business. But instead, he cleaned up the mess. He reported Raul to the shift supervisor for reckless forktrucking, and called the program manager on the account to let her know that the product had been damaged. Conveying bad news is usually the toughest part of any job. The program manager was so impressed with Maurice's courage that she took him out to lunch. So before you shirk that necessary but unpleasant encounter at work, think of Maurice and be strong. Rock out.