House of Burgess

To put it bluntly, when I do something right in this job, I hear about it sometimes and when I screw up I almost always hear about it twice as loud and often. I also tend to take it to heart when I get something wrong because I hate loosing face and screwing things up when everyone is watching.
Last week I wrote a story about the impending layoffs at the Ukiah Unified School District. I had written several stories about the same subject in the days leading up to this particular one, and I thought I had a handle on the situation. Needless to say, I was wrong.
In this particular story I had made it clear that the district would be announcing the names of those who would be receiving notices in the mail. In a word, this was wrong. Oh, so very wrong.
I didn't find my mistake until I arrived at the particular meeting. The superintendent took me aside and told me that the office had been inundated with calls. Apparently, due to confidentiality issues it would be illegal to release the names of the teachers in question. oops.
I returned to my seat, looking for a hole to crawl in. As if this wasn't embarrassing enough, she then made an announcement after the pledge of allegiance clarifying any confusion raised by my story. It was at this point that I found through trial and error that I am slightly too tall to hide completely behind my laptop.
After finishing with the meeting I made my way back to the office and finished the story I was writing. As I checked my e-mail on my work computer I came across an e-mail from Dolly Brown, a candidate for county supervisor that I had written a story about the week previous. In effect, it said that I had done a good job with the story and that "Objectivity in reporting is an honor and a trust, not unlike public service."
Now I've had people lecture me on how I'm supposed to be doing my job before. In addition, I had just returned from a board meeting where I had nearly died of embarrassment so I was ready to hear the worst about my writing. Thinking she was being sarcastic, I sent the following e-mail in return:

I do apologize if you feel that I misquoted or misrepresented your opinions in the story I wrote. I'll be happy to run a correction if you can tell me something I wrote that wasn't true.

It wasn't until the next morning that I realized my mistake.
I opened up my e-mail and found out that she was giving me a compliment. After slapping my forehead I reread the previous e-mail she had sent me and saw clearly that she had been giving me a big up. I sent a note of apology and felt even worse than before.
I guess the moral of this story is that your mood and perspective is a factor in so many situations that you'll usually gain perspective if you step outside of it for a second and take note of the facts before acting.
Or writing a story. That helps too.