Everything Is Fixable.
Honestly,
Let me tell you about the most embarrassing day of my entire career. It was the first day of a new role at a new work location. And it wasn't just another new job. At that point in my professional life, this was the biggest promotion I had ever received. I was excited, I was proud, and I desperately wanted to make a good first impression.
There was just one problem. I felt terrible.
If I'd felt that way at my old location, I definitely would have called in sick. But this? This was the biggest promotion of my career so far. My very first day. There was absolutely no way I was calling in sick.
So, I went to work. And as it turns out, I was about to make a first impression that nobody needed.
Everybody else? Okay.
At lunchtime, I walked over to a nearby sandwich shop because I thought maybe food would fix me.
Reader, it did not.
I ate the sandwich, headed back to work, made it all the way to the sidewalk outside the front entrance, actual customers actively coming and going, when my stomach finally made the executive decision that none of us had been willing to make.
And I don't mean I delicately got sick. I mean Mount Vesuvius. This was movie scene vomiting. The kind where if you saw it on screen, you'd think, Okay, that's excessive. Nobody throws up like that.
Apparently, somebody does. It was me. On the first day of the biggest promotion of my career.
Because the human brain is fascinating in a crisis, my immediate instinct was put my hand over my mouth.
Friends, this did not stop the volcano. It redistributed it.
I had my purse trapped in my other hand so I couldn't even properly recover from my terrible tactical decision.
There was puke on the railing. There was puke on the sidewalk. There was puke on me. There were people. There was dignity. And then there was considerably less dignity.
One of the managers came outside to make sure I was okay, and somehow I managed to get myself inside and into the bathroom. That's when I looked in the mirror.
There was puke, in my hair.
I hadn't thrown up into my hair, apparently, in my brilliant attempt to contain Mount Vesuvius with the palm of my hand. I had instead installed an irrigation system.
Meanwhile, the manager who had essentially just met me, was outside cleaning up after me.
There was no hose. So she went to the break room, filled a pitcher with water, walked it outside, poured it over the sidewalk, went back inside and did it again. Pitcherful by pitcherful.
This woman was cleaning my vomit off the sidewalk on the first day she knew me.
I was absolutely crushing this first impression.
Because here's the part of the story that matters most.
I went back.
Walking through that door again was almost harder than being sick in the first place. My brain kept insisting that this was what everyone would remember.
I had wanted to walk into that new role looking capable and confident. Instead, I'd introduced myself with Mount Vesuvius and an irrigation system.
But I went back anyway.
And then something remarkably ordinary happened. Life continued.
I learned the job. I got better at it. I made mistakes and fixed them. I had good days and bad days. I got another opportunity, and then another one after that.
Years became decades. And the day that once felt so enormous eventually became a story I could tell my kid in the car and laugh about.
That's what I wish I could tell that younger version of myself.
A career isn't built in one moment. It's built in all the times you come back afterward.
After the mistake. After the rejection. After the terrible presentation. After the awkward conversation. After the thing you are absolutely convinced everyone will remember forever.
Sometimes resilience isn't glamorous. Sometimes it isn't inspirational. Sometimes resilience is simply walking back through a door you desperately wish you never had to see again.
Someday, whenever that day comes, at my retirement party, I’m telling this story.
Not because I particularly want my professional legacy to be Mount Vesuvius in the workplace.
Although at this point I've earned it.
But because I want the people who know me then to understand something about the person who started all those years ago.
She was embarrassed. She was convinced she'd ruined everything.
And she went back anyway.
There have been harder things since. I've survived those too.
So if you're sitting in the middle of your own awful professional moment, the mistake, the rejection, the embarrassing thing you can't stop replaying, remember this: Everything is fixable.
Maybe not immediately. Maybe not perfectly.
But tomorrow comes, and sometimes resilience is just showing up again.
And if there's still a mess when you get there, grab a bucket and a mop.
Reflections
What's a work moment you were convinced you'd never live down, but did?
Have you ever discovered that going back was harder than the mistake itself?
What would you tell the version of yourself who was afraid to walk back through the door?
Toolbox
Go back. Embarrassment tells us to hide. Resilience often looks much less dramatic. Show up again.
Don't confuse a moment with a reputation. One mistake, awkward meeting, rejection, or spectacularly bad first day isn't your career. What you do over time matters more.
Grab a bucket and a mop. Fix what you can. Own what you need to. Learn something. Then keep going.
I hope you found this helpful, and if you did and know someone who might enjoy it, please feel free to share.
