A Mistake To My Advantage

[easysurfer]

I went to the concert out of town the other day. When returning to my hotel there was a terrible rain storm.

I parked to the space of the hotel but when looking for my hotel room ends up I parked at wrong hotel. The chain has two hotels so near to each other.

So, I had to go back to my car and look for the right hotel. When I went back to the car, I found that in haste, I left the dome light one (car's light one - light does not turn off immediately).

Got me thinking, had I been to the proper hotel, I would have woke up with a drained car battery. The mistake actually helped me.

Can you name of a blunder that actually helped your situation?

 

[CaptTom]

This one is along the same lines. Things weren't going well on this job, and after a long day I booked a flight home for first thing next morning. Next I found a hotel near the airport and reserved a room for the night. Finally, I called an Uber. I selected the hotel on Airport Road as my destination.

The ride to the airport didn't look familiar. But I trusted the Uber driver, clearly a local guy, and his app. As we arrived at the hotel I somehow mentioned my early flight. He asked why I didn't pick the OTHER hotel, same brand, right next to the airport.

Huh? Isn't this the one on Airport Road?

Yes. I guess there used to be a small airport somewhere around here, but that's long gone. The hotel you want is on such-and-such a street, right at the airport.

My mistake. I was happy to pay for a ride to the right hotel. It would have really sucked to find out after the driver had left, late on a rainy night in a remote area, that my reservation was miles away.

 

[prudent_one]

I once had a job scheduling a sound studio. The schedule would fill up about a month in advance. One day the manager of a local band comes in and I ask if I can help him, he says they are scheduled for the sound studio all day and will be here shortly to load in, and heads down the hall to get coffee. I look at the studio wall calendar, there's a different client booked. For a scheduler, this is a 5-alarm meltdown. I rush over to my computer and see to my horror I put the band (the one whose manager is here already) on my PC calendar and forgot to put it on the wall calendar, therefore someone else scheduled that time.

Given the $150/hour cost and the long lead time to get in, there was no way for this to end well. I'm thinking this will be my last day in this job. So all I can do is wait for the actual scheduled client to show up while I get ready to tell the band about the terrible mistake. At this point the scheduled client (SC) is about 10 minutes late and they have never been late as every minute in the studio is valuable. I call SC expecting to get a recording because he's no doubt on the way. But he picks up!

I start to tell my tale of woe, not sure how it will fix anything... "Hey, SC, this is prudent_one from <studio>, you're on the schedule for today and..." He cuts me off. "Oh crap, didn't I cancel that? We knew we couldn't make it today and I was supposed to cancel that a couple weeks ago. Well, we'll pay for the day and I'll call you to reschedule when we figure things out."

Angels are singing. Job saved. I get to tell SC that since he's such a good customer we'll make a one-time exception and only charge half the fee, he loves me for that. The band does not have to know anything. And we made an extra 50% on that time for the day.

 

[FiveDriver]

Ha-Ha....that is a great story prudent_one !!

I especially like the part about --
Angels are singing. Job saved. I get to tell SC that since he's such a good customer we'll make a one-time exception and only charge half the fee, he loves me for that. The band does not have to know anything. And we made an extra 50% on that time for the day.

 

[isisdave]

So much depends on chance. I'll bet a lot of us found our spouse, dream job, medical solution, etc. as the result of what at least seemed a mistake at the time.

 

[Sanstar]

So much depends on chance. I'll bet a lot of us found our spouse, dream job, medical solution, etc. as the result of what at least seemed a mistake at the time.

Not a mistake, but certainly a big ‘what if’. I had just turned 18 and was eligible for military service. Desperately needed to get away from parents’ family drama. First choice was Navy but the next class wouldn’t start for 8 weeks. I could enlist in the Army in three days. So, Army it is. Fast forward, met and married another soldier; had three kids and now have two grandsons.

If the Navy had a class starting right away, at least 5 people I know and love, wouldn’t exist.