Long time readers may remember that about seven years ago I spent three months in Tokyo working for a financial company. One of my coworkers there told me about his first job as a stock broker in NYC. A client had called up to trade a large block of stock and my friend typed in the order into the computer. Just as he pressed the “send” button to execute the trade, he said to the client “OK, sell 100000 shares of XYZ”. The client said, “No that was Buy, not sell.” My friend said, “yes, you’re correct, buy 100000 shares” and hung up the phone. But the order had already gone out. So now he was short 200000 shares of stock. He rushed down to the trading desk, got a few people up to speed, made a few other phone calls, and spend the next few hours buying and selling stock on various markets. It lasted well into the night, but he was able to acquire the 200000 shares of stock. The next day when everything was added up, it was determined that he cost the company $30,000. He was quickly summoned into the CEOs office. This was it. He expected that his short career as a stock broker was over, that he’d soon be fired. But instead, he was promoted on the spot. His quick thinking and level headedness reduced a multi-million dollar mistake to “only” $30,000. And the CEO thought that that was the type of person he wanted working for his company.
We all make mistakes. How you deal with those mistakes is the true test of character. Hiding is generally not a good way to deal with a mistake.
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