In my volunteer role I help to manage a website that has an info email. I have the password and username, but I have to admit that there is only ever junk mail there, so I am highly irregular in checking it. Every time I set my mind to logging on, I have trouble, I follow the instructions, something is not valid, wrong user ID. I inevitably have to reach out to the web designer, who is ever patient and resets things for me. And after all that I only find junk mail and spam in the inbox. So, I have to admit with all this hassle, I had left it for over a year. I thought of it this past week, went through the usual hassles, and got logged on – 187 messages wanting to sell me web design, marketing, offshore inheritances, and misdirected package deliveries. However, right in the middle, a real message, a real person that was unhappy about the state of something and asked for an answer last November. I felt my heart sink, it is my job alone to check these emails and I had let this person down. How do you send a note saying, hi I got your message when it is six months later? As it is my fault, I must take ownership and fix it and the only way to do that is to reach out and admit my mistake. We all I think feel a mistake keenly and it is so much easier to navigate when there is shared responsibility, when we can commiserate, and talk it through, work on the solution with others. I guess that is one of the strengths of teamwork, shared responsibility when things have gone wrong. Sometimes though in our roles and goals the responsibility is solely ours and we then have to work it out, we can lean on the expertise of others, but the action steps and responsibility taking is ours. No way around it only through. The great comfort, I guess is knowing that we all have been there. Maybe there will be no way to mend this fence in my volunteer role, but I know it is mine to repair.
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