...I've been putting off writing another piece here since I did my last piece of writing for Maya, back in January; but late last week, I decided to start writing again...for like the 1004th time. So, I write today about my first major goof at work. It was humongous - at least from my point of view - it was.
I work in a software firm that's committed to revolutionizing the Nigerian and African Legal Practice and Justice delivery system (yes, I'm advertising....but it's my blog isn't it?) and up until Monday, I'd considered myself a model professional when it comes to official assignments. I love working under pressure...pressure to deliver high-value results. This is why I haven't been all too concerned about my workload which almost quadrupled at the turn of the year.
I was made project lead for a software product with 3 different flavours and in essence, three different code-bases that had to be in sync (as much as possible) feature wise. I'd been burning the candle not only at both ends but I'm pretty sure I must have lit the said candle at not less than 3 points along its length.
Enough with the buildup. Last December, we started informing interested subscribers through weekly emails about latest judgments delivered in Nigeria's Appellate Courts and I took up the project in conjunction with our media and legal teams.
I'd get the summaries of the judgment on Sunday evenings (usually), work on them during the night and get the emails ready to be sent as early as 7:00 am Monday morning. This had gone on successfully for the past 8 weeks until this fateful Monday evening. The judgments had arrived late on Friday evening and while the legal team would have worked on the judgments over the weekend in times past, the company CEO was magnanimous enough to give everyone the weekend off so we could send the newsletter by 7:00 am, Tuesday morning instead.
I got the final draft of the newsletter on Monday evening and by 8:30 pm when I got home, I started working on adding a "blog" module to the Web-Based version of our Electronic Law Reporting & Research Software. The blog would house Tuesday's version of the newsletter and subsequent versions. I started work and worked till small hours of Tuesday morning became increasingly bigger.
By 4:45 am, I couldn't stay awake again and my drowsiness wasn't letting me think or see clearly because I was expecting to see the judgments on our website with dates ranging from 3rd to 7th of March but the most recent date I could see that morning was 28th February. So when I got a call from the newsletter's curator (a colleague from the legal department) around 5:40 am, I just told her I'd need to get to the office later in the morning before sending the newsletter. I ended the call and resumed my "short nap".
Then things got awry! I awoke to the sound of rain... It was 7:45 am Tuesday morning, my windows were open and since it had been raining with winds for like two hours, my room was partially flooded. My first instinct was to pick up my laptop off the floor. The newsletter was already 90 minutes late, my laptop battery was flat, there was no light (no electricity) and the rain wasn't showing signs of letting up.
I went to the generator house, switched on the small backup generator and tried to knock the newsletter together in record time. My biggest and greatest enemy was the strength and speed of my internet connection as the newsletter had to be designed and edited within a web based application.
At about 9:45 am, after numerous calls from members of management and the legal team wanting to know why the newsletter wasn't sitting in their inbox and where on earth I was, I rushed through the newsletter draft and without a second thought, I hit the "SEND" button.
Exhaling deeply and heaving a sigh of relief, I realized I'd been on my feet since I woke up. I'd composed the newsletter on my balcony placing my laptop on top of an old bookshelf. I switched off the generator (I had switched to the larger one because the smaller one ran out of gasoline) and as I was about to enter the bathroom to take my bath, I realized my first mistake!
Initially, I thought "it isn't that big a mistake, is it?". I'd sent the newsletter to a number of highly influential people on our message list who should have gotten a more comprehensive edition of the newsletter. As I was beating myself up about this and trying to figure out how to solve the problem, my eye caught the date on the newsletter.
Tuesday was 11th of March, 2014; the first line of the newsletter read: Judgments delivered on 27th and 28th March, 2014. The said line should have read: Judgments delivered between 27th February and 7th March, 2014!
I was livid. How could I have missed that??? How could I have sent that??? What was I thinking??? Why did I work late??? What have I done???
In the 3 hours it took me to take a shower, pack my bags, get to work and send a corrected version of the newsletter, I asked myself these questions over and over again...and I decided: That's the last time I'm pulling an all-nighter! I made that decision yesterday evening and even as I type up this blog post, I'm starting to feel that that decision wouldn't last very long.
In the end, I learnt my lesson.
If you're interested in subscribing to the weekly newsletter (with analysis of judgments delivered from Nigeria's Appellate courts), just send me a mail at "dapo.omonayajo[at[gitlimited[dot]com"
