After 30+ years in IT (and more than that "in the world") I've had my fair share of failures. First rule of failure: Admit it! That's what allows you to work on it and take corrective action. Here's a short list of the ones that immediately come to mind:

- Yelled at a co-worker (in my 20's), which really upset her. Learned to keep my frustration in check and properly channeled.

- Dropped a card deck - several boxes worth (yes, I'm THAT OLD). Learned to carry fewer boxes! 😛 (and pick up my feet)

- Deleted an entire production database. :sick: Learned to check the SQL in TEST first!

- Argued with my boss. Learned that supervisors aren't always right, but some of them don't want to know that. Started down the road of learning how to tell someone they could stand to improve (without pissing them off).

- Learned that some managers don't care about their people, and that I didn't want to work in that kind of environment. Yes, I left that job. In retrospect probably should have left earlier, but then again the new job I took lasted 10 years and I was making lots more money - and enjoying the work while improving the IT Infrastructure and assisting with a merger (lots of stories there). So maybe the timing was right after all.

- Can't count the number of coding errors, even if I wanted to. Or in how many languages. Just learn from them and move on; no point in dwelling on them.

- Failed to recognize or acknowledge my own talents. I'll bet a lot of people share this one. Maturity, some counseling, and regular reviews of my accomplishments have (mostly) removed this from my reality. Now if I can just keep my ego in check... :hehe:

And who knows what I'll fail at tomorrow... and what I'll learn from the experience. "It's only failure if you quit."