The 64K mistake

Have you ever made a really big mistake at work? One that could get you fired?

Once upon a time, I was a designer in an in-house design team. The youngest member of our team was Lisa, who joined as an assistant while still working on her graphic design degree. After graduating, she became our junior designer.

One of her first own projects was to update a conference brochure. The design was all set. The files all in archive. Just load them up on the computer, make several hundred updates to reflect this year’s conference schedule. Nothing to it.

Lisa was careful, paid attention and (unlike some more senior designers) made sure to get all the requisite client reviews signed off on. Of course there was a tight deadline, so she had to push to get things done.

Finally the big day came. The brochure had received final approval. Ready to go to print. Lisa carefully collected and loaded up all the necessary files and sent them off to the printing company.

So far, so good.

The press check

When the call from the printing company came, Lisa and I happened to be the only ones in the office. The printing people let her know that the brochure was now on the press and ready to go.