Having an anxiety attack over error at work

[Chocolateface]

Hi

A few weeks ago at work I made a payment incorrectly by typing in a wrong account number on an internet bank payment, it should have ended 9 but I ended it with 8. My manager released it incorrectly (we have a payment system where one person put the payment on the bank and another person authorises it). It has only come to light today. I have informed my manager what has happened and we are trying to trace the incorrect payment to receive the funds back.

My manager has said not to worry as it is some of her error for not checking but that doesn't help.

I am now having an anxiety attack thinking that I will lose my job over this, and that people are talking about me. I have just heard my manager go through papers and I have convinced myself it is stuff about me.

Thanks for reading if you got this far

Clare

[NoPoet]

Everyone makes mistakes. While this is a fairly important one, it's far from career ending. For a start your manager checked it and released the funds. For a second, the person receiving these funds incorrectly has probably not contacted the bank. They'll plead ignorance of course but they will almost certainly have been aware.

People make mistakes. You would already know if you were in trouble. If it were deliberate fraud that's different but this was na honest mistake.

[Chocolateface]

Thanks the error only came to light today my manager does seem ok and so does her manager, we have to tell the finance director and his usual attitude is as long as you own up to it and try to correct it he is ok, he doesn't like it if you try and hide it and ignore it. In all honesty it is only the second major error I have made in 3.5 years so hopefully all the other good work I do will go in my favour

[MyNameIsTerry]

Clare,

If you are to blame, so is your manager too. There is no point having an authorisation process if the person doing the authorising doesn't follow the correct procedures themselves. The point of that process (with the ones I've worked with) is to act as a safeguard against quality errors. The manager failed to spot the quality error and pass it back to you as a query where you would have spotted the mistake and corrected it for authorisation.

No process is expected to run at 100%. I used to work in quality improvement and it just isn't expected. Some industries require uber checking to enjoy safety because of this. The more hands it passes through, the more the errors impact on the end customer is reduced - it shouldn't reach them.

So, if this was such a high value payment (assuming your manager has a ceiling) then it would go to the next manager in the process who has more authority or perhaps a 2nd manager to confirm and this manager would spot it and hand it back to the other manager for correction.

If you did some deliberately, disciplinary action is a possibility. For a simple error, and numerical data is a common one for errors, then at most a Capability process is likely but unless you are making constant errors and informal discussions aren't improving your quality, that isn't going to happen.

I've worked in regulated areas and seen enormous errors take place. We had to track them back to the originator. We did this because we needed to address any quality issue with a member of staff but also to check the robustness of the process. We would often experience external or higher internal monitoring of the process for 6 months to 2 years at worst. No one ever had more than a talking to and some of them so obviously typo issues that anyone could have made the same mistake so it was just a friendly 'please watch what you are doing and double check before hitting the enter key'. Things like that.

You have a director that understands mistakes occur. As long as people don't try to hide them, he/she is happy. That's fair enough.

The impact is likely just some transfer fees and a loss of interest on your companies side. The customer will be happy, they've gained interest! The banks won't care, just apply the processes depending on how you reclaim it and apply any charges to your company for requesting it back. Your ledgers will adjust themselves to accept a credit. Maybe you will apply a note to the out/in values if your system allows for it and maybe a note on a customer account if it's needed.

Will anyone work out the difference in interest lost? Probably not. They will show the reclaiming charges on a ledger somewhere but they may be swallowed up with others since they surely do others too? If you work in an industry where you are "buying in" e.g. utilities where their are settlement charges, they may not work out how that is affected as such businesses would spend a ton of money getting into that level of detail outside of a regular reporting schedule or for a project need.

[Chocolateface]

Thanks Terry, I do feel bad as I have got my manager in trouble, her manager seems ok, so hopefully our director will be too. My worry now is if we can't get the funds back, we have sent out a recall request but I don't know if these work automatically or if the recipient of the funds needs to physically send a payment back to us.

Once again thanks for your support

Clare

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thanks Terry, I do feel bad as I have got my manager in trouble, her manager seems ok, so hopefully our director will be too. My worry now is if we can't get the funds back, we have sent out a recall request but I don't know if these work automatically or if the recipient of the funds needs to physically send a payment back to us.

Once again thanks for your support

Clare

No, you haven't got your manager in any trouble - he/she got themselves in trouble. I've been a manager myself for years and I was responsible for quality checking. I also signed off small cash refunds, compensations, etc but had the responsibility of taking forward larger ones to higher managers & above on my managers behalf (if needed). In ALL cases, it was my neck on the block and if one of my staff shoved an extra zero on the end and I didn't notice - my boss would kick me. It was expected that I checked.

At my last company some of the managers worked in debt collection so they had to check applications for court Warrants Of Entry. I know of cases where some warrants should never have gone to court at all. The court complained to the company as a whole and the manager signing the application took the flack. It was never as much of an issue that the member of staff had made the mistake because to senior management, what's the point of having the manager signing it if they don't check what they are signing & why?

When I was checking processes in projects I would look at that manager and say 'well if they don't check X, Y & Z they add nothing to the process other than waste product so remove them or make them do the required checks'.

Also, don't forget all companies have insurance for losses.

I can only speak from my own experience here but if your company apply to recover the cash they will need to give the bank a reason. The bank can check that out with the customer to ensure they are doing it right and refuse if needed which means more work to sort it out. If the bank are satisfied, they will just transfer the cash to your specified company bank account across the banking system.

If this were an individual, you would have the ability to apply for indemnity. That way the bank refund themselves and chase the other party. I don't know how that works with companies or whether it's even possible. It's been such a long time since I've done them. I've worked at places where we simply did it when we applied the next run of DD rolls. You should be able to find out about it via Google, corporate payment recovery will be out there somewhere.

---------- Post added at 07:20 ---------- Previous post was at 07:05 ----------


Hi

A few weeks ago at work I made a payment incorrectly by typing in a wrong account number on an internet bank payment, it should have ended 9 but I ended it with 8.

Just had a thought, Clare. If the account you send it to doesn't exist, if you sent it via BACS it will simply "bounce back" a few days later.

[Chocolateface]

Thanks Terry we have checked and the account exists we just don't know who it belongs to.

My manager does seem ok with me so I don't think I am in that much trouble and the finance director seems ok about it.

Clare

[Chocolateface]

Update, I was doing ok until I heard that the recpient bank has not yet responded to our bank so had a mild panic attack over it just so worried over what is happening, I really can't afford to lose this job, it really is a great company to work for and I do enjoy my job.

Not sure how to distract myself this weekend from it

[MyNameIsTerry]

This will be normal, Clare. The timescale is very short if we go by your post dates.

Unless there is a guaranteed timescale involved such as with the Direct Debit Guarantee, banks like all companies work towards their own quality standards.

Try to rationalise it. How many customers are they dealing with before you? We often forget to remember that we are in queues because anxiety is impatient and keeps telling us it's needs action NOW NOW NOW but we know when it comes to other people, they don't feel that same urgency. It then becomes frustrating to us.

Think about how, just like your company, there will be procedures to follow and authorisations to obtain before someone even issues the return.

Think about how urgent your company have made it. Have they pushed for a really fast return? Or maybe they are fine with it rumbling through the banking system at normal speed? Perhaps they realise these things just take a certain amount of time and there's no point chasing? If you had sent the money to an invalid account, it could take the same time to transfer back.