--- title: On screwing up | daily.dev description: A personal reflection on how to handle workplace mistakes professionally. Starting from a confession about lying to a colleague as an intern, the post outlines... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/on-screwing-up-yuxwmgbda twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: On screwing up | daily.dev og:description: A personal reflection on how to handle workplace mistakes professionally. Starting from a confession about lying to a colleague as an intern, the post outlines... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/on-screwing-up-yuxwmgbda og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/yuxwmGBda.png og:image:alt: On screwing up og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # On screwing up **[Tech Lead Digest](https://daily.dev/sources/techleaddigest)** · 8 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A personal reflection on how to handle workplace mistakes professionally. Starting from a confession about lying to a colleague as an intern, the post outlines a practical framework: control your emotional reaction by waiting before acting, communicate the problem to your manager before you have a fix, and accept that mistakes have real career consequences. It pushes back on the popular notion that incidents are never an individual's fault, arguing that managers judge on results and that the optimal number of mistakes at work is not zero — making none likely means you're taking too few risks. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Never Argue With Your Boss](https://daily.dev/posts/never-argue-with-your-boss-ucocidnoe) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [When Mistakes Teach You Best](https://daily.dev/posts/when-mistakes-teach-you-best-gqcct0iup) · Code Like A Girl · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Taking just one step too far](https://daily.dev/posts/taking-just-one-step-too-far-03fnbmvds) · Manager.dev · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [Notes on incidents](https://daily.dev/posts/notes-on-incidents-noabbvg3s) · sean goedecke · 45 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/on-screwing-up-yuxwmgbda) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"On screwing up","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-screwing-up-yuxwmgbda","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-screwing-up-yuxwmgbda"},"datePublished":"2026-02-26T07:27:15.887Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T07:27:37.760Z","description":"A personal reflection on how to handle workplace mistakes professionally. 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