We all have our bad days at work. Some people just have them more frequently than others.

Mine was last week when I looked at the Sept. 9 edition of our magazine and noticed that the last eight pages were not in the book. I just assumed that I had received a bad copy that the U.S. Postal Service had not taken very good care of during transit. After reaching out to some coworkers and hearing from some readers, I realized every magazine shipped was missing pages 25-32.

Suffice to say my day was ruined. A good chunk of it was spent figuring out how to deal with the situation. We figured out that we would reprint the issue, mail it out again, and include a note on the cover. This, of course, needed to be done before the next issue due to postal regulations.

What made it so frustrating was that it was a third-party error – our printer. I mean, we make enough mistakes on our own… we definitely do not need any help.

I am sure many HVAC contractors can relate. You and your team can do everything right and you can get bitten by something completely out of your control. It makes no sense to obsess over it, as that does not solve the problem any quicker.

The morale of this story: control what you can control and don’t fixate on the items you can’t control.

Anyone want to share a similar story?