Tag: mistakes

Fridaz Wandering Thoughts

I was at Albertson’s. The people ahead — man, woman, and younger woman — were paying. Setting my items onto the belt, I spotted a tub of deli pasta salad and held it up. “Who does this belong to?”

Attention swiveled. “Whoops,” the man said, laughing.

In the same instant, the young, blond cashier cried out, “Oh, no, I made a mistake, I missed something!”

The woman fluttered a hand. “It’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it.”

The young woman gasped. “Oh, no, we can’t go without that!”

Amused as the error was fixed, I hid a private chuckle, entertained by the reactions.

We’ve all been there.

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WTF, America

It this is Thursday, it must be time for WTF, America, in Trumpland.

Have you heard about Kasper Eriksen? After living here in the United States as a green card holder working to become a U.S. citizen, ICE arrested him. Mr. Eriksen was working as a welder in a small Mississippi town. He emigrated to the U.S. in 2013 and married a woman, an American citizen, in 2014. They have children together. When he went for his naturalization interview on April 15th, 2025, he was arrested for a paperwork error from 2015. He’s been in a Louisianna prison since his arrest for that 2015 paperwork mistake.

This is typical of the clumsy, heavy-handed, Trump Regime, a group of people selected for their lack of empathy and intelligence, just like their Dear Leader. They’re sloppy and incompetent, and it’s trending upward. And as in the case of wayward children or mistakes-prone staff, if they’re not held to fix things, to correct their behavior, it’ll only get worse.

Green Card Holder Detained by ICE at Immigration Appointment, Wife Says

Danish man living in Mississippi detained by ICE at naturalization meeting


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I Might Just Be Bossy

I believe I am a leader. But then, I’m biased. I could just be full of myself. Arrogant. Too ignorant to realize that I’m not a leader, that others are blowing smoke when they tell me, or when they told me, I was a leader.

From my perspective, I’ve always been a ‘big-picture’ person. I like organization and decisiveness. I like decisions to be made quickly. I despise people and organizations who dither while trying to create a perfect plan, a perfect solution. No plans or solutions are perfect. But then, most of it can be modified later. Sometimes the modification will be harder.

That’s the way it goes.

I have been in formal positions of leaderships for several teams, in the military, in startup businesses, and in the Fortune 500 world. In surveys and assessments, I was identified as ‘authoritarian’.

That startled me the first time. I try to be inclusive. Try to coach up by inviting my team members to participate in decision making. But then, a decision is needed. I’ll ask them to vote. It seemed like many people did not want to vote, worrying that they’d make a mistake or reveal themselves in some way that they found uncomfortable. I don’t know. I’m guessing.

I already knew that I would make mistakes. That happens. Mistakes are good, as long as people aren’t hurt, killed, or traumatized. That’s part of the equation when decisions are made. Safety first. Almost always. But not necessarily always. Prioritization is and was needed about what is going on. The other facet of that is, learn from your mistakes. Internalize them and avoid repeating them.

And I have been criticized for assuming leadership. People asked, “Who put you in charge?” Fair enough. I don’t care. Who is in charge? What are we doing? Is there a plan? What’s the objective? Why are we all standing (or sitting) around doing nothing?

There was once an adhoc project established in the command section of a military unit. I walked in and was ‘volunteered’ to be part of it. I was a senior NCO at that point. Inside were several junior NCOs and junior-grade officers. One NCO later told me that a captain said, “Master Sergeant Seidel is joining us.”

And another said, “Oh, good. He’ll organize us and make a plan.”

Because that’s just who the hell I am. A bossy guy.

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Learnin’ to Walk

Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
View all responses

I’m one of those people who believe and practice, you must be willing to take risks and face failure if you want to succeed. The classic example is learning to walk: we all must accept trying to take those first steps and risk falling in order to stay upright and put one foot in front of the other to cross a room and get where we want to go.

In my case, I’ve succeeded many times when I’ve tried. My failures have been as a sales person. I’m talking about goin’ door to door. Selling vacuum cleaners. Knife sets. Cookware. Hey, I was desperate to improve our situation and increase our income.

But I learned that I’m not a person who wants to pressure people into buying things like that. First, the products were overpriced. Second, they weren’t the greatest invention in the world, which was basically the line I was to spin. I didn’t believe it, and I didn’t accept it, and I couldn’t say it. I felt like a hypocrite and a fraud when I did.

I later learned, yes, I can sell things. I’m pretty successful at selling ideas. And I’ve sold tangible products, like coronary angioplasty products. But to succeed in that arena, I had to believe in what I was saying. And to believe, I couldn’t ignore my principles.

Understanding grew from those failures and setbacks. I learned: don’t ignore your principles. And I became known as a dependable person, trustworthy, responsible, reliable. I probably would have learned those lessons without my salesman failures but going through it helped me cement my understanding of who I am, who I’m willing to be, and what I will do to make a dollar.

In the end, I believe I’m a better person because of my failures.

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The Writing Moment

A mental mistake. Revising today, the draft surprised me; things I thought I’d changed yesterday weren’t changed. WTH, over? Didn’t I change that? And that? Was that all a mirage, a dream, work done in a different reality.

Realization came belatedly, no, I was in the wrong draft. While working on the latest draft yesterday, I’d opened a previous draft to look something up. Well, it was the last doc closed yesterday, so it went to the top of the document list. Without thinking today, I opened it up, went to where the doc said I left off, and commenced revision. Wasn’t until I glanced at the page number and realized I was twenty pages behind that I finally seriously applied critical thinking to the moment and understood what happened.

What a rube. What a mistake. No harm; just time. But damn, I thought I did some good revising today. Hope I’ve learned a lesson and don’t do that again.

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Monday’s Wandering Thought

Seeing movement on his vision’s edge, he thinks it’s his wife walking by and turns to speak to her.

It’s not his wife, but a short and plump elderly man.

He’s astonished. Other than the color of their jackets, the man looks nothing like his spouse.

Does he tell her about this incident? Do you think he has a death wish?

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The Mistakes Dream

Okay, another dream that placed me in the military, but I think other aspects have more meaning.

Young, about thirty-eight, the age I was when I retired, I was in a conference room with the commander and several other people. I was wearing my light blue uniform shirt with dark blue pants, standard for the Air Force and office work in those days.

The conference was very nice and modern but for some reason, the commander was upset about three lights in the ceiling. These were back in the middle, by the rear wall. The lights were small, recessed task lights, adjacent to one another, silver. The commander, a colonel, was going on about the lights being useless. “I’m going to prove it,” he shouted, “and get them removed.”

I was listening to this screed with some disdain. I thought the lights could have a use not immediately apparent — otherwise, why install them? — and it wasn’t like it made the room unusable. But I wasn’t interested in arguing with him.

The commander and a group of people left. I stayed, as did a few others, waiting for something else. Bored, I was balancing a hollow cylindrical rod on my palm. This was about three feet long, but six inches in diameter. I decided to push it against the acoustic ceiling tile. To my surprise, it cut out a perfect round hole in the tile.

The others immediately gathered, aghast, asking, “Oh my God, what did you do? Why did you do that?”

I felt more amused than upset with it, but I did immediately start trying to think of a way of covering it up. Several ideas were considered and rejected. I shrugged; the commander would come in and find it, and I’d deal with the fallout. I was almost done here, anyway, due to retire or leave within a few weeks.

Then I noticed that my uniform was screwed up. It wasn’t buttoned right, the right chest pocket was torn and hanging off, and I hadn’t attached my name tag and insignia. I also realized that I needed a haircut; I’d meant to do that and forget.

I told the rest that I need to go. “Why?” they asked. “I need to change my uniform.” I pointed out the problems with it.

The commander returned as I was doing that. He saw the mistakes and shrugged. “Go get it taken care of,” he said.

Dream end.

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