Do I tell my boss that I might have made a mistake?

Question:

Hello,

I started a job at a grocery store yesterday. Today on my way to church, all of a sudden, the thought popped up in my head that I could have caused a customer's soda to not get scanned. Now I know at the time, I thought it was scanned. Another person was actually running the register at the time. I was supposed to be in training. I know we had got another cart since they had so much stuff. I don't know why I thought the soda was scanned or if it was actually ever scanned. I do remember that I put it on the bottom of the other buggy.

I don't know why this thought popped up in my head. I even started wondering if I could have done the same thing with stuff on the bottom of other customers' buggies.

I don't know if I should go to the manager and tell him I could have made a mistake and hope he doesn't fire me or tell him and offer to pay for two cases of soda. Maybe I should see if he could look back on camera footage. I could ask the girl I was working with but I don't know that she would be honest about the situation. Her job could possibly be affected as well.

The sad thing is I don't know for sure if I actually made a mistake or not. I used to worry about things a lot of times in jobs that I didn't need to worry about. I'd go back and double-check my work. I don't know what to do as I don't want to admit to a mistake that I didn't actually make, but in the event that I did do it, I should admit to it. It's a tough situation as I'm afraid of losing the job. I'm also very afraid of hellfire.

Please help. Thank you.

Answer:

You don't know that you made a mistake. You have a past history of not remembering what you had done. You have a co-worker who was responsible for training you and would have noticed if you moved an item without scanning it. And when you were working, you knew that all items were to be scanned. All of this adds up to the simple conclusion that you did not make a mistake.

Rather, what is happening is that you let your fears run wild. You don't recall a brief moment and you immediately jumped to imagining the worse scenario. You can't run your life by fears, especially fears of what you don't know actually happened.

Response:

This is actually similar to the conclusion that I came up with on my own today. I've always been paranoid about making mistakes at work. I was awarded several times at one of my previous jobs for not making very many mistakes, but it didn't keep me from second-guessing myself. This is a job that I can't double-check everything so I have to do the best I can. If I know I made a mistake I need to admit to it. I don't need to admit to things I don't know that I did. I have to understand that I am human and am going to make mistakes sometimes. Sometimes I might not even know about it until someone else tells me.

I had my own register today. It worked out better for me. I seem to get overwhelmed when working with others on the same thing. If I work by myself I can think through the steps and what I've done better.

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it.

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