I made Three Important Mistakes fairly recently that underscored the importance of Paying Attention to Details for me. I will share them here with you, and explain a) why everything worked out okay, and b) what I learned from the experience.

Ink Stink
I love the Staples website. What I love even more about it is that you get free delivery from your local Staples if you order more than $50. This was perfect for me a few weeks ago when I needed to buy printer ink for an Epson 2200. Clickety-click, clickety-click, and it's done, delivered to my door a few days later. But what I failed to realize until after I had carefully unwrapped all the cartridges and started trying to place them in the printer, is that I had ordered ink for an Epson 2400. BIG DIFFERENCE. The cartridges didn't fit, and I sat there scratching my head like an ape until I realized I had made a $125 mistake.

But everything worked out okay when I called Staples, told them about the situation, and surprisingly found a willing customer service representative who not only refunded my money and sent a driver to pick up the ink, she volunteered to order me the correct cartridges and have them delivered for free the next day!

Lesson: really take the time to review your invoice before you hit "CONFIRM"! That, and it doesn't hurt to ask.

Battery Drain
The morning of a recent wedding gig I had, I decided to change the batteries in my flash to make sure I had enough juice to last me a good while. In went the rechargables, and I hit the "ON" button: nothing. Okay, I thought, I must've used those up. In went set #2 of rechargables, and I hit the "ON" button: nothing. Whoa! In went set #3 of rechargables, and still no juice! I had to leave in less than an hour--there was no way I could recharge in time.

Luckily, I usually keep on hand a HUGE stash of emergency alkalines. I brought them along, and the wedding went smoothly, but I definitely learned to make sure to charge my batteries the night before a gig!

Auction Debaucle
A long while back, I had my eyes on a second Minolta Maxxum 7000 camera body. Someone had given me a first, and I was looking for more lenses and accessories so I could have a backup camera for my film weddings. Ebay was my friend--I found a number of good listings with folks looking to sell large lots of lenses & nifty accessories for the flash (which was what I wanted). So, I bid, and bid generously. For $200, I had won exactly what I wanted.>

Or so I thought. A week or so later, a box arrived at my door, from Israel (whoops, should've checked the listing!), with tons of Minolta lenses and stuff I didn't recognize from the listing. I was ticked. I took a picture, and started a dialogue with the Ebay seller, trying to either a) get my money back, or b) figure out what he or she had done with the gadgets I thought I had purchased. I ran into both a language barrier and a knowledge barrier--the seller struggled to find out what was wrong, and didn't know cameras enough to understand what was missing.

I ended up giving up. All in all, my situation wasn't that bad. I had a whole bunch of lenses that I hadn't really asked for, but that were really nice. And even though I didn't get the accessory that I wanted, I had what I needed. Plus, a year after I made the purchase, I ended up re-selling the equipment kit (and more) for a hefty profit!

Again, though, in future auctions I confirmed necessary details with the seller before bidding on Ebay!

The Final Word

In all these situations, I looked back and realized that one of the major things that made me skip the vital details was this: I was in a rush.

Poor decisions are made when you're in a rush, folks. Stop rushing, step back, and check those details.

...

EDIT: At 3:21 PM on March 12th, Benjamin had the courtesy to tell me that all my formatting was getting lost when Google Reader picked up my RSS feed. I checked my entries, and noticed that I had been neglecting to use <p> tags, instead relying on MovableType's autoformatting. This was a Bad Idea and Very Lazy on my part. I hereby insert my foot in my mouth, eat my own words, and take that bitter pill that is my own advice.