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5 Steps to Recovery When Twerking Has Cost Your Job

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So, you walk into work, bend over and twerk all over your co-worker, and accidentally make strange gestures with a huge foam finger. Maybe not. But are you Drunk-Table-Dancing-Martha at the Christmas party? Here are 5 steps to recovering.

table dancing

(Photo Credit: mik_p/flickr)

If there’s one thing we can relate to in this Miley Cyrus, twerking, VMA, episode, it is that we’ve all made mistakes and we’ve all had our embarrassing moments. While most of us won’t lose our covers on Vogue, there is no shortage of people who have been fired for social media mishaps and other equally embarrassing public displays. Here’s how to save face.

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1.  Take Responsibility

It may be instinctive to automatically blame YouTube,  but if you want to keep your job, it’s best to skip the blame and take responsibility for the mishap. Admit that you made a mistake, that it was indeed you and not your long lost twin sister, and attempt to move on.

2.  Apologize to Your Employer

If your embarrassing incident has insulted your employer and they have expressed that there is a problem, you may want to take a minute to formally apologize even if there is no way you’ll get your job back.  Schedule an appointment, put on your big boy/girl panties, apologize for the mistake, and suggest corrections and ways to prevent it from happening in the future.

3.  Clean Up the Mess

Remove any leftover evidence of the mistake and make corrections as soon as possible. When you meet with your employer in Step 2, he or she may be able to give you some suggestions on ways to do this. If you do lose your job because of the mistake, you don’t want it to prevent you from landing your next job.

4.  Learn from the Mistake

It seems trite and cliche, but if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re more likely to make them again. Take a good look at what happened, how it happened, and what you need to do when faced with the same situation in the future.

5.  Move On

At some point, after apologizing and correcting, analyzing and learning, allow yourself to move on. Do not dwell on the mistake. Instead, accept it as something that happened and move forward. And hope really hard, that your next employer doesn’t find out about it.

Some employers are less forgiving than others and if you aren’t able to keep your job, and are not Miley Cyrus and can survive financially on creativity,  you will need to focus on recovery and cleaning things up for the next job.

Tell Us What You Think

What are your tips for recovering from embarrassing mistakes? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.

 

Christina Majaski
Read more from Christina

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