What happens when you make a big professional mistake? Can your reputation be repaired, or is it the slow beginning of a definitive end?
In the Netflix show, Inventing Anna, the character of journalist Vivian Kent, played by actress Anna Chlumsky, has to fight the challenges of trying to chase a story when her last article had proved to be a lie
What happens when you tell a big star to be honest to a journalist about her side of a controversial personal episode, off the record of course, to build “background and a relationship”. And the next day it’s a Page 1 story. What if the said star reads it, and in a fit of panic, falls sick. What if the journalist in question now says, she did nothing out of turn.
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A public relations professional we speak to says she was only 22 when she made this faux pas, and it haunted her for the next few years to come. She decided to eventually quit PR. “Things were not good after that. And after a while, I was asked to leave. I was young and naive. But what was done was done, and it took time to get out of that slump,” she admits, requesting anonymity for this article.
Shubham Nandi realised that making a mistake can hurt your mental health, and that he needed to practice detachment; (right) Parikshaat Wadhwani admits he lost goodwill when he tried to diversify his business. He says he has to focus on “re-networking”
Netflix’s latest hit show, Investing Anna, follows fake heiress Anna Sorokin and her antics as she fools all of New York to bag money, invitations to parties, free vacations and private jet rides. As much as the show is about Delvey, it’s also about the journalist who brought it to life, Jessica Pressler, who wrote the piece for New York Magazine, and is referred to as Vivian Kent in the show.
Kent is facing an unusual career challenge after the story she did turned out to be inaccurate. She is now part of the office’s “scriberia” (where scribes go to stagnate). The damning article was about a 16-year-old New York high school student named Donovan Lamb, who claimed he had made $80 million on the stock market “before he could drive.” In the show, Lamb says later that he had never done any of it. In reality, in December 2014, the New York Observer had alleged that the New York Magazine story Pressler wrote earlier that month about a Stuyvestant High School senior named Mohammed Islam, who claimed to have made $72 million trading stocks, was a hoax. In the show, and in real life, Pressler (and Kent) make a fabulous comeback with the Anna Delvey story. But can you come back from Scriberia? Especially after your reputation has taken a blow.
Guncha Kahre
For our PR professional acquaintance, a comeback was possible only after she gave publicity work a break for a year. “I was depressed. I could barely get out of bed. I felt like I wasn’t built for this profession, and saddled myself with blame.” When she was able to pick up the pieces, she took up a job with an events company, before moving on to manage creators and influencers. “In retrospect, I know what I did right was to admit my mistakes. My intention was right. I have learnt that when you don’t know a person, it’s best to tread lightly and not trust them so easily. And I know well enough to not repeat my mistake. I rebuilt my confidence from scratch and decided to return to doing what I was good at.”
Parikshaat Wadhwani, 32, who runs the PR firm, PW PR, says that for him, starting a fashion label in 2020 and ignoring his original brand, turned out to be a big mistake. “I did too many things at once and wasn’t considering longevity. I ignored clients, and even my competitors were chattering about this. They said I was going to give up PR. I had to start all over again—by meeting old and new clients, showing my work, building my Instagram account, reaching out to the media... I re-networked. In hindsight, I think it’s best if everyone continues doing what they are good at.”
Not just the creative world. The uber cool start-up world is also a hotbed of first-time learners. Fintech entrepreneur Shubham Nandi, 24, realised this recently after he co-founded his hyper local payment application. His confidence in planning the logistics of a project for a client led to hasty decisions that resulted in the project going haywire. “It failed miserably. Though my team was supportive, externally, the damage was done. People talk,” says Nandi, adding that he decided he’d quietly continue his work. “I decided to trust my gut the next time around. But I also realised that mental health issues are real. I started doubting every decision I made, and suffered panic attacks. So I focused on another area of work, and built my confidence back. I also started practising detachment.”
Nandi was fortunate that he was an entrepreneur. Do companies look kindly at hiring an employee with a “past”? Guncha Khare, human resource professional and Culture Director at Dextrus, a co-working space, says that the past catches up when you look for your next job and your best bet is to be transparent. “We deal with human talent, and humans make mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance. What those in charge of hiring should do is assess the magnitude of the error and lend a listening ear—don’t form a bias without hearing all sides. Do a character assessment—has the employee learned their lesson? Then it will be possible to move past the mistake, and hire basis experience and merit.” Khare feels that each organisation is different and if the new start-ups are cooler at looking past mistakes, older organisations, thanks to the experience of people working there, have the maturity to understand that to err is human. “With conversations around inclusivity increasing, there is an openness in accepting people, no matter what. And that’s always a good thing.”
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