Assumption Is A Dangerous Game!


One of my most used phrases as a supervisor and manager was "Assumption Is A Dangerous Game".

I always made a point of telling my staff that they should never assume anything. Perhaps a more direct way of saying it was - to assume makes an ass out of u and me! It usually didn't sink in until they assumed something had been done by someone else - and all hell broke loose! By the time I left my job - I think that most people had got it.

It's easy to fall into the trap - especially with such reliance on automated systems for running my 'business' on the Internet. You assume that your website will be 'up' 24/7, that your autoresponders are doing their job, and that your download links are working properly. Take one of the autoresponders that I use for welcoming subscribers to Our Success Partnership ezine, for example. Every day, I manually add in any new subsribers I get from www.ezineplace.com, and I assume that they get sent out correctly.

Big mistake!

The system may tell you one thing, but you must test it to make sure that it works! Every now and again, I add in one of my own personal email addresses from yahoo, just to make sure that it is all working correctly. A couple of days ago, after I had made a few changes, I tested it, and guess what - I didn't receive the 'test' email! So - I fired off an urgent email - and the autoresponder company's techie person is looking at it as I write. (and...the 'test message' function appears to do what it is supposed to!)

So - of course, I'm not going to 'send' any more emails using the autoresponder until I know that it works. Because I didn't assume anything I am now not 'losing out' on any information I could have given my new subscribers. But guess what the hundreds of other users are doing? - probably nothing, because they just assume that it is working!

Don't make a similar mistake. Regularly check (whether online or in the 'real' world) that you aren't assuming that a key part of your business, or even life, is working as it should. If anything impacts on my business then it is my SOLE resonsibility to make sure that it works. Don't fall into the assumption trap - the time it takes to check something will be far less than if you have to re-do everything from scratch if it goes wrong.