Measure twice, cut once

In a few of my blogs I have spoken about things my Dad has told me. How I try to follow them. It may come out like I always do. Unfortunately I don't always, and yes, I pay for it. (He'll love this)

This saying has been topical for me for a couple of reasons of late.

Measure twice, cut once!

Over the years, I have avoided this at times to my peril.

Firstly, sorry to mention for those who read me a bit.. But yes we are doing renovations at the moment, and lets get this straight, I am not a tradie, I am not good at making stuff with my hands. So this saying kinda rings true at the moment.

Secondly, Around 10 years ago, my wife went to the US for 3 weeks for work. This was early in our marriage and was the longest we'd been apart. My only jobs were to a) keep the house tidy and to b) pick her up on her return.

Well a) was a no brainer, I'd even made a few cool changes to the outside. Now b) ended up being a problem. Why? I didn't get to the airport! (yes I am still married to her) and why not? Well, my reasoning was that I was going off what she told me. She had told me the time she was landing. I believe it and didn't check, yes I had a printed itinerary. If I had I would have seen that the timing was out and she was landing 3.5 hours earlier than we'd thought. Not a great experience for anyone. A problem easily solved, if only.....

Most recently, ie Monday US time, Tuesday, Australian time. I had made a commitment with Paul Paris and the team of the Ex-Recruiter Show. Paul and I had discussed this for a number of weeks and I was pumped to firstly be asked and secondly I really enjoy this stuff, talking about a number of my favourite topics. Paul and the team marketed it really well, the mentions part of my Tweetdeck was littered with mentions of me being on their show.
In our discussions it was mentioned that with the time difference, the show would air at around 10am my time. This time worked beautifully for me. It was a public holiday here for Australia Day, and I planned to get the show in and then get the celebrations started. Perfect.. right? wrong.

Around midnight the night before I got a bad feeling. I checked the Blog Talk Radio site for the Ex-Recruiter Show and used the "add to your outlook" button there to ensure that I had to time right. To my horror, guess what... I had the time wrong... it was 2 hours later... Right when the celebrations were to fire up in my house. I couldn't cancel the celebrations, would be unpatriotic to do that. I had to bail on the show... my bad, my fault. If only I'd checked. (my deepest apologies to the #TERS team)

You'd think I'd learn. Double check things... Measure twice, cut once.

Before you decide on a course of action, make sure your information is right. No assumptions (my Dad has a saying for that too!)