The Coworker's Mistake

Marisol notices the error on Thursday afternoon, buried in a spreadsheet nobody else seems to be checking closely. Her coworker Dominic has sent the wrong pricing numbers to a major client. The numbers are about fifteen percent too low.

周四下午，玛丽索尔发现了一个错误，它埋在一张似乎没有人仔细核对的表格里。她的同事多米尼克把错误的报价数字发给了一位大客户，这些数字大约低了百分之十五。

She stares at the email for a long moment, calculating what this actually means. If the client accepts the quote before anyone catches it, the company could lose thousands of dollars.

她盯着那封邮件看了很久，算着这到底意味着什么。如果客户在有人发现之前就接受了报价，公司可能会损失好几千美元。

Marisol could say nothing. Dominic is well-liked, and mistakes like this sometimes just get quietly fixed. No one always has to explain how they happened. But if she stays silent and it comes out later, she'll have to explain herself. She saw it early enough to help.

玛丽索尔可以什么都不说。多米尼克人缘很好，这类错误有时也就悄悄改过来了。并不是每次都有人要解释错误是怎么发生的。可是，如果她保持沉默，事后又被发现，她就得为自己解释了。而且她发现得够早，还来得及帮忙。

She walks over to Dominic's desk instead of sending an email that other people might see. "Hey, I think there might be an issue with the numbers you sent to Fairview yesterday."

她没有发一封可能被别人看到的邮件，而是走到了多米尼克的座位旁。“嘿，我觉得你昨天发给费尔维尤的那些数字可能有点问题。”

Dominic's face changes the moment he opens the spreadsheet again. "Oh no. Oh, that's bad. I used last year's pricing sheet by accident."

多米尼克重新打开表格，脸色立刻变了。“哎呀，糟了。这下麻烦了。我不小心用了去年的报价表。”

"I figured it was something like that," Marisol says. "Nobody sends numbers that low on purpose."

“我猜就是这类原因，”玛丽索尔说，“没有人会故意把数字报得这么低。”

"Thank you for telling me directly," he says, already drafting a correction email. "You could have just gone to our manager first."

“谢谢你直接告诉我，”他一边说，一边已经动手写更正邮件，“你本来可以直接去找我们经理的。”

"I thought about it," Marisol admits. "But it felt more useful to give you a chance to fix it first."

“我想过，”玛丽索尔承认，“不过我觉得先给你一个自己改正的机会，会更有用一些。”

Dominic sends the corrected numbers within the hour. He adds an apology that makes the mistake sound smaller than it actually was. Their manager never finds out how close the company came to losing the contract.

多米尼克一个小时之内就把更正后的数字发了出去。他还加了一段道歉，让这个错误听起来比实际情况要小。他们的经理始终不知道，公司离丢掉这份合同有多近。

A few days later, Dominic stops by Marisol's desk with two coffees. "I owe you one," he says, setting a cup down next to her keyboard. "I mean that literally. This is the coffee."

几天后，多米尼克端着两杯咖啡来到玛丽索尔的座位旁。“我欠你一份人情，”他一边说，一边把一杯咖啡放在她的键盘旁边，“我是说真的欠，字面意思。就是这杯咖啡。”

Marisol laughs and takes the cup. "Just double-check your pricing sheets from now on."

玛丽索尔笑着接过了杯子。“以后记得再检查一下你的报价表。”

"Deal," he says. "Permanently."

“一言为定，”他说，“永远都检查。”