Happy New Year!
No, that is not a typo in the greetings, and wish you all to have a Happy New Year! Spell check has flagged it for me and I will have to proofread this article twice before I send it out. I am making a point.
I worked for a firm years ago that taught me more about proofing and checking my valuation reports than any other place or person I have worked for. I know to let a report sit for at least a day before I proofread it. I know to read every word as if I were the client, checking for holes in my logic, missing pieces of information, any questions that were left unanswered, and for the little red squiggles that tell me I misspelled a word. One of the first mistakes I didn’t catch, was caught by the client’s attorney. He annotated the mistake with the words, “I wish they were”. I had been discussing the national economic situation and was talking about the production of durable goods, however, I had spelled it, ‘durable gods’.
That is one of the most memorable lessons I have ever received. However, even with all of that, my training and specific attention to each report I write, I received a phone call last week from a client who had found an explanatory note in my report that referenced the wrong state’s income tax rate. Fortunately, I had updated the actual math with the correct rate, but I neglected to update that one note to the schedule.
People make mistakes. That is a fact of life. Sometimes, instead of simply mis-spelling a word or forgetting to update a schedule’s note, there is a math error, or perhaps some information was missed that would significantly impact a value conclusion. Sometimes, the error could be something that impacts you personally.
In this new year, 2019, I would like to encourage us all to continue to take care with our valuation reports but to also keep in mind that we are fallible and so are our neighbors and friends.
When we catch an error, it is important to take steps so that we do not repeat that same one again, but to also remember that there are always a lot more we could make.
My wish for this new year is double. I wish to be more patient with the errors I find myself making, and to make even fewer mistakes than I made last year. What’s yours?
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