So I think I made my coworker cry.

Not intentionally of course. But I had to review some of her work product. And, quite frankly, there were a lot of mistakes.

I began marking up her work with a red pen because that is my default color to use when correcting mistakes. But then there were so many mistakes, the ink began to run together, so I began using a green pen. I also used a yellow highlighter to mark the fields of the work that were deficient. It took me a few hours to mark up, and in the end the entire mark-up looked like a red, yellow, and green mess. I left it on her desk so that she would see it the first thing the next morning.

OKAY SO I KNOW what it's like to work hard on something and have it returned to you bleeding with mark-ups. You get pissed off. You feel defensive. It's personal because this is your work and someone else is criticizing it. I get it. I've had it done to me. But if I wrote "1 + 1 = 3," and someone crosses out the 3 and puts a 2, I might not be happy about it, but I get it.

Anyhow, the next morning, I could tell my coworker was a little pissed. There were instructions about the project that the supervisor never relayed to her. In fact, some misinformation was communicated to her, which forced her to redo a lot of her work.

I felt bad. And even apologized to her for giving her so much work to do. She said it wasn't my fault, just some misinformation was communicated to her, and she was frustrated.

Anyhow, I walked by her desk later in the afternoon. She was talking to another coworker, and I saw that her face was bright red. She blew her nose and dabbed her face quickly, but I saw a couple tears fall down her cheek.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" I said. The other coworker looked at me and smiled sympathetically.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just having a bad day. Stressed at work, things going on at home. Whatever, I'll get over it." She blew her nose again.

I felt bad. "Oh, I'm sorry." I didn't know what to say. I wasn't that close with her, but I felt really bad that she was feeling so crummy. I almost felt guilty for being so harsh on her work, but I had to be - if I didn't, the end work product would have been patently defective.

So yeah. That was my first time being on the other side of the fence.

Bleh.