I’ve been working for a few weeks on some posters and other edu-ma-cational goodies for the staff in my department. One of the national regulatory agencies has issued a set of rules we must follow, and my job was to create the various visuals for the education blitz.

There was a lot of back-and-forth about how to word this, how to explain that, until the Powers That Be all finally agreed on the copy and let me have at it with the design work. I was determined to make these things – the posters especially – absolutely professional and perfect. I mentioned to The Boss that due to a lack of appropriate stock photos in my arsenal, I was having a friend from PR come and take some photos in the operating room with me.

“Just make sure everyone is wearing eyewear,” The Boss said. “People keep taking pictures of staff without eyewear and that should never happen.” Duly noted.

My friend and I went into an OR to take the pictures and a nurse stopped us at the door to check that we had our masks and eyewear on. We did, and so did everyone else in the room. After explaining why we were there and getting the releases signed, my friend took some photos of the appropriately eyewear-ed staff and we were done.

I picked out two of the photos and used them on the poster design. They looked perfect. I sent everything to the printer and was hopping happily when 19 big posters were delivered today. The Boss wasn’t in her office, so I left them propped up by her desk.

She calls me.

“The posters look great,” she says. “One thing. Can you come up for a second?”

Doom.

“What’s up?” I ask, walking into her office. She is looking at the poster and biting her lip. “What is it?”

She points at one of the photos. “The girl in the pink scrub cap. She’s not wearing eyewear.”

I squint. “She has to be. They all were.”

“But she doesn’t have goggles on and those masks with the built-in eyeshields have a black stripe. There’s no stripe. The Vice-President and I just noticed it.”

Crap crap crap. How did this happen? I swear to GOD she was wearing eyewear. That was the nurse who checked mine! And now I have violated my sacred charge to make sure that everything we print is compliant with every rule from everywhere.

“I’ll fix them,” I say in a small voice. I want to hide. The Boss shrugs apologetically – she really sympathizes, I know, because she reminds me that she approved the proof, so it’s not just me that missed it. Still. I don’t feel any better. I mentally stamp my forehead with a big “FAIL” and slog back down to my office.

I open the folder of photos and click through until I find the ones from that OR. There’s the girl in the pink scrub cap, not wearing eyewear.

I zoom in. And in. And in.

And there, at 400% magnification, I see it: the glint of a thin plastic eyeshield on a new variety of mask that does NOT have a black stripe.

“I see it I see it I see it!” I yelp to no one in particular, and skitter back upstairs. “She IS!” I say triumphantly, bursting back into The Boss’s office. “She IS wearing eyewear!” I pick up a poster and wave it around.

The Boss picks up her glasses and narrows her eyes at the photo. “Where?”

“That little glimmer. I saw it at 400% zoom. I swear.”

“There?” She points. I nod. Hooray! No need to reprint $800 worth of posters because I made a mistake – because I DIDN’T! Win! The Boss high-fives me and I leave.

“Hey, I’m not so dumb after all,” I say happily to The Boss’s secretary.  “Yay me!” And as I’m speaking, I’m turn toward the doorway and almost run smack into the Vice-President.

“She is wearing eyewear,” I announce, and run away before he can ask me to prove it.

I’ll send him the file.