Nobody likes to admit that they’ve made a mistake.
But if you do, it’s better to be part of a bureaucracy. When a person stuffs up big time, it isn’t always possible to stay under the radar. Sometimes mitigation can be achieved by having the error moved through several in-baskets in a kind of watering down manoeuvre. This may also be achieved by using the musical chairs effect, where the problem you created just keeps going around and around. This only works if you make sure that you’re not in the room when the music stops. There are other times when simply hiding beneath a large pile of paperwork does the trick, as long as you don’t crawl out too soon. If you’re really clever, you can have the cockup completely disappear from your department and have it reappear several floors away in the same building. This technique requires a lot of practice.
So, if you are the IT guy that didn’t bother to check the software code for bugs properly, allowing a few thousand pensioners to go without their payments for a week or two, it’s best if you just become invisible.
…or the manager who has cleverly syphoned off enough money between accounts to have that nice new swimming pool put in, you need to concentrate heavily on the methodology used to discombobulate the paper trail.
…or if you happened to be the secretary who failed to forward the ministerial report that allowed a public catastrophe to unfold, causing a major disruption to the community, a forfeiture of government revenue and the loss of the odd life or two… just keep all your heads down until it all blows over. It often does.
Naturally, in all cases, if you can manage simply to pass the buck, even better.