Confess: do ya...or don't ya...

Offhand I can't think of something I messed up, but knowing myself I would probably be overwhelmed with embarrassment and try to avoid the person forever (as an introvert I try to avoid people in general anyway).
 

In my hardware electronics career at the level I worked within, there were always many many ways to make mistakes. When a new printed circuit board aka PCB, for a product has just a few expensive prototypes produced with each one destined to be used by key members of an engineering team, the damage or loss of any one board may seriously impact engineering schedules.

One reason I rose to the top was because I was skilled at minimizing mistakes. Often performed work on PCBs that design engineers themselves were afraid to do because of fear they would blow up their own creations. During evaluation and debug, such prototypes with tiny microcircuits viewed through stereo microscopes, are often instrumented with dozens of probes delicately connecting via temporary solder wire connections to test equipment like oscilloscopes, meters, logic analyzers, test fixtures, computer bay test boards, and much else. One accidental bump to such test setups, one accidental pull on a power cord or test lead lying atop a test bench, and the whole thing can result in collapse like the inside of a mechanical watch under repair with springs going off like a jack-in-the-box.

And if the person that instruments a prototype PCB connects to the wrong place, or creates a short to an adjacent trace, that could sometimes result in frying key unrepairable circuits, destroying it. Or if a couple data line labels were set up accidentally switched going to a logic analyzer, such could minimally waste some engineer's precious time figuring out why what they see seems wrong?

Despite having talent for not making mistakes, I am as human as the next person, so did make some. What I learned was others trusted me more for not only calmly honestly admitting making mistakes when such happened, but being able to explain why whatever occurred and what I would do to prevent such in the future.

That noted, there are other situations in life, where one's mistakes, especially if trivial and not involving others, is best kept to oneself. For example, I didn't tell anyone else I instantly ruined a pricy synthetic shirt by accidentally splashing glue on it while repairing a lanyard cord. It didn't concern others. On the other hand, if I write something on this board that I later find to be incorrect, even if others are not likely to notice whatever, I will likely publicly note a correction.
 
I will not hesitate to acknowledge a genuine mistake and apologize for it; offer to fix things if I can.

But, for many people, saying "I'm sorry" is over-used, becoming an automatic reaction to situations like sneezing or asking a question, when "excuse me" is all that's necessary.
 
My top pet peeve in childcare was when a child was taught to "Tell him you are sorry" because it's good manners
When it was clear the child was not sorry. It's like handing a kid a get-out-of-jail -free card. Because they'd do it again
and again and say "Sorry" with a smirk on their face. I found another way to remedy that and it worked beautifully
and amazingly stopped that in my classroom.
 
There is no need to find my own mistakes and self-announce them to myself or others. My spouse will find and announce drips, goofs, calculation errors and stains in laundry, out loud and usually in front of others if possible.
 
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