The first time I ordered three differently-sized baking dishes from a cheap retail store, I was shocked to see two of them broken on arrival. Instead of styrofoam or some other soft padding, they had only added some paper in the box, and with too much room to move about, two thirds of the good had not survived the rough trip on the delivery van.
When I reported the issue, the kind support staff immediately jumped into action. Two days later, the replacement dishes came. My girlfriend took the box off the courier’s hands, and within a second, it was clear: They had learned nothing from their mistake. Once again, no soft padding, just paper. Once again, two out of three dishes broken.
At this point, I told the support to not send any further ceramics, and to please revise how they were packaging them to begin with. Will they improve their shipping process going forward? Dubious, but hope dies last.
We often think we have to get it right the first time, but the truth is you can make a million mistakes and still find plenty of success. If all you do is never repeat the same error, you’ll come out ahead of most folks. It’s okay to learn expensive lessons — just don’t pay the same tuition fee twice if you can help it.