Mistakes are not inevitable.
How often do you think a Hollywood cinematographer has sent in "the can" to the lab to be told that it's empty or he left the lens cap on? Never.
My father was a WWII military photographer and then general and wedding photographer for another twenty years. How many thousands of sheets of film got loaded into holders and his Speed Graphic, I can only imagine. How there was no way he could get back to the newlyweds and say, "Oops.....Sorry." Not acceptable. And in our many discussions over the years, he never mentioned making a significant mistake and his ego was not the type to hide it.
I honestly don't think I've made a processing mistake, ever. Even doing kitchen film developing, even with a bit of the grape to lubricate my brain, I lay everything out, double check going through placements and sequence before the developer hits the film. Drain the film tank into a beaker or cup, not directly back into the bottle, etc.
It's like dropping cell phones. It's astounding how many people just accept doing so as part of life. (I spend too much time in some cellular forums, too.) People talk of dropping a given phone, one phone only, five or six times! Yet posters pop up with questions like, "Should I get a case for my phone?" Honestly? Don't bother if your phone isn't important to you, dude.
I never have dropped my car phone
nor any PCS cellular phone since my first in 2000. And let me tell you, I'm a klutz. But I don't put my phone on the edges of furniture, I hold it well, I don't talk and toilet at the same time, etc. Maybe it's the boyhood Boy Scout training of "Be Prepared," practiced back then with lots of boating and woodsmanship. You learn to look forward into possibilities and correct before something goes wrong.
In looking at mistakes, mine or others, almost all of them have been traceable to a moment where a bad decision was made. Don't put your phone in harm's way, keep your developer and fixer in different bottle types. Etc.
