Dilemma

I have lamented about my work stress and how the stress on the job has crept into my personal life balance.  I have also shared that in spite of the stress and frustration, I highly value the work and my contribution to it.  What has caused the stress are actions and decisions of others that have little impact on the quality of the work, but seem to be derived from ulterior motives, ego, or laziness.   At the risk of sounding like I have put myself on a pedestal, my butting of heads with others has usually been as a result of me calling out the offending party, on one of these motivations. I will add that it is only a small number of colleagues, but the frequency and depth of errors has had direct and  ripple impacts throughout the organization, but seemingly without repercussion. Usually this is because someone else went out of their way to fix, or minimize the created problem.  My error it seemed, was not to look the other way. Prior to my recent medical adventure, I had resigned myself to just make life easier, even if it meant compromising my own standards, by just laying low, and unless something was irrevocably going to be damaged, say nothing and just let the mediocrity suffice. 

Here is my dilemma.  On having resigned to under play my hand, I learned yesterday that a staff person and her manager were given blatantly wrong information by a senior level colleague. All it would have taken to give the correct information was opening a file, reading the data, and sharing accurately, but she answered off the top of her head.  This wrong information directly influenced a decision made by the staffer.  It is likely the staffer would not find out the correct information, without being told directly, but the manager will need to know.  The wrongful source is aware of their error and the issue the erroneous information caused. Knowing the decision made by the staffer cannot be unmade, pretty much blew it off as, "well it is what it is." The miscommunicator is also supposed to be the agency expert in this topic. Unfortunately the issue rose when I was out of the office, though I was accessible by phone and e-mail, but only discovered yesterday, several weeks later at this point.

 How would you handle it?  Would you take the issue to their boss, and demand some sort of accountability? Do I take it to my boss, the company head?  Would you just further express your frustration to the person, and hope they come forward and at least apologize on their own to the manager and staff person?  Would you keep your head low, knowing that for you, nothing will be gained, other than another round of animosity in the work place? I have spent the last twenty hours sick about this. By not saying anything, it would completely erode the trust by this staff person of both me and her manager should she discover the information given was wrong, but no one corrected it. I know work place politics are the norm, even if an organization says they don't have them.  I normally try to decide things through our mission lens, and through my personal ethics and values, but this has cost me in terms of my own stress levels, and health.  Join the conversation and give me your thoughts.  Have you been in workplace dilemmas that seemed like there was no winning outcome?