Imagine this: You’re at work; you receive an e-mail from a coworker begging everyone to contribute to the GoFundMe campaign paying for their kid’s braces. And because you’re in an extra snarky mood, you send an e-mail back to one of your work pals with a quip about how straight braces won’t save that kid’s face, if he’s inherited his father’s striking looks. And then you hit send.
And then you realize.
You hit the “reply all” button.
It’s a nightmare terrifying enough to make anyone wake up in a cold sweat. And unfortunately, iterations of that story have happened to many, many people — all thanks to that gosh darned reply-all feature. Who needs it? Isn’t there a way e-mail clients can come up with a little dialogue box that pops up asking you to confirm your choice of “reply all” before you go and make a terrible fool of yourself and/or put your job and friendships with your coworkers on the line?
Until that day, you’ll just have to be careful each time you send a non-professional e-mail off the cuff — and remember the cautionary tales of others who have messed up big time.
And oh, there are others, as evidenced by all the horror stories shared on Reddit after user nolimitsolja asked the question, “What’s the worst ‘Reply to All’ mistake you’ve witnessed.” Just check out a few of the many gems, including the top comment, from user DamnPillBugs, of something another commenter called the “reply-pocalypse”:
Worked at a large Fortune 100 company (~70k employees) a few years back. CEO sent out an email to “All Users,” then some fuckstick replies-all with a comment back. The chain reaction of dimwits all clicking Reply All to say “Stop pressing reply all” brought the email system to its knees for about five days.
To which SoldierHawk replied,
The Army equivalent, in my experience, is, “please remove me from this distro.”
[Sent 500 times by 500 different people to all 2k people on the distribution list.]
Optimaloutcome’s tale is something you never want to happen to you…and also makes you wonder what the purpose of the document the coworker was sending was.
“I saw a guy ‘reply all’ with a file attached that included the social security number of his whole family, his income, wife’s income, etc.”
Emby5’s story is similar, but involves the whole company. The good news is…more salary transparency? As Emby5 wrote:
HR manager sent an Excel workbook with some pertinent info on the first sheet to everyone, but failed to remove the fourth sheet which had everybody’s salary.
User unozom’s story should be a warning to everyone to keep the chit-chat limited to the water cooler, especially when it involves strange-sounding and/or questionable personal care ointments:
There was an email floating around the office about some sort of event that someone was trying to organize. I can’t remember exactly what it was about, but this woman clearly thought she was only responding to her friend when she wrote, “I’ll tell you the coochy cream story later.”
And user I_Like_Backstories’ story both comes with a backstory and is a fantastic sketch of an annoying coworker:
There’s this woman here at work. Almost every time when the CEO sends an email to all staff announcing something new or good she replies to all, telling the CEO how good he is and how much she admires his work and dedication to make our company better. And just how much Jesus has blessed him and everyone working here.
A few minutes later she replies to all again apologising for that ‘mistake’ because that was intended just for him.
BigOldQueer’s television cancellation tale had everyone guessing the show in question. (And if you’re curious, BigOldQueer refused to tell, but did mention that the show’s title had been brought up in the guesses by other users. Exciting! Scandalous!)
Worked on a TV show that everyone except the creator hated, and everyone knew from the ratings would be canceled any second. I was working in legal, and on an email chain where a report of outstanding legal issues for the upcoming episode was sent to literally everyone you could think of (50+ people) ranging from me (one title above entry level) to the head of the network.
A middling executive replied to all “they’re getting canceled and we still have to deal with this sh*t?”
To make matters worse, she attempted to RECALL the email, just drawing more attention to it, and then replied to all again “PLEASE DISREGARD LAST EMAIL, TRYING TO GENERATE AN INTERNAL REPORT FOR [MY DEPARTMENT], HIT THE WRONG BUTTON”
It was the “Hit the wrong button” that sent me and my boss into hysterics. I so badly wanted to reply that we didn’t know there was a sh*t-talk button.’
Nearly_Zilpah gave a short quip, saying, “In our medical school, we were allowed to reply with one person we wanted to be with in our small group for the next year and one person we didn’t…” When one user asked how many people made the reply-all mistake, nearly_Zilpah said just two – but they were both asking not to be placed with the same person, who had some serious hygiene issues.
Nicktf’s story, though, is a really special example of reply-all sabotage:
At the Head office of a large UK insurer, Adrian, the pugnacious, unpopular and unappealing contractor was showing Peter, a new programmer on his first day how to use cc:Mail. Peter is logged in, Adrian is next to him, typing. He decides on the following message:
Subject: Wanker
Body: You are one.
He shows Peter how to call up the address book and selects the first entry which happens to be “A-J Surnames,” couple of clicks and there it is in the to: box.
He then states, explicitly, “better not click send!” then, somewhat inexplicably, does that very thing.
About 800 employees, including the CEO, almost simultaneously look up and start to loudly discuss exactly who this “Peter” is and why he thinks they may have onanistic tendencies.
Peter, rather unfairly, spent some uncomfortable time with both HR and the CEO, who was a “hands on” type, to be sure. Ironically, Adrian, who indeed was a wanker of the most furious variety, didn’t receive said email as his initial was further down in the alphabet.
Are you ready for a truth-bomb after all that cringey horror? User cabridges has some advice:
This is why I always, always assume someone else will read my email besides the intended recipient. And, knowing Murphy’s Law, it will be the absolute worst person to do so.
Worked in my favor once, when I wrote to a manager about a customer service problem and accidentally CCed the customer in it. But in it I was polite and sounded concerned (I wasn’t) and the customer appreciated it.
If you’re still thirsting for more terrible stories (and there are so many more, and not all involving the workplace), check out the Reddit thread. And be careful with that e-mail trigger finger from now on!
(Via BroBible)
