Please tell me I didn't press send prematurely. Please tell me I sent that gossipy (snarky?) message to the right person and not the person I was talking about. How do you undo send? ACK!! Oh Shit, now what? CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY!!!!
I'm pretty sure we've all done it: sent something we didn't intend to someone; be it professionally or personally. It's a nightmare, and one that I, at least, have lived through more than once or twice. In fact, I'm writing this because I did it yet AGAIN; recently. Sheesh, when will I ever learn?? And, you know how I found out? The person ABOUT whom it was written received it and recommended I resend it to its intended recipient. Ugh, that feeling. Actually, those feelings (plural). The palms start to sweat and the nausea ensues as the panic takes over.
It's always a horrible feeling when you mess up and it negatively impacts someone else. But this was epic because this was someone (let's name this person Amy) who I knew didn't cope well when learning that friends had less than glowing things to say about her -- it had happened to her before from a different person, and she was still smarting from it.
The particulars of the situation are not relevant, although I'm sure you're DYING for details. Suffice it to say that the content of the ill-sent text had to do with my letting the intended recipient know that I was going to try to NOT engage with Amy (with whom I'd been having a rough patch) to see if Amy would even notice. Of course, I also went on to explain that I wasn't going to share with Amy how miserable the last two times were for me when we were walking together that I wasn't even sure whether I wanted to walk with her again in the future. Alas. That did it. Nail in coffin.
I always look for a silver lining when things go awry because, you know, self preservation and all. What was it here? Well, thank GOD I didn't actually say anything mean about Amy as a person; I only said that I hadn't been enjoying my time walking with her and how that made me feel. Phew -- could've been way worse (although I'm not sure Amy would agree). AND, at least Amy was forced to learn about how I was feeling (which never would have otherwise happened because that would have been the result of a very taboo conversation about feelings). To be clear, these are MY silver linings -- I am pretty confident Amy could have lived her life happily ignoring the obvious fact I was having a hard time understanding whatever bee was in her bonnet.
At the end of the day, everything worked out as it should have. (I'm a believer in fate.) And I will continue to TRY to be super careful when sending communications about other people. But we're human and shit happens so I assume I'll screw up again. And then I'll pull up my (very) big girl pants and move forward.
That said, please learn from my mistakes! Triple and quintuple check the "to" field before pressing send. And trust in fate that at the end of the day, things will net out as they cosmically should have (good or bad). Also, know that you aren't alone in whatever faux pas you make. I, for one, have likely made them all at least once, lol.