Someone just sent me an IM at work telling me to have a Happy Thanksgiving, and I accidently responded “you tool!” I’ve typed “tool” when I’ve meant to type “too” many times (we have several software tools here that I refer to regularly in written communications), but this time I actually typed it and hit enter before I caught it :smack:. Jeez, I don’t even really know this dude. It played out like this:
Him: Oh well, have a happy Thanksgiving! Me: You tool! Me: *Too. Crap, I meant too! Him: LOL, I was wondering what I did. Me: Seriously, Happy Thanksgiving. I have to type “tool” a lot, so that’s what happened. I’m an idiot. Sorry. Him: No worries. Thanks.
Could’ve been worse. I had no intention of responding, so I could have just sent that and closed the IM window without noticing. :o
Anybody else have stories of email or IM fails which made you look like a jerk?
Not work, but emailing someone on an online dating site.
There’s a huge difference between “I’d like to meet you” and “I’d like to meat you”. Always spell check before you hit send.
I’m a staff scheduler, and often catch myself typing “working your shit” instead of “working your shiFt”. I think I’ve caught it every time, but who knows?
I used to have someone reporting to me who was very diligent, but quite a shy and reserved person. He wasn’t great at being forceful if he met with resistance getting staff in other departments to do things they didn’t want to do. He also had a slightly old fashioned set of values - he was always very respectful to female colleagues but also very sweetly insistent on opening doors, carrying things for us and other small acts of chivalry.
The nurses in one department in particular were forever brushing him off, telling him they had no time to do what they were supposed to. I was describing the problem in an email to my boss and typed the following:
“John often has problems delivering the samples to clinic B - the nurses are often too busty”.
Fortunately I spotted the problem and removed the offending T before sending, but it amused me as I could quite see John being discomfited by busty nurses with obviously displayed cleavage…
I know I’ve told this before, but I once had to sit through a presentation my boss did for members of the executive office of health and human services and her lead slide had the phrase “a pubic-private venture”.
I just died a thousand deaths in those moments. I kept trying not to giggle and had to pretend I was coughing but…it said pubic! Pubic-private! Come on, I’m not a robot.
In one thread I think one of our Japan-area dopers mentioned that once they almost sent an email to their boss saying “I want to commit adultery with you” instead of some business-related thing because they absent mindedly picked the wrong kanji substitution.
A while back, a woman at work was sending out an email to let the team know she’d be working from home on the following Tuesday. Except instead of sending the email with the subject “WFH Tuesday” she sent it out as “WTF Tuesday”.
I once emailed one of those feel-good, make-you-cry stories to some of my family members, with the message that I was sending it just in case they hadn’t had their tears jerked lately. Fortunately, I caught a major typo before I hit send–otherwise it would have said “teats” instead of “tears.”
