Today I sent a venting msg about a work colleague to the colleague

That's pretty tame to be fair though.

It would sound, to Me if was Birthday Woman, that you would have wanted to attend "my party" as I would have read it as you wished you could go, but its another Do on the same night, pah" sort of thing.

PS Was it a good Party in the end ?

This will probably come across as stupid and immature, but when i had a problem with a boss, I went down the route of a grievance; and if something needed a discussion with a colleague then I spoke to them in private. I wasn't aware of the fact that the correct procedure was to bitch behind someone's back and send nasty emails about them to other colleagues. Silly me.

If this colleague chooses to go to HR, I think you will find that their definition of bullying doesn't quite match yours. These are supposed to be adults in a workplace, not primary age kids in the schoolyard.

Yes. I sent a message meant for a work colleague to the work group chat. I still cringe 🙈

It´s a psychological glitch. That person is on your mind and you inadvertently send the message to them. I sent an email about my boss once, to my boss. Luckily it wasn´t anything derogatory but he wasn´t the intended recipient. He looked a bit mistified. Oh sorry you were on my mind when I wrote it, my mistake. I am very careful since then.

I only did this one time when I was young and stupid. It made me feel very embarrassed of myself and I lost a potential friend. He stopped speaking to me and rightly so! I've never done it since. If you have to vent, do it face to face or in a call, never in a written message/email. Messaging people to bitch about people isn't nice or healthy and can encourage bullying.

Having worked in IT, depending on how security is set up in your workplace you should always work under the assumption that all communication can and may be viewed by others. If you really want a private conversation do it face to face. The amount of stuff I saw in corporate workplaces that people naively thought would be completely private.. I won't put the boot it because it looks like you've learned your lesson the hard way!

not really on topic but I had a mischievous colleague who'd worked out how to send emails seemingly from different people. We were all in an open plan office. So I got a message from Kevin in accounts or whatever saying 'I can't stop thinking about your sexy body', he did similar to lots of people, eg supposedly from the boss saying 'That's it, I've had it with you. You're done' etc.. There was so much confused peeping over the monitors that day. This was 20 years ago when office pranks were seen as acceptable. and this would be taken more seriously now. It was funny tho.

Ahhhhh OP I feel your pain! Not much you can do other than suck it up and put it down to experience.

I had to respond to a quite important issue (complaint) from a client this week - involved me copying and pasting an internal report but changing the words to make it more formal. It was also very much an apology email but also putting steps in place to rectify the issues. All read really well and should in theory have put the issue to bed

Really high profile client though - one we need to keep, I’m always very formal with them - I accidentally left the word ‘Cheers” at the bottom of it all which had been on the original internal email report from my colleague - which just looked really rude to this client. I haven’t had a response from them yet either. Eeek

Well as long as you don't mind people at work thinking you're immature, untrustworthy, two faced, someone with poor impulse control and poor judgement it's all good, right?

I have two colleagues who sit in our team meeting sending each other amusing "private" messages. It's incredibly rude and teenage behaviour and it destroys trust in the team.

Complaining about people isn't necessarily bullying. People complain about their bossess, for example of colleagues who are nasty to them.

You hope she's not hurt by it? But you know she will be, don't you? You sound so blasé about having done something really nasty. Bet you're a great person to work with <rolly eyes> you don't come over as professional, capable, or all that smart.

Don't 'style it out' if by 'styling it out' what people mean is just pretend it didn't happen and lie about it.

Take her aside in person, own what you did, and apologise. If possible, express some of the work issues you're having with her in a productive and mutually respectful way.

You'll feel much better, honestly.

Sending her the e mail is bad, but at that point you might still have had my sympathy, if it weren't for the fact that you're trying to absolve yourself of responsibility by blaming your friend for drawing you into it. You've then made it ten times worse by lying about it.

Two colleagues did this in my workplace year's ago, they were bitching about the manager & one accidentally forwarded the email to the manager! The tension in the office was high! I was young & remember taking a mental note to NEVER put my moans & groans in writing. It happens alot it seems 😕

You really should have owned it rather than pretending it wasn't about her- that's even worse and will make her feel even more talked about behind her back. I'd apologise to her properly.

When I was 17 I sent a message to one of my friends saying I hated her when she was right in front of me... ding ding the message goes off and she opens it in front of me. I played it off as a joke but we both knew it wasn't. OMG I was mortified. However it has scarred me for life and I can barely even type out a snakey message to anyone, or on the odd occasion I do I have to triple, quadruple check who I am sending it to. PS we are still friends shockingly haha.

Anyway, I sympathise with how you are feeling but I like to keep a realistic view on these things. Let's be real - someone is out there venting about all of us, no one can be liked by everyone. She will get over it.

You know that people can get sacked for this ? We have a friend who lost a senior position in an organisation that she had worked in for over 20 years with an unblemished record because of some comments on WhatsApp about a colleague.

I think anyone who sends a message to the wrong person deserves to be caught. It takes 2 seconds to double check you're messaging the right person.

I once ruined a big surprise 40th birthday party by sending a message to the person who's birthday it was, rather than a friend a meant to vent my frustration at.

Their birthday was very close to Christmas, and the night of the party was also the night of a long anticipated works do..my message was along the lines of ' FFS I can't believe xxxx has arranged a surprise birthday party so close to Christmas, I don't know what to do! ' .

Birthday girl replied back saying ' I don't think you meant to send this to me, I won't say anything, but I hope you can come' .

I was there with bells on out of pure shame!

100%.

Being professional means acting in a way that would be acceptable if scrutinised by others. If it wouldn’t be, don’t do it.

I received an email of this nature once. Accidentally sent to me by a man who I already knew had no respect for me or my knowledge and experience.

He was mortified. And naturally worried about the repercussions.

I told him he was wrong about me. But I didn’t report him. His problem, not mine.

I had this happen to me in that I received the message. It was from someone who was a good friend. I was really shocked at the time as it was a very personal attack about something that I had no control over. I got over it but I definitely held her at arms length and the friendship didn't last long term.

Really does sound like bullying. I hope this person makes a complaint

@marshmallowpuff ’s advice is the best. Don’t try to avoid it, face it head on, apologise directly to the colleague and admit you were wrong, and childish.

I sympathise, as I find my colleagues intensely annoying at times. It doesn’t necessarily reflect how I think of them as people IYKWIM. If you heard me venting you might think I loathe them - I don’t, it’s just hard listening to chewing, sniffing, humming all day every day and coping with everyone’s different communication styles, shall we say. Don’t be too hard on yourself

Never write anything in a work e-mail that you wouldn’t want to be read out in a court of law. Or any kind of work message for that matter. I know that sounds dramatic but basically these are not private messages.

I agree with pp that you should own it and apologise properly.

Do half of you not know how to use a phone? How are you all sending messages to the wrong person !!