Tell me your horror stories of wrongly sent/forwarded messages to help me cope.

[ShitlandIslands]

I'm dying of cringe here. I feel so tense.I didn't even do the crime but I've got palpitations here.

My mate just sent our Cookery WhatsApp group a photo of her boyfriend proposing to her. Another member of the WhatsApp group forwarded the photo to a different WhatsApp group, let's say a Jigsaw WhatsApp group, with a not-so-complimentary message.

Unbeknownst to the forwarder, the newly engaged mate is also in the Jigsaw WhatsApp group.

The Jigsaw WhatsApp group is very quiet. Eerily quiet.

Oh my god. My actual heart.

[WhatsApp groups aren't actually Cookery and Jigsaws - invented to protect the identities of those involved].

I don't have anything to relate this experience to. The worst it got for me was when I once text my boss a picture intended for DP.

DP was, say, Dave in my contact list and my boss was, say, Davey.
The picture was of a terrible, terrible, non-risen, beige stodge-fest of a cake I'd made on my day off with the accompanying message "I'm a shit head".

After I'd reassured my boss I wasn't having a breakdown (just bad a baking), it was all fine. I changed DP's name in my contact list very soon after.

My friend (let’s call her Annie)’s sister (Betty) had a torrid affair. Betty was texting Annie about the raunchy sex she was having with her lover - but instead texted a family group chat, which Betty’s two teenage daughters were on. That got messy ☺️

I have lots of sisters, one of them is a right weirdo and PITA, one of my other sisters once accidentally added her to a group chat where we were all moaning about her lack of consideration.

My daughter was being absolutely hideous about 10 years ago…moaned to a friend but accidentally sent it to daughter…she replied saying that yes I am now really eggy and stressy 😂Daughter is still my best friend 💕

A co-worker sent a lengthy, insulting, sweary rant to me about our boss's boss. Concluding with "that evil bitch can bite me!"

Unfortunately instead of typing my name into the recipient line, he had her on his mind and typed HER name into the recipient's line.

She was a senior, very powerful and very ruthless person in our organization. Basically anyone who's ever worked for her has PTSD, no joke.

The e-mail sender had just lost his father and had other issues, plus he was an older man on a low salary with little in savings and no spouse, children etc. to help him. And not many skills for getting another job (he was a longtime admin assistant.)

Our mutual manager and I went to Boss Woman and literally begged her not to sack him; she was in the process of working with HR to terminate him that day.

She finally relented but insisted he see a qualified psychiatrist as she "feared he would harm her" (the man in question is 65, about five feet tall and wouldn't hurt a flea) and "didn't feel safe."

He also was suspended for six weeks. Actually it turned out to be a blessing because seeing the shrink really did help him with issues stemming from childhood abuse, and the doctor helped him find a trained counselor who worked with him for the next two or three years. But the few months after the initial incident were grim.

Oh god this has made me laugh so much. 😂

@StupidSmallFruit dear? How patronising. Was that your attempt at being clever/funny?

No, it was my attempt at being patronising.

It’s really not worth getting that worked up about.

@Tealpoppy 🤣🙏

Three I can think of:

1: friend sent me a message to tell me her baby girl had arrived and it's name was Olivia. A sibling for 4 year old Oliver.
Sent my husband a message " what on all the earth were they thinking oliver and Olivia

2. manager sent me an email meant for HR asking for help to manage my persistent difficult brahviours.
   I was asking for help as I was being bullied.
   She realised and said please delete.

3. PTA WhatsApp including headteacher.. Other teachers.

Message popped up one evening of a photo of a woman's vag.
Sent by a parent.
Wrong group obviously.
This was ealry whatsapp days before it could be deleted.
Ages passed... Maybe an hour or two and the whole group disappeared and we were asked to delete it. From our photos andnever mention it to the person.
She turned up at the next meeting 😂

Ah above should say wasn't my husband I sent the message to.. It was my friend

I used to edit a professional magazine and we were expected to try get as many commissions for little or no money as we possibly could. This was not easy as many prospective contributors have busy lives, very demanding jobs and didn’t want to spend their spare time writing articles for nothing. Some people were amazingly generous with their time but often I’d have real problems getting all the pages filled and got stick from a member of the committee involved in the production of the journal.

I fired off a very pissed off message to the publisher who was a friend, along the lines that If I should be persuading people to volunteer content, she could show willing, as an expert in her field by setting a good example and offering up some articles herself but she never did. I said I’d asked her and she’d said she would write something but never followed through and then wondered why I’m having problems filling the sodding thing each month as a lot of people have the same attitude. Only I’d cc’d her into the email. I had that searing heat of panic that sort of ends up in the chest when I realised what I’d done. I had no idea whether to pretend nothing has happened, apologise or talk through the commissioning problems. In the end I bottled out and said nothing. Could never look her in the eye again after that. It did however make me check recipients thoroughly before pressing send, from that day on.

Ds was about 10 and In a football team - I was in the group chat. Many of the parents took the whole thing WAY TOO SERIOUSLY and they all hated me because I'd stood up to the bully dad previously. So I always felt a bit insecure with them....

Anyways one day I watched a nature documentary about I think slugs having sex and reproducing. I meant to message my friend saying it had put me off my pasta but instead sent a message to the football group apropos of nothing saying 'omg watched slug porn as per usual and it's put my off my fusilli'

Wanted. To. Die.

Several here.
My DD was newly single and had had a series of unsuccessful dates with men she’d met through a dating app, lost a lot of confidence, had been feeling fragile, but was feeling very positive about her latest and telling me all about him. I was having a 3 way WhatsApp conversation with her and DS - who had just asked my opinion about an incident he’s had at work with his boss. Unfortunately, I replied to DD by mistake with the reply, “Tbh, he sounds like a complete nob!” which didn’t go down well at all.

I worked for years with a boss whose wife had the same first name as me. We had a great professional relationship and he was completely in love with his wife so I was quite surprised to get a very, very saucy text out of the blue from him. He was mortified when I next saw him as clearly it wasn’t meant for me at all. Luckily, she saw the funny side too and teased us both with the fact that I was clearly higher up on his contact list.

My DH can’t get the message that if you whisper to someone next to you on a zoom call meeting, the microphone picks up everything. We both sat through an incredibly boring planning meeting one evening during lockdown. He quietly said to me, “Who is this fing idiot anyway? He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” which came out loudly and clearly to everyone participating - including the fing idiot!

Pre-mobile phones, I was working for a large firm and my small unit got a new manager, from a distant office. After the meet & greet luncheon my friend and I were in the women's toilet rehashing the day and giving our candid and non-too-flattering opinions of the woman.

then to our horror we realized there was a third party there in one of the loos. One of us said "Hello?" in a timid voice, to which a woman responded "It's ME."

I never before knew the meaning of "one's blood ran cold" but 35 years later I still can recall the horror and our glazed eyes staring at one another.

Thankfully the door opened and another mate walked out -- not the manager. But I swear that encounter took a year off our lives.

I sent my then DP (now DH) a text about my plans for a romantic evening, I received a call from his Dad ending himself saying I'm really sorry I was in the van and seen you text him and I thought I better check it incase something was wrong.

Almost cringed inside out. 20 years later I still don't know why he didn't just pretend he hadn't seen it.

Once I posted a fake story on MN about a friend of mine sent this text ha ha ha but got caught out by fucking up a reference to "blue ticks" and could never go back to the thread

Seriously though I'm not actually OP and this one is (sadly) true

In the days pre mobiles I left a message for DH on his parents' answering machine as he was staying there at the time. Except I didn't hang up my phone properly afterwards and when my MIL listened to the messages she was treated to me singing the whole of <oh god> there's a worm at the bottom of the garden and it's name is Wiggly Woo.

We didn't even have DC at the time so I couldn't even style it out that way.

Worked in recruitment in Late 90's- got a CV in that was simply not right for a role we were having trouble finding candidates for. My colleague asked if we had any more applicants and I forwarded this one saying'. Mm - I think not'.

Having of course copied the candidate in.!!!

I felt totally terrible and did send an email apologising profusely .

This is actually a good one. Karma.

When I was a lot younger, in my early 20s, I worked in an office for the local authority and my immediate line manager was a lech. I used to put up with it because I didn’t have the attitude and confidence I have nowadays. He would send me inappropriate emails during the work day.

one day he tried to send me one which read “did you get the stuff I asked for babe? Xx don’t tell the wife haha”

I shared the same first name as the chief executive of the local authority.

He didn’t check the autocomplete field before sending it to her.

Not me, but a colleague (honest!) who was moaning to his friend on IM about another, mutual colleague, sent a bitchy message which concluded with 'and he looks like a gay Californian gynaecologist.'
But of course he had sent it to the mutual friend, who graciously replied 'Would it help if I shaved off my moustache?'
(This made it into the in-house collection of messaging fuckups, which was a good read on a slow day anyway but this was legendary.)

I was at the receiving end once. A colleague in a short-term work activity sent an e-mail to another work colleague, and accidentally copied it to a whole group of colleagues including me. It included the statement: 'ddl1 is indeed odd'! (The opinion was entirely mutual!)

I was told about someone, who had a similar sort of experience with his Member of Parliament! He had e-mailed her about some issues of concern to him. She e-mailed back with some information she had requested on his behalf, and her e-mail to him still included her request for the information, which she claimed to need because 'That nutter just e-mailed me again!'

PS: The MP in question was a certain Liz Truss.

I went to a party celebrating a person getting male to female surgery. It was called a 'pussy shower'. About a few weeks later my phone was open on WhatsApp and stuffed in my bag. The bag was an overnight bag and very full. Some how, with WhatsApp being open, the last photo on my camera roll was posted. Me and my partner were doing long distance at that point and so the last picture on my camera roll was my partner naked, that he took in the mirror. So about 40 people had a bit of a surprise. The whole point of the party was celebrating the female body so the photo was taken as some kind of statement and was met with angry replies until explained. Luckily people saw the funny side after I explained and apologized!

I thought right from the beginning the op was the one who sent the message!

You don't sit there, tensely staring at your phone, feeling sick when it's someone else's screw up do you?

@ddl1 he could make a small fortune with that email now!

Started a WTF?! thread about this when it happened.

Getting a message from my father whilst he was on holiday with my mother, clearly meant for his OW.

And then being told by my father (after he tried to excuse it, lie about it etc and I called him out) that it wasnt physical and being told in detail why that was.......

Its been about 10 years and I am still struggling with it.

Oh and should add that although he wouldnt tell me at the time, because of his health issues, I saw where my name was on his phone and figured out who the OW was. It was who I suspected and he has never denied it. She is my mothers longest term friend (well was, she cut my mother off which hurt my mother so much).

Dh and I always had naked photos of each other, some were innocent funny ‘just out the bath’ ones. When 50 Shades of grey was becoming popular, I sent him a zoomed in photo of his bits and highlighted his first grey hair with the caption ‘I’ve got my own mr grey’
Sent it to my MUM 😳
A decade later she still winds him up and calls him mr grey… took him a long time to be able to look her in the eyes again, she thought it was hilarious, I wanted the ground to swallow me up!

We’ve had a few horrendous run ins of photos, one fil saw, one accidentally uploaded to Facebook… can I just say that now, my phone is absolutely naked photo free.

Back in the mists of time when mobile phones didn't organise texts as a chain and you had to select the recipient after you'd written the message I TWICE text bitchy messages to men I'd shagged who were too into me, meaning to send them to my friend. I must have been acting too quickly and went to their name rather than friend's name because I was thinking about them but I can't believe I did it twice.
it did help to get rid of them though 😆