Here I am, very late of an evening, worrying and not wanting to admit to anyone how badly I have blundered.

[Futurehappiness]

I have to work tomorrow, a prospect that fills me with dread. I am sitting up this evening to avoid tomorrow morning happening; I would rather it didn't.

I feel dread because I made a bad error. I sent a really important email to someone in the team. I did everything right: double check all the email addresses including those copied in, check there was no email trail, check every single nuance of the message to ensure there was nothing that could be reinterpreted, that names/dates/facts were correct and it all struck the right tone.

Pressed send.

Then checked the sent message that it had been sent OK (yes I am really conscientious). What do I find? That in sending it marked confidential, I had somehow inadvertently marked it as 'low importance'. It was truly an 'elephant in the room' syndrome; but how do I trust myself to do anything right? However careful I am, how do these things fall through the net?

That was totally the wrong impression to give - the message was highly important hence all my care - so I had to recall and resend (I think successfully).

But I am feeling incompetent, that I can't do anything right. Who do I think I am holding a professional job anyway? How on earth could I be so stupid? I am an incompetent masquerading as a professional.

OP you are overthinking and haven't done anything wrong.

You are very conscientious. Someone who wasn't conscientious might not have spotted the error but you did.

Actually, even if you hadn't spotted the error it still would not have been a big issue.

Do you suffer from imposter syndrome, do you think? You made a tiny, tiny error that nobody would have noticed, and you fixed it. You’ve done all the important things, like marking it securely and making sure the tone is right and there’s no room for misunderstanding. That’s the thing that makes you a capable professional.

@Futurehappiness So, despite all the great care you took and all the things you got right with this email, you're focussing on the one (very minor) thing you got wrong - and something that you've already corrected. How very female of you. Do you seriously think any bloke would be up late worrying about this? Clue: they absolutely wouldn't. It seems to me that you are great at your job, but for unfathomable reasons you just don't believe it. PLEASE believe it - and cut yourself some slack. Sleep well. 🤗

That’s a normal day at the office for me! Myself and several of my colleagues have messed up several times. No one has had any major repercussions because of it. We’re all human beings and make mistakes. What you did wasn’t even a mistake. It’s something that happens hundreds of times a day to lots of people. Some people wouldn’t even bother recalling the email. You’ve done nothing wrong at all!

Agree with everyone - this is a nothing. I have literally never looked at importance, I don't even have it as a column on my layout.

The fact that you've got this completely out of proportion is the real issue.

I'm so sympathetic - being under pressure at work, especially if it's slightly toxic, can fuck you up bigtime (as the young people say).

But you seem to have a tendency to punish yourself and I think you'd find therapy really helpful (not counselling - that's an evening class qualification and IMO can do more harm than good other than in the lightest 'life coaching' scenarios)

I'd say it was essential in fact - my experience and observation is that these things spiral in the workplace and your anxiety ends up causing you to make serious mistakes.

This. I’m sure 99% of the people on this thread will have made some kind of email error at one time or another; I know I certainly have!

On the scale of disastrous and your job might be at risk (causing a massive data leak of private employee, customer or commercially sensitive information), to awkward / mortifying and possibly career limiting (mistakenly sending an email to a senior colleague rather than the intended recipient in which you make less than complimentary observations about them and their capabilities), all the way through to slightly embarrassing / mildly inconvenient (forgetting to attach a document before pressing send or the example you’ve given above).

You’ve recalled the email and rectified the issue. There’s nothing to be gained from dwelling on it and stressing yourself out. And a mistake such as this certainly doesn’t make you stupid, nor incompetent. You’ve just made a small, simple mistake that likely no one else will even spot. And the best bit is you’ll learn from it. The next time you need to send an important email, part of your final checks will now include checking you’ve selected the correct importance category.

Chin up @Futurehappiness all will be fine!

Have a good day at work @Futurehappiness it will be completely fine.

Try to picture yourself, zoom out like Google maps to your country, then Earth, then the solar system, then the universe. Do the same but using time. This event, a year, 5000 years etc. remember how insignificant you are. How insignificant this event. And let that reassure you.

You’re overthinking this, it will all be fine.

… that’s it? It’s just an email label OP that you then noticed and corrected. I think you’re being dramatic.

I know someone who got arrested on a work night out. Now that was a big mistake - they still kept their job though.

Nobody will bat an eyelid about this

I hope you are in the arms of Morpheus by now as you need and deserve @Futurehappiness People have kept their jobs after copying Leslie in on an email about what a complete and utter pillock Leslie is. Your tiny error wouldn't attract much attention on a quiet day in the office, let alone the one when that faux pas hit everybody's inbox. (Especially Leslie's.) 😁

Call that an email blunder? That's nothing. My personal favourite was the person who sent an email to the entire IT department complaining about a support issue, followed by the head of the IT network team replying to all asking sarcastically if he should hire a coach to take everyone down there. Worst one was when one of the senior managers in the IT department opened an email entitled "I Love You", which contained a virus that forwarded the email to everyone in his address book. Now as his address book contained all the email distribution lists for the entire organisation, and most people were on more than one distribution list, it sent out so many emails that it crashed the entire email system and it took several days to clear up the mess.

Does your organisation have some kind of rigid protocol about the importance of emails? I can't think of a work situation I've ever been in that anyone would even notic and I've never even used that function

@Futurehappiness it's hard when everything matters so much isn't it? I made a mistake at work, confessed to my boss and offered to resign. She looked at me with a really puzzled face and said "Are you like...really conscientious or something??" That was it. She was baffled.

I hope you go to work feeling lighter today.

This is extremely minor - my colleague survived a much more embarrassing fuck up last week involving a screen share. You will be okay.

This.

I dont even notice what emails come through as high importance.

I once sent an email to a colleague saying how revolted I was that another member of staff was shagging the 70+ company manager (married) in his office after hours - except I sent it to her 🤣 You fixed it with the recall - honestly today will be fine

Of all the non-events to have happened, this is the most non of them.

As others have already suggested OP, therapy should be considered asap, as the amount of energy spent on this single email (all the checking, double checking, worrying and anxiety related self-doubt!) is way, way above the level of normal!

How do you get through really difficult situations, real life changing challenges, if you spiral at the most insignificant things? Must be utterly exhausting!

One of my staff once sent out the whole database of every single customer to a group of customers...then did it two more times trying to recall it.

That's an error!

That is not a serious error. The work you need to do on yourself is finding out why making small mistakes feels enormous to you. Perfectionism usually comes from a lot of either criticism or lack of control in an out of control situation in early years. You are fine that is not something you need to worry about, you are human you will make mistakes.

One of my manager's managers once sent him an off the cuff sarky remark about a project we were in the middle of...problem is it wasn't a new fresh email, it was one where the married boss's boss and a senior manager were talking about the after effects of their last weekend together...I'll never see the words 'Saddle sore' the same way again. Pages and pages and pages of back and forth.

Yes he tried to recall it. It was too late for him though. All our team was in the middle of reading it.

Good morning OP! I hope today is a smooth uneventful day where all the bitty little jobs behave themselves.

I was awake before bed worrying because I have too much to do and too little time, and so operate in a continuous boom and bust intensity- go, go, go, stop and drop. Everything happens in a rush with risk of mistakes, and then I’m on the floor doing nothing. It’s inefficient and I’m try hard to pace better but some annoying individuals keep throwing work at me at the 11th hour!

I’ve done this this send a quick follow up email explaining it is important and confidential