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.

In all seriousness op for you to have been so anxious about this, post a thread about it, and dread going into work about this does seem quite over the top and I wonder if you're dealing with other stresses that may cause this?? You haven't made a big mistake, I genuinely wouldn't bat an eyelid if someone changed the importance of an email and resent or whatever and I wouldn't panic if I did it myself, and that's coming from someone with major anxiety 😂😂

Or sent a enormous load of product to a town in Ireland instead of Scotland (i think) which happened to have the same name it wasn't discovered until they were off the ferry and half a day drive away from the store

Is your job usual office hours Monday - Friday? Did you send the important email over the weekend?
I think your mistake is minor and most likely rectified but I would question sending such important emails over the weekend, not entirely fair to the recipient if it is something that could have waited.

Hope you got a good night's sleep OP.

Since part of your concern is a worry about your competence, I just wanted to mention how anxious I became at work, and how it affected my cognitive abilities.

Like you, I was very vigilant about checking that emails had been sent without any blunder. Heartbeat raised, checking and rechecking. It meant that my attention skittered across all the various checks without taking in information properly, so that I had to repeat the checks, etc.

The reason I performed these checks was to try and protect myself from the post-send anxiety -- "Did I send that to the wrong person; did I say anything that might accidentally have looked ride or critical; etc.

And of course the anxiety was present across my work life, not just in emails. It did effect my performance I think, just because it was such a drain on my cognitive resources. Half of my mental ability was just leaking away on this nonsense.

Tech makes it worse in some ways, because there are just so many small decisions and clicks that you are supposed to be making on autopilot all the time.

Eventually, 5 years short of retirement age, I took early retirement. Even though my employer constantly told me my performance was fine.

So, yeah, that is the destructive power of anxiety and depression. Don't think of yourself as incompetent, but do look compassionately at yourself and reflect on whether you might benefit from seeking mental health support (if you haven't already) - perhaps starting with the online CBT resources that many GP practices offer (if you haven't already done this).

I get that horrible mistake at work feeling but honestly I wish this was the kind of mistake I make at work. I’ve made some absolute doozies in my time. No one receiving the email will give it a second thought.

I don’t always follow my own advice on this, but I tell myself ‘savings PDFs, not lives!’ when something goes wrong at work.

You sound anxious generally, I hope you are okay.

I second this. Also getting a recalled and resent email means everyone will look at it anyway - wether it was marked important or not so job done!
Please don't panic, it was a very easy mistake to make and we've all done similar!

Just resend this morning, marked as higher importance. Mention that you noticed it was inadvertently marked as low importance previously. No one - literally no one will give a monkeys. If they do - it’s their problem - not yours.

Thank you all again this morning. You really have helped me so much.....your responses have run the gamut from very reassuring, to hilarious!

I do take seriously the feedback that my anxiety may be out of control. I always tend to overthink things and fear that I may be one blunder away from disaster. That is how I feel - that I can't trust myself to get things right. Plenty of personal history & current pressures contributing to this as well.

I did sleep well but had a vivid ridiculous dream: that I had planned to go to an important conference in, of all places, Leicestershire (I am in the SE). There I was at work first thing in the morning preparing to go, only to realise I hadn't factored in time and transport for getting there, and how. So I woke up stressed.

All this anxiety to process about what you rightly agree is a small error. There is something going on with me.

Anyway I will be starting work soon. I will steel myself for any possible fallout from the error today (possibly imaginary though you never know). But not until I have had a good breakfast.

I love ‘saving PDFs, not lives!’ @SterlingsGold

I just can't fathom the different mindset of, e.g., surgeons and so forth, who have to act in the knowledge that a slip at work might mean death or a life-time of catheter use, etc. I almost died from horror at my badly placed commas.

There won't be any fallout, OP, I promise. Honestly, when I started reading your post I was expecting to find out that you'd sent a confidential email to everyone in the company! This is a non-issue. Be gentle with yourself, life is hard enough without beating yourself up over the small things.

Wow I thought you had inadvertently been nasty about a colleague or something! This is a very minor mistake, could have been a thousand times worse. Hope your day goes well and don’t worry. Most people wouldn’t even have noticed x

I remember asking my supervisor by email if I could swap shits (shifts) was mortified but we had a good laugh about it. We are all human, don’t worry

I started a new job last week in childcare and handed a child to the wrong granny, who in my head looked the same as the other granny I met the previous day. A tiny error in a moment but also a potentially extremely serious one. I had to go to my manager and report it, I'm still shook up over it. I feel no one can trust me and worse I can't trust myself. Thankfully the manager was ok about it but I'm sure it's on a file somewhere.

I only recently realised I ‘have anxiety’. I thought I just prefer to be prepared. In fact I obsess and plan and predict all the possible ways things can go wrong… and waste a lot of time and energy in the process.

I’m working on general stress management, and recognising and interrupting unhealthy processes.

I work with someone who send everything as high importance. As others have said, I prioritise emails and workload according to my own judgement and pressures.
Please stop worrying.

There won’t be any fallout!

Even if your job is passing on nuke codes I can’t see how accidentally marking it ‘low importance’ and then immediately correcting that can possibly give anyone anywhere a moment’s pause, let alone cause them to berate your incompetence.

If you’re this detail-orientated and self-critical I imagine you’re excellent at your work, but it’s really counterproductive for your own health and happiness to be this hard on yourself x

Honestly, it is not a huge deal.
You didn't edit or manipulate the information.
I'd visit the GP, your anxiety levels are high. x

I once sent an internal email to a customer contact, the names were similar. 😅
It was stressful ATT.

Wow if that’s the worst thing you’ve done thats amazing!

Worst thing about being a doctor or solicitor is your errors can properly fuck up peoples lives.

It's OK. It is a small blunder.

It was a mistake. When you started emphasising all the steps you'd taken to ensure confidentiality, no email trail etc I thought you were going to say that you'd sent a list of MI5 spies to the Daily Mail or something. You didnt. You accidently marked something as low importance. You then addressed it.

I am not trying to dismiss how you feel. I recognise what making a work error feels like but honestly, this is not that bad.

I thought you were going to say you’d accidentally attached a sex tape of yourself or something 🥴

I do these small things all the time, it irritates me because I spend so much time making sure it's perfect. But I forget after grumbling for 5 minutes! It's such a small and insignificant thing and truly nothing to worry about! Be kind to yourself.

I think there's something about the silence of the night, when it's dark outside and everyone else is quiet, that makes the mind start revolving around itself. It's like the three a m scaries, when you wake up absolutely CONVINCED that you are going to be hauled off to jail with all the neighbours pointing and laughing because you forgot to pay the milkman this week.

We are advised to write down our worries before we go to sleep, which is precisely what OP has done. I hope today brings you peace of mind, OP.

Well at least you didn't give the chairman of the Clydesdale Bank the wrong time for his sleeper train to London meaning he missed his train and then his flight to Brussels then a very important meeting with the other big banking chairmen 😱

This was in the days before Internet and mobile phones and I wrote the wrong time on the ticket. Oops 😬

Not an email (not even at work!) but I once sent a 'what ill be doing to you later' text to my then dp

Lots of words like 'vibe' 'bj' 'anal' 'kinky' and 'ride you like a cowgirl'

Annnddd pressed 'send'

To my mother (by mistake!)

To make it worse,she couldn't see without her glasses,so asked my brother to read it for her

Which he did,with great glee,out loud with the rest of my family listening and the bastards didn't even bother to let me know-i only found out when ex didn't have a clue what I was on about when I asked him later and I checked my phone to show I had sent him the message

Another time I was sexting my now dp and ds messaged

I answered him,snapped a pic of my tit's and pressed send to my dp (or so I thought)

I got a message back within seconds

'Looking good mother,I've not seen those since I was breastfed!'

Thankfully we can laugh about it (he once accidentally sent me a dick pic that was meant for his girlfriend)

We're not weirdos that believe in 'keeping it in the family'

Honest

@Futurehappiness a friend of mine once sent a similarly important email. At the end, she meant to write "Please do contact me". Instead, she wrote "Please do me"... THE SHAME! I am afraid we cried laughing and ribbed her mercilessly. But there were no consequences save for her blushes. Chin up!