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

[coffeegirl73]

Yep that’s what I did. Have a bit of a banter going with pal at work - the same person annoys us both. I actually hate myself for being drawn into venting I’ve been trying so hard to “rise above it all” but she was getting to me today. I sent a message to my pal but of course it went to this woman by mistake. She saw it before I could delete it. I messaged her saying that was a private msg and I’m sorry she saw it but it wasn’t about her - she just replied ok. I feel like such a shit. I really hope she isn’t hurt - I probably would be I know. Lesson learnt though. Anyone else done anything loke
this . Don’t be too hard on me I know it was immature and juvenile of me to even send a msg at all . Feel terrible

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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 ?

Why do you raise a grievance about to your boss? Usually you have to go to....your boss! Sometimes the complaints are about the big boss so there's nobody you can go to and in other places, complaints about the hierarchy are just not accepted.

How is this relevant to the OP?

Where did OP say that she feared the sack?

Were you using your work email for private/unprofessional messages? Let's hope she doesn't ask HR to look into that 😬

I remember my manager emailing her seniors about a colleague and how difficult and miserable he was, bringing the whole team down but she copied him in.
They tried to hush it up but we soon all found out.
She was mortified and had to gushingly apologise to him in a high profile meeting. Bet he loved that, he really was a knob.
She continued as his manager, but it must have been really hard.

I've seen fellow lecturers going on to a colleague's unattended laptop and sending similar sex based emails from colleague's email address. It should be a sackable offence. Anybody with that mentality really shouldn't be in professional positions.

I was the victim of this some 20 years ago. I’d asked a colleague to do something and she left a message on my voicemail rather than my team leader basically mocking me, my manner, my request and completely dismissing me. It upset me terribly at the time as it was so personal.

I forwarded it to my team leader and asked him to deal with it. She was taken to task and reprimanded. She did apologise.

In reality, she was a lazy, incompetent cow who deflected from her unwillingness to do her job by making everyone else the problem.

I hope you do feel bad and maybe reflect on who is the actual problem here.

Well I found that her disability discrimination and attempts to unfairly dismiss me were not what I wanted. So in line with the grievance procedure I did what they said - went to her boss! Perhaps other workplaces don't allow you to use the grievance procedure, but I was fairly sure that the law says you have to have one and allow it to be used. It did save them a lot of money having to lose an employment tribunal.

Where have you worked where you can't use the grievance procedure against a manager?

And n many plaes it would be a sackable offence.

Everywhere I have worked, the people above me are favoured over me. However, I wasn't talking about illegal discrimination like you were.

OP's colleague might prefer to be talked about than have a grievance procedure against her!

I did something similar years ago and it was horrible I felt awful but I just did not get on with this woman at all. Lots of silence for a few months but we did eventually hash it out (there were lots of bullying type things going on within our team at the time) and worked things out. You’ve apologised there is nothing else you can do. Be aware this may get flagged to your manager (this happened to me) so be prepared for that conversation.

People are often too scared to report it. Frightening thing is, this idiot Lecturer is now Head of School in a college. I don't work with him now, so no skin in the game but sickening what people get away with. I was a visiting lecturer atvthe time so had to 'fall in line'.

And the OP might prefer to get on with her work and not be bitching about colleagues, because right now she's the one potentially facing a grievance.

OP this has happened to many people and somehow everyone survives (and maybe becomes a little wiser). Hope it blows over soon.