This happened today and I’m still recovering from the cringe. I was chatting with a colleague on Microsoft Teams, venting about how drained I’ve been feeling lately. Meetings back to back, barely any time to actually get work done. I jokingly typed something like, “If I have to sit through one more ‘quick sync,’ I might actually fake a network issue and disappear.” Meant it as a joke, sort of.
Except I didn’t realize I had my manager’s chat open. Hit send. Immediate regret.
About 5 minutes later, she replied with a simple: “Let’s catch up after your next call.”
I spent the next hour spiraling.
When we talked, she was surprisingly understanding. She said she noticed I’ve been a bit quiet and wanted to check if I was okay. I explained I didn’t mean any disrespect, I was just overwhelmed. She actually thanked me for being honest and said it might be time to rebalance the workload.
Still, I feel like an idiot. I keep replaying that moment in my head, wishing I could undo it. Definitely triple-checking every chat window from now on.
TL;DR: Meant to send a joking complaint about meetings to my coworker. Sent it to my manager instead. Had an awkward but surprisingly supportive follow-up conversation.
Comments
This was def the best outcome possible, and it feels like a huge positive that your boss was understanding and willing to rebalance things to make sure you’re not so burnt out. That’s EXTREMELY rare in the workforce these days, don’t take that lightly!
I really get how one wrong click can turn a bad day into a full-blown crisis… and honestly, it’s kinda funny now because you’re not the first person to accidentally send something they didn’t mean to, but your manager sounds like someone who actually cares, so maybe that’s the silver lining, next time just pretend you’re texting your kid and double-check before hitting send, and remember, even the best of us mess up, but it’s how we handle it that counts.
What an amazing “accident” and a great way to actually accidentally speak up for yourself. Once the shame wears off, you’re going to be so glad it went down like that. It sounds as if it might have even fundamentally shifted your relationship with your manager.
If you’re gonna make that mistake, it sounds as if you made it in the best way possible.
Sounds like you have a pretty decent manager. Sucks the workload got to be that bad, but at least she took your complaint seriously and wants to fix the issue.
As a manager I’d be mortified on their behalf but I would try to breach the topic the same way she did and see what can be done to help you feel better.
It’s okay!
Lmao, I did this years ago. I had an awful, lazy boss who barely came to work and definitely didn’t pick up his part of management responsibilities, shoving everything off on me and the other shift supervisor. I meant to be texting my partner in frustration about this during a particularly rough shift, and instead texted it to…my manager.
I was horrified for about a minute and then realized…you know what? He needs to hear this. 😂
He was an extremely ineffective GM who did not like to have to do any part of his job, so I sort of figured he wasn’t going to “punish” me for anything, and I was right. Next time I saw him I was just like, “Obviously that wasn’t meant for you, but I would like to talk about the issues I am having, since they’re already out there,” and he just sort of was like yeah, yeah, we totally will. Of course we never did. 🙄
There are good ways to have this happen and bad ones, lol. Congrats on the good way. 😅
Also, kudos to your mgr for taking it seriously.
Sounds less like a fuckup and more like your manager didn’t do her job, mishandled the workload, and needed a reality check.
I’m glad she took it well and got the point you were making but this is why I never make such jokes over Teams or Email 😂
Lmao, that accidental honesty actually worked out for you!
W manager for sure. Took what was a cry for help seriously, making an effort to change and not being mad about it.
My sister can be a bit difficult to get along with but she tries. She lives in my old neighborhood with a now more active social media group. Someone in the group was taking bad about her, meant to send it to a friend and instead sent it to the group. This was before you could delete your message in FB messenger.
The group chat went quiet and she found out via a well meaning neighbor that they had started a new group…without her… so they could make fun of her.