"Just pooping in my colleague". 27 work email mistakes that are so bad we're blushing.

For all of technology’s advancements and wonders, it still doesn’t protect us from the fallacy of human error.

Take email – the culprit behind many a workplace blunder. From auto-correct fails, CC-ing people into the email who most definitely shouldn’t be in said email or a wrongly placed ‘reply all,’ we have all been there.

Take Twitter user Maurice (@mo87mo87). In a now-viral Twitter thread, the co-director of Detroit financial watchdog, Acre, shared his most “embarrassing” stuff up and it’s so far attracted over 1,600 comments, 485,200 likes and 44,700 retweets.

– Sent an email
– They replied & called me “Mautice”
– I reply with a stink about how my name is properly spelled and that it’s actually really important to me
– They told me to check my 1st email
– I had misspelled my own name

most embarrassing email exchange I ever had:
– Sent an email
– They replied & called me “Mautice”
– I reply with a stink about how my name is properly spelled and that it’s actually really important to me
– They told me to check my 1st email
– I had misspelled my own name

— Maurice (@mo87mo87) January 28, 2020

Yikes. As he later tweeted: “r and t are quite close,” and indeed they are. So close and yet so far.

Other Twitter users also chimed in with their own fails, because as we all know, the death grip of anxiety weakens when we share it around.

I have accidentally signed off on emails with a wrong version of my name when clumsily replying from my phone. That version? “Satan.”

— Sarah T. Roberts (@ubiquity75) January 28, 2020

didn’t realize that my phone has been autocorrecting “best” to “beast” (why?!) — signed a whole slew of professional emails “Beast, Erica” #beastmode I guess?

— Erica Grace (@ericagracet) January 28, 2020

It’s ok, dude; I once sent a company-wide email & in the signature where I’d normally write “Kindest Regards,” I accidentally typed a T where the G should go ???????????? I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered from the embarrassment.

— Misty (@anglo_bones) January 28, 2020

Mate, at least you don’t have an ethnic name. I barely respond to the correct pronunciation of my name as it’s been mangled from the start. I still ask myself why many have called me Daniel… not even Danielle. I hoped the hair and dresses would be a giveaway, but evidently not.

— Dhanya Mani (@dhanyajmani) January 28, 2020

When my GF worked at the same office, I emailed her just the word NANDO as I really fancied some overpriced chicken & our relationship was at the point where 1 word would suffice.

Of course, because her name begins with an A and I’m lazy, I sent to ‘all’. As in all 2,200 staff

— Isaac Sirko (@Jimmy_S_Oldham) January 28, 2020

I once started an email with ‘I was very nice to meet you…’ instead of IT was very nice to meet you. This was a meeting with a very senior executive and I was junior staff member. My manager pointed out the mistake, and I died.

— seanna davidson (@seannalee) January 28, 2020

Very recently sent an email to my manager Mariana, addressing her as marinara.

Also in a separate email written in French, I meant to sign off with “à très vite” meaning “see you soon”

Instead I wrote “à très bite” which roughly translates to “very dick”

— Mike Shaheen (@givemeyourbagel) January 28, 2020

I sent an email without the attachment, noticed, sent a second email apologising for forgetting to attach the attachment, without the attachment, then wrote out a third email and genuinely came so close to sending that third email without the attachment again.

— Pier (@Pier_C_1) January 28, 2020

Profound thanks, Maurice. Laughed so hard that tears ran down my legs.

Reminds me of a mass mailing my accountant’s firm sent to welcome Mr. X and “his 20 years of personal boobkeeping experience.”

For generic impersonal boobkeeping, look elsewhere…

— Michele BLOCKED BY GYM Reis (@michele2435reis) January 29, 2020

I misspelled my name on a political donation and it’s made a fascinating study of how many ways my info has been sold/shared and to whom.

— KSax (@ksax48) January 28, 2020

I once sent an email to a client saying we’d be happy to undertake his latest request

Unfortunately the email history had my colleague laughing at how many hours we’d be charging him ????

— ???????????????????? ???? (@nofelix) January 28, 2020

At least you weren’t me, unaware that changing your YouTube username to something “anonymous” also changes the name on your email and then joining your building’s owners association meetings/mailing lists and find out they only know you as “Millennial Avocado the Unicorn Kween.”

— ????????‍♀️????????????‍♀️Jonina Lee???????????? (@JoninaLee) January 28, 2020

Many years ago I sent out 30 speculative CV’s with a covering letter that started Dear Sir or Madman…….

— Lynda Taylor #FBPE #FightOn #Indyref2 (@zampeviola) January 28, 2020

I sent a long “this is everything that’s wrong with our relationship and why I can’t deal with your shit anymore” email to the guy I’d just dumped, named Tim. Tim is also the name of a relative. Guess who got the email?

— SpinsterAunt (@Wrong_Pines) January 28, 2020

Related: I change my name in my email to Santa one Christmas to show my daughter an email from “him”. Forgot to change it back and emailed my son’s teacher a really serious email as Santa. ????????‍♀️

— Katie M (@WinterWolf2212) January 28, 2020

My name is Shanice (shaw-NEESE) but my old Windows phone made me say “shay-niss” for talk to text to work properly. Switched phones and used TTT to send an email ending with “love Shanice” other old pronunciation I had to use, only for my new phone to hear it as “Love this anus”

— Petty Mayonnaise (@shaezyfbabyy) January 28, 2020

My manager pointed out after 3 years of my working there that I had spelt ‘library’ as ‘libary’ in my email signature…

— Some Organised Chaos (@ChaosSome) January 28, 2020

My phone autocorrects “Danielle” to “Da Jelly”
All. The. Time.

Many, many, many (!) academic colleagues across institutions have received this incredibly odd sign off.

Interestingly, I have yet to receive an awkward reply about it…

… I wonder what they all are thinking ????

— Danielle Bentley (@DrDBentley) January 28, 2020

Because sharing is caring, here’s a running tally of the most cringe-inducing email fails the Mamamia community have ever personally done or bore witness to.

– I once addressed an email to an agency rep years ago – his name was Clint…but I accidentally left out the ‘n’…

– I was a receptionist for an acting agency. I once emailed all of these big wig actors in CC INSTEAD of BCC AND didn’t realise the email I was forwarding was addressed to individuals instead of just a generic invite. So huge name actors got an email inviting them to Sydney Kings basketball game addressed to Bryan Brown. And I sent it to like Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill… and on and on and on. The only thing more embarrassing than this was Richard Roxburgh replying saying “Could I go if I pretend to be Bryan Brown?” it was like my second week there and I wanted to die.

– ‘Just pooping in my colleague…’, instead of ‘looping in’.

– My colleague said ‘Have a lonely Christmas’ instead of lovely. Ouch.

– I asked someone if they were “busty” instead of if they were “busy”.

– At a previous job I sent an email to my coworker asking how to do something saying I didn’t want to ask my boss because she was mean, me being me, without realizing I sent it to the group inbox instead which she checks first… She just ignored it and flagged it FYI. I feel like she relished in it a bit.

– When I was very early in my career, I forwarded an email from a publicist to a colleague with a pretty snarky remark about their pitch. Then I received an email back from the publicist, who I had accidentally left on the email. “Dear Natalie. I’m sorry to hear you thought my pitch was ridiculous…” they wrote back. CRINGE.

– A friend I used to work with replied to a weekly meeting invite, which was this really boring mundane meeting no one ever wanted to go to – he meant to just reply to me and another friend at work, but instead hit reply all and wrote ‘omg I can’t wait for this meeting’ — in a very sarcastic tone. Lucky it wasn’t worse – we couldn’t stop laughing.

As we said, the scorn of email doesn’t discriminate.

What has been the worst mistake you’ve ever made on email? Tell us in a comment below.