What’s the worst accidental reply-all you’ve ever seen? – 16 emails that will make you die of secondhand embarrassment
Workplaces are full of opportunities to make an absolute fool out of yourself, but sending the wrong message to the wrong person definitely ranks as one of the worst.
All it takes is a few wrong clicks and hey presto – you’ve accidentally shared a private message with your colleagues, your boss, and potentially a list of clients. To get a sense of just how bad this can be, HilariousMotives but the following question to r/AskReddt:
‘Sometimes an accidental misclick can be a career ender. What’s the worst you’ve seen, or even done yourself? Keep it legal!’
Brace yourself for maximum cringe, here are the top replies…
1.
‘I once applied for a job as an FOI Compliance Officer in local government. Some of the duties involved in this role involved recognising and processing Data Protection issues (this is important).
‘Shortly after the closing date, I received a standard acknowledgement of my application, as did every other applicant. Unfortunately the person sending this email decided to just send one email cc’d to all the applicants, so we could all see the names and email addresses of everyone else who had also applied. Brilliant.
‘I complained, obviously. I also got the job, at which point I wondered if it was a test! Sadly, I really don’t think it was.’
-w1ddersh1ns
2.
‘”Looking forward to the pub quiz. So-and-so from other-team has passed away so we stand a really good chance of winning this week.”
‘Sent to the full 700 person office.’
-El_Scot
3.
‘Was at uni in the early days of email, when I received a message one of my acquaintances had sent to his new girlfriend – they had just had sex for the first time the previous night, and he was incredibly excited the day after, and praised her for the experience in long, florid, very poetic language. The email went out to the entire biology department, from the head of department to the undergrad students.
‘He was quite cool about it, people kept walking up to him and congratulating him on the event for a few days afterwards, but he took it in his stride.’
-NaniFarRoad
4.
‘I once woke up to thousands upon thousands of unread emails. I worked for a global company with an email contact list which included everyone. All over the world. Someone had accidentally sent an email to everyone, and as people woke up, they hit the reply all button to tell whoever had sent the original mail that it had come to the wrong person. Then other people hit the reply all button to tell people not to reply to the email. It was email chaos and shut the servers down for the best part of the day.’
-Spiklething
5.
‘My mate had his whole office get shut down after a takeover. There was an all office email asking what bar they should have leaving drinks in (in Newcastle). He replied “how about that new place, “blue waffle”? and a link to the site.
The shrieks were breaking out all over the office like a ripple effect followed by other people committing job suicide with links to meat spin, lemon party, goatse etc etc’
-StereotypicalAussie
6.
‘Ok so back in my biscuit flogging days I worked at the head office of the company.
‘It was separated from the factory and we had a hq email address set up for lunch booking and trivial stuff, birthdays etc.
‘One day the canteen sent out an email saying lasagna for lunch and to book to avoid disappointment. Greedy bastard I am replied (all!) immediately saying put me down for some
‘This resulted in some banter amongst my colleagues, until the Marketing Director stepped in she didn’t work in the building and was only in to not miss any gossip.
‘She was not amused with this pasta based banter, told me off for replying to all and DEMANDED to be removed from the mail list for HQ. The IT manager immediately replied DONE.
‘And that is how the marketing director missed the Christmas party 6 weeks later ’
-takesthebiscuit
7.
‘so this happened to me when I started my new job in 2022, one of the women in the team replied all to the wrong email, saying “she had just came in, I wish she would just shut up, I do like Background-End but honestly I am sick of her talking” to the whole team. I’d been in the job 5 days..’
-Background-End2272
8.
‘A reverse reply all;
‘I work for an educational service for kids which provides a venue for (very expensive) exams. One of the exam boards accidentally sent all of the kids’ results to one parent’s hotmail address.
‘This included the name, dates of birth, gender, address and parents’ names for every child.’
-MonkeyHamlet
9.
‘When I was a teenager, before social media, we had this big email chain of all our friends – basically for organising things, sharing photos etc.
‘One of our girl friends replied to her boyfriend, but accidentally clicked Reply All, and basically wrote this massive wall of text about why she thought they should break up.
‘They immediately realised and then sent another Reply All, basically saying something like if we value them as people then please please please delete the previous email without reading it.
‘Of course, naturally, everyone read it in great detail.
‘Poor guy.’
-Routine_Ad1823