Disaster Averted - Spell Check is not enough

[MKSixer]

In this age of rapid communication and multitasking, the opportunity for errors is always lurking and ready to pounce at the most inopportune moment. We have technological tools such as spell check and grammar check that help us BUT cannot be relied upon 100%. Witness my near disaster today.

I was responding to my biz-dev partner who is representing the company that has targeted our organization for partnership/acquisition. We had just exchanged a critical piece of information via slide deck for easy consumption and he was thanking me for sending it so promptly. I looked at the email and almost sent the following:

"No problem, please take care to closely examine the dick I sent you as there is quite a bit of detailed technical information that may be difficult to follow. If you or any of your team have any questions, please call me directly on my wireless phone."

As usual, I hit spell check on the email and it passed. I always take one last read before I send any email and noticed the potentially deal-ending misspelling. If you haven't seen it yet, take another look. Once you've found it place your hands on the keyboard and notice that the e and the i are each activated by your middle finger. If you type quickly, this is an easy mistake to make.

I'm asking everyone now: Tell us any near disasters or actual disasters involving sending email or texts.

Cheers-mk

[M_Six]

LOL

Maybe you should change your handle here to MKSexter.

[JohnnyCanuck]

A former colleague of mine once sent a letter with the word "aroused" in it instead of "arose". You can imagine the embarrassment ...

[jtodd_fl]

So... this is an embarrassing story.
I was leaving for a business trip on a Monday morning. I had spent the prior night with my wife... having a proper sendoff, if you will.
After I left, I texted her to see how her day was going. She said she was tired. I texted her...
"You really should get tested."

Yeah... I meant "rested". That went over well.

[MKSixer]

Originally Posted by jtodd_fl

So... this is an embarrassing story.
I was leaving for a business trip on a Monday morning. I had spent the prior night with my wife... having a proper sendoff, if you will.
After I left, I texted her to see how her day was going. She said she was tired. I texted her...
"You really should get tested."

Yeah... I meant "rested". That went over well.

How much did this cost you? (Quantified in any of the following currency):

Louis Vuitton
Purse Carrying Shopping Time
Jewelry
M4/M2 Driving time

[jtodd_fl]

Originally Posted by MKSixer

How much did this cost you? (Quantified in any of the following currency):

Louis Vuitton
Purse Carrying Shopping Time
Jewelry
M4/M2 Driving time

I had my allotment of drive time in her M4 reduced. Wait, is this the "dumb things we do for love" thread?

[M3 Number 86]

The real question is what was on your mind that disk turned into dick. C and S are not even close to each other

[fhaze3]

Was it an impressively large attachment?

Would Outlook flag it as >5MB?

[jpnh]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCanuck

A former colleague of mine once sent a letter with the word "aroused" in it instead of "arose". You can imagine the embarrassment ...

At a company I worked at years ago the HR director sent out a congratulations to a guy named Peter who was being promoted to "Director of Financial Analysis"

Unfortunately she typed poorly enough for M$ spell checker to butcher the shit out of it and she failed to proof read before she sent to THE WHOLE COMPANY

Her well intentioned congratulations to Peter read as follows

"I would like to congratulate Peter on his promotion to Director of Anal Sizing"

He came in the next day to find that people had left him bottles of KY, AstroGlide and an assortment of other personal lubes all over his desk.........

Suffice it to say our very cute, very blonde HR director took a vacation to try to get this to blow over.

Hands down it was the funniest corp communication I have ever seen

[MKSixer]

Originally Posted by M3 Number 86

The real question is what was on your mind that disk turned into dick. C and S are not even close to each other

dEck dIck

e and i not C and S

[MKSixer]

Originally Posted by jpnh

At a company I worked at years ago the HR director sent out a congratulations to a guy named Peter who was being promoted to "Director of Financial Analysis"

Unfortunately she typed poorly enough for M$ spell checker to butcher the shit out of it and she failed to proof read before she sent to THE WHOLE COMPANY

Her well intentioned congratulations to Peter read as follows

"I would like to congratulate Peter on his promotion to Director of Anal Sizing"

He came in the next day to find that people had left him bottles of KY, AstroGlide and an assortment of other personal lubes all over his desk.........

Suffice it to say our very cute, very blonde HR director took a vacation to try to get this to blow over.

Hands down it was the funniest corp communication I have ever seen

You win the thread!!

[jtodd_fl]

Hands down. Blow over. He's got jokes.
jpnh

[EALm4]

I dont think I've ever sent an email like that but I use to work with a girl that had a very similar name to mine. Off by one letter. I would get shit that was supposed to go to her ALL the time. Lots of personal shit too... hotel reservations, gossip, OBGYN appointment confirmation, meeting invites, you name it.... I got it. IT wouldnt change her email and said even if they did it wouldnt matter.

Some of the best shit was when people would fwd instant message logs and they end up in my inbox. lol

So for almost 4 years I got emails that were supposed to go to this girl everyday.

[Aatish]

I had a friend who's name auto corrected to Hard Dick.

[Biorin]

I have signed an email "retards" instead of "regards." I also nearly always typo my own name as "Luberty." That's capitalized because my phone recognized it and autocorrected. Fuck.

[M_Six]

The word I *always* mistype is "from." It never fails, I always end up typing "form" instead and of course spellcheck doesn't hit on it. Drives me nuts.

[EALm4]

I remember once, during my semi annual review (and eventually annual), boss man was like "You have to work on being a bit nicer in your emails. Some people think it's too direct especially when you're working with people higher up..."

I'm like whatever. Come annual review on my last year there and 2 months before I left, same shit was mentioned. My response: "If they have a problem with my emails being "too direct" they have some personal issues they need to address with themselves since obviously they take it personal."

Well that didnt go over too well. hahaha Got my bonus and rolled the fuck out very shortly after.

[FogCityM3]

Wow..that's pretty funny...not sure if you would have gotten you in trouble as most would probably react the same way we did.. good catch!

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by EALm4

I remember once, during my semi annual review (and eventually annual), boss man was like "You have to work on being a bit nicer in your emails. Some people think it's too direct especially when you're working with people higher up..."

I'm like whatever. Come annual review on my last year there and 2 months before I left, same shit was mentioned. My response: "If they have a problem with my emails being "too direct" they have some personal issues they need to address with themselves since obviously they take it personal."

Well that didnt go over too well. hahaha Got my bonus and rolled the fuck out very shortly after.

I was once accused of being too terse when writing up incident reports. I was like, WTF? It's a report, not a love letter. I'm not trying to win a Pulitzer here. Just trying to get the facts across in as few words as possible.

[EALm4]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I was once accused of being too terse when writing up incident reports. I was like, WTF? It's a report, not a love letter. I'm not trying to win a Pulitzer here. Just trying to get the facts across in as few words as possible.

Oh man. I got one for that and it also contributed to my 'fuck it' tipping point at my old gig.

Some serious shit went down involving a high dollar amount and in violation of various federal regs, etc...

So I'm looking at this report and something huge comes up. Very bad. I email around for a few days to get the back end story and absolutely ZERO people know about it and those who I informed had no idea how it happened. After conf call after conf call. I'm like fuck, this is even more serious and I get a call from a high level dude wanting answers. I admit, I panicked. I made a phone call to this dude's department to talk it out and see his side of the story. He's all defensive and shit.

An email comes through from the higher up dude and my boss man wanting to know wtf is going on and if I talked to the department lead. So I said fuck it...replied all and copied the manager of said department.

I totally remember part of the email which contributed to an ungodly amount amount of chaos and my semi-annual review lol.

Portion of the email read "Michael (he usually goes by just Mike), you fucked up and are in violation of multiple federal regulations." I attached all these reports and evidence.... etc..

SEND

I get phone call prolly like 10ish minutes later from my boss and he's all like WHAT THE FUCK. So we get into this huge argument about how fucking bad this dude fucked up. After all that, I get a call from the higher up dude and he wanted a "No bullshit" assessment/opinion. I'm like this is not good.

Then more drama occurred with said department manager and all this shit. Was a rough couple months after. and since I copied his ass, I was now directly involved and had to sit through all these calls and meetings and other time wasting shit. If I never copied his ass and told him he fucked up, I'd prolly would've never had to deal with the whole thing.

MY BAD

I believe a few months later manger dude was canned. Dont really know the details behind it but 99% most likely due to his poor oversight fuck up.

That email is probably immortalized on some server and I lost like 10 years off my life due to stress.

BLAH

[jtodd_fl]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I was once accused of being too terse when writing up incident reports. I was like, WTF? It's a report, not a love letter. I'm not trying to win a Pulitzer here. Just trying to get the facts across in as few words as possible.

Haha.

[tranquility]

Originally Posted by jpnh

At a company I worked at years ago the HR director sent out a congratulations to a guy named Peter who was being promoted to "Director of Financial Analysis"

Unfortunately she typed poorly enough for M$ spell checker to butcher the shit out of it and she failed to proof read before she sent to THE WHOLE COMPANY

Her well intentioned congratulations to Peter read as follows

"I would like to congratulate Peter on his promotion to Director of Anal Sizing"

He came in the next day to find that people had left him bottles of KY, AstroGlide and an assortment of other personal lubes all over his desk.........

Suffice it to say our very cute, very blonde HR director took a vacation to try to get this to blow over.

Hands down it was the funniest corp communication I have ever seen

How was it possible to screw up that badly? Financial Analysis to Anal Sizing?????? Then I saw your description of her lol (j/k to all blondies reading this)