“I sent an old Facebook post to someone I was interviewing for work”

“I was looking for case studies for quite a serious project and found a woman through a Facebook group, so I contacted her on Messenger asking for her email address,” a writer recalls. “A few days later, I was reminiscing about my uni years on Facebook and took a screenshot of a Hawaiian party event I’d created. It was a ridiculous invitation, telling people to get ready for my solo rendition of The Pina Colada Song and to limber up for a limbo competition.

“I sent the screenshot to my old housemate, telling her I missed the good old days. Not understanding why she hadn’t replied by the next day, I looked and realised I’d accidentally sent it to the woman I’d been in touch with about the work project. I was so mortified and tried to play it so cool by just saying, ‘Whoops, sorry – wrong person’ with a laughing-face emoji. Luckily, she took it well, but probably thought I was a massive weirdo.”

“I sent an annoyed email about my boss to my boss”

“I once accidentally sent an annoyed email about my boss to my boss,” an account manager recalls. “Oh, and she was sat right next to me. It happened first thing in the morning and she left me stewing all day. I thought maybe I’d got away with it. But when she finally pulled me to one side for a ‘quick chat’ in the afternoon, it turned out to be a very, very awkward chat.”

Boris Johnson’s leaked WhatsApp messages are making us recall and cringe over our own work email fails