And the moral of the story is: check your email recipients very, very carefully
If it's happened to you, then you know the drill. (And you'll never forget it.) You think you're sending something really witty to a couple of your friends in the office, or you're sending a piece of confidential data across via email. Standard office stuff.
Then a cold fear washes over you.
You've hit the dreaded 'reply all' button by mistake.
Oh. Shit. If you've been there (and you don't know how lucky you are if you haven't), then, well, at least you can comfort yourself in the knowledge that you're not alone.
Here are some of the worst 'reply all' fails we've ever heard, courtesy of Reddit. Try not to cringe...
'HR manager sent an Excel workbook with some pertinent info on the first sheet to everyone, but failed to remove the fourth sheet which had everybody's salary.' - emby5 'I saw a guy 'reply all' with a file attached that included the social security number of his whole family, his income, wife's income, etc.' - optimaloutcome
Source: wifflegif.com via Giphy
'At university my best friend spent the summer travelling in Vietnam and Thailand, he sent me a very sordid email about all the [women] he was banging. Unfortunately he'd hit "reply all" to one of those chain mails that went around friends back in the day and even more unfortunate was that his girlfriend was one of the recipients. Jesus I'd forgotten about that' - rapmachinenodiggidy
'Former admin at my old job received an email from my boss with an attachment and the note "send this (attachment) to that stupid fucking idiot (client)." She forwarded the email straight to the client. That's why she was the former admin.' - Slytherintensity
Source: mtv.com via Giphy
A woman sent a retirement announcement inadvertently to the entire, tens-of-thousands strong agency I work for. People were hitting reply all to tell others not to reply all. It went on for hours.' - tiedyeladyland
'My friend received a text from his boss instructing him to let the whole office know that he will be out of town. My friend screen shots the texts and forwards it to everyone at work. He forgot that he put his boss's contact name as "Gary Penis Licker" and gets found out by his boss. Still managed to talk himself out of it and keep his job' - eyeh8errrbody
Source: via Giphy
'I once received an email from a girl at my college putting in an application for a social media manager position. Oh, and so did 400 other people. Turns out she sent it to one of the listservs. I'm guessing that if she can't properly send an email, she probably didn't get the job.' - greengorillaz 'I used to work in a small office with a lot of guys and one small men's room. The CTO once sent out an email that read:
Subject: Medical Advice
Body: Whomever just used the men's restroom should go see a doctor.
He meant to send it to the men in the company, but accidentally included a major, major client of ours. Thankfully they got a laugh out of it...' - chrisgagne
'Founder asking "how to fire the outsourced Indian developers" cc'ed to the outsourced Indian developers. Problem solved itself quickly.' - paulcole710
Source: reactiongifs.com via Giphy
'There's this woman here at work. Almost every time when the CEO sends an email to all staff announcing something new or good she replies to all, telling the CEO how good he is and how much she admires his work and dedication to make our company better. And just how much Jesus has blessed him and everyone working here.'
A few minutes later she replies to all again apologising for that 'mistake' because that was intended just for him.' - I_Like_Backstories