Rishabh clicked the ‘send’ button on his cell-phone, and then in the next 3 seconds he went like ‘No, no, no, no, no...” He couldn’t believe what he just did. In what was supposed to be a close conversation with his colleagues, he sent a message talking about his boss in the general group -- the problem? The boss is also part of the group. Several thoughts crossed his mind – he could lose his job, he could be embarrassed in front of his colleagues, his promotion would be at stake, his career might just end. 

Research shows that one out of 10 has lost his/her job because of inadvertent messages sent to boss or about colleagues.  About 70% employees regularly send messages to the wrong person. And the autocorrect feature makes it all the more difficult these days.  The thing to keep in mind is it’s not miscommunication, but they are fully sensible messages/emails meant for a certain group of people generally bitching about another set. And if the latter gets those messages, that’s where the problem happens.

Things to do if you send the wrong message:

Emails

Emailing is one of the most important means of communications. If you happen to send a wrong email, check if you are using Gmail – it gives the option of ‘Undo Send’ to the emails sent. All you need to do is go to your Gmail settings, then to the Labs section, and enable Undo Send. After you install this feature it will display an ‘undo option’ for few seconds after you hit the send email button. And if you use Microsoft Outlook, try its feature called ‘Recall’. If you need to recall a message on Outlook, then check the sent email, go to the ‘Other Actions’ on the ribbon, and choose the recall message option. It actually sends a request to delete the message on the recipient’s server.

SMS

In case you have a smartphone, you can use SMS delay application like AskToSend for iPhone (need jailbreak) while Android users can use SMS Scheduler for scheduling SMS in advance or Undo SMS to confirm each time when the message is send. These will only work with data SMS and not for your WhatsApp and Facebook. 

Just when you hit the send button, and realise your mistake, quickly put your phone on ‘airplane mode’ and swiftly delete your message. But it has to be done before you message is delivered. You need to be superfast to be able to do this.

Think of redemption

If the above cannot help you. However, the best possible way is to apologise in person and genuinely. Mistakes happen and everybody does it – and this is not the first one.  The other way is to tell people your account got hacked – you have to make this excuse a believable one.

In order to avoid the above embarrassing situation, keep these 3 things to keep in mind before you press the ‘send’ button:

Inculcate the habit of double-check

Never send emails, texts in a hurry. It’s better to check twice before sending it. There is no point in regretting later. So make sure, you develop a tech-habit of checking your emails, messages twice before sending it. 

Always insert the recipients’ names later

This is one trick that will save you from being awkward later. This simple habit of not putting the recipients’ names or numbers right when you start writing your emails or texts will ensure another minute or two for you to read again. This is one time you can check if you are sending it out to the right person.

Read slowly before sending it out

We type faster, and with autocorrect we tend to often agree to the words – but sometimes the words might be spelt correctly but probably of the right meaning. So to ensure that such goof-ups don’t happen, do read your text slowly. Read the words carefully. Any wrong usage should come to your notice for sure.

Have you sent embarrassing messages to people not meant to receive those? Keep sharing it here.