Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Not so great to be me today

Wow, sometimes I am really impressed by other people.

In a stunningly hurtful and immature move I mistakenly sent an email that was meant for a friend to and entire group. The contents of said email included some very mean and I'd like to think totally out of character sentences. Well, as I'm sure you've guessed, I had clicked the stupid "Reply All" button instead of just "Reply" and this scathing email to the target of my fury.

When I realized what I had done waves of grief and embarrasment flooded over me in such intense waves that I immedaitely was blinded by tears. There were many reasons I was so affected.

First, I imagined myself getting a similar email and the hurt I would feel. It would crush me.

Second, I realized that despite the mature grown-up reflection of myself that I have started to become slightly narcassistic with, I still have those ugly, gross, childish, backbiting, mean, judgemental spots of tarnish looking back at me.

Third, I have put a serious speed bump for our entire group and this project we have to do together.

So I followed this email up with a personal apology asking her for forgiveness.

Not only was her response completely classy, but it was totally forgiving.

This person who I thought was obnoxious and slightly lacking in social graces proved to be way better at them than myself. She showed me how a real adult should deal with problems. She taught me more than I could ever have learned about myself in the span of 2 short hours.

4 comments:

megan said...

omg, i did that once, at work. i cc'd the ENTIRE COMPANY with a not-so-kind remark about someone who is actually very awesome, and does a great job at what they do.

i experienced those exact same waves of emotion. i cried. i felt like an ass. and the only thing i could do was to march up to this person, in front of their whole group, and tell them i was sorry.

turns out, during my apology, we were able to resolve the issue that had pissed me off in the first place... if i'd only been mature enough to talk to them first, and resolve the recurring irritation, then i wouldn't have had to be humiliated in front of my 60+ co-workers.

but then again, i never would have learned my 2nd most important lesson that day, either: always check the "to" field before you hit send!

Katie said...

Glad to know I'm not the only idiot out there. (wink)

Mrs. Architect said...

Oh man! I have a HUGE pit in my stomach reading this imagining how awful that must have been to go through. But...all great lessons learned, so just focus on the positives that have come out of it! xoxo

Unknown said...

Aww, don't you hate it when life kicks you in the belly? Pretty cool that you immediately owned up to it though. Many people I know would have just tried to pretend it didn't happen.