Oops^42
August 10th, 2005 @ 21:56 by NormMonkey
From the biggest-mistake-ever department:
This afternoon, at work, I had prepared an email to announce the latest version of our product to our clients. I gave it to my boss who added some marketing flair to it. Then it was given back to me to do the deed.
Boy, did I ever.
I pasted the email into a composer window and made sure it was all cleaned up and pretty. Then I used this tool I built which generates an email list of our clients from our database. I copied the list into my composer window, looked it over one last time, and sent the mail.
I forgot just one thing.
When I copied the list into the composer, I forgot to select “Bcc:”.
That’s right. I sent the mail out with the entire list visible to all the recipients.
This is the worst mistake I have ever made.
I feel just terrible.
As soon as I had hit send, the email showed up in my inbox. I opened it to look it over once again as I always do and that’s when I noticed my mistake. I immediately thought of running over to the mail server and yanking its network cable, but I knew that I was too late. Email isn’t delivered instantaneously but I knew that by the time I got there the server would’ve worked through delivering the mail to the majority of recipients’ servers, if not all.
I shuffled over to my boss’s office, head hung down, to confess my horrible mistake.
My boss was not happy.
We decided to immediately send out a second copy of the mail with “UPDATED:” prefixing the subject line in the hopes that recipients will just delete the first one and read the second. I think it’s a good strategy and I hope it works. I hope with all my heart that nobody gets hurt and it all turns out OK.
I am already composing in my mind various forms of apologies to any client who notices and responds. Phrases like “horrible mistake” and “I am so sorry” have been running through my mind all day.
I have never wished for the ability to replay a moment in time as fervently as I had wished for it this afternoon.
I got home with a fruit salad and some ice cream. I sat down and watched a couple of DVDs to take my mind off of it. I felt too bummed to do any of the work around the house that I should have done this evening. Writing this entry helps a bit.
I feel horrible. I know I’m human and we all make mistakes from time to time, but dammit, why couldn’t it have been a stupid typo in a document somewhere? I know that time heals all and by this time next week all will be well (or my ass will be in the employment insurance line), but time hasn’t passed yet and I feel like crap. A stinking pile of fetid crap.
I’m going to bed. I’m not worthy of a comfortable bed with air conditioning. I should sleep on the roof, or the prickly weeds of my lawn.
