An NYU student managed to email nearly 40,000 of his fellow students instead of his mom, all because he clicked "reply all" instead of "forward." Whoops! Though a faux pas of that magnitude isn't very common, he's sure not the only one to ever make a reply-all blunder. We asked TODAY readers and viewers to share their own misadventures with the "reply all" button. And share they did, with tales of romance, friendship and professionalism gone awry.
"Same thing happened at my alma mater," writes a reader named Ali Shoupe. Someone who worked at student activities forgot to "bcc" all the students, professors and faculty members invited to a movie screening. This meant that everyone's email addresses were visible to all the other recipients. One student wrote back pointing out that "he was uncomfortable with his email address being available to so many people" — accidentally CCing all of those people in the process!
That email triggered a bit of a snowball effect — in the form of many clicks of the "reply all" button. "It escalated quickly and finally ended with someone ruining the ending to 'The Hunger Games' for everyone out of anger."
Spoiling a movie ending isn't as bad as spoiling a friendship. Another reader, Amanda, replied to a friend who had forwarded a "scathing political email." "When I wrote a considered reply and hit 'reply all' by mistake, she was incensed that I responded to all her friends." Though it was an accident, the damage was done, Amanda explains. "She has never spoken to me to this day even though I apologized profusely."
The place where this kind of thing is bound to happen is the workplace. Just ask reader Donna Smith, who posted on the TODAY Facebook page that she "had to send a mass apology and report myself to HR."
The workplace embarrassment can reach greater heights when romance is involved.
A reader named Mike Hill wrote to us, saying that before he and his wife Anne were married, they would coordinate "short breaks" from work via email while they were dating. They treasured these innocent moments, "a quick smooch over coffee or a smoothie," because they provided respite during " the most hectic time of our lives."
Mike and Anne kept in sync using Outlook, so that when a conflict for one arose, the other would see it. But as they discovered, Outlook isn't always ready to cover for you:
When you forward a meeting request, it retains the "From" information of the meeting organizer. [My wife] was very diligent about not using "Reply All" ... but "Reply," in this case, responded not to the person forwarding the request, but to the meeting organizer.
Consequently, at the emergency team meeting, our ex-Marine team leader begins the meeting with "Is one of you guys dating somebody named Anne?" I could only quizically raise my hand, to which he responded "She'll smooch you later."
At this particular emergency meeting, as Mike sat down, his "ex-Marine" boss asked the group, "Is one of you guys dating somebody named Anne?" Mike raised his hand, and the boss responded, "She'll smooch you later."
Romel Snow, another reader, said on TODAY's Facebook page that she had a similar red-faced moment:
It was a valentine ... intended for my husband!!! I was soooo embarrassed.
Masato Ryota, too:
Yes, it was very embarrassing ... supposed to be [for my] girlfriend only ... but family also saw everything ... ooopsie….
It's not always email that gets us into this kind of trouble. Anita Drum pointed out on TODAY's Facebook page that she's posted things publicly on the social network when she'd only intended to send a message to her sister. Georgette Rae Lewis says her husband had some confusion with his phone. "He just started texting again and is more careful," she shared on Facebook.
The stories go on and on, and in the end many of us quietly muttered the words Amy Zevenboom shared on our Facebook page:
Been there done that, fortunately nothing embarrassing on my part either but made me be more careful in the future.
And those of us who weren't quite as lucky and sent some — ahem — particularly memorable emails? Well, we will definitely be more careful.
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