Oh my.

Today was the last day for one of the girls I work with. Her position has been eliminated. Not a good day, the rest of us did our work quietly - hearing her blow her over-stuffed I've been crying for days nose every once in a while. Not a comfortable feeling. We were supposed to go to lunch - bosses credit card don't ya know - but we were feeling a bit hesitant at that point about going.

In the midst of it - another girl I work with was complaining about someone giving her something to do - someone who is not her supervisor manager or anything of the sort. Her own employee was off today so she called over and gave his work to our gal. So this girl is complaining about it and I suggested to her - as I have in the past - that she go to our manager and make sure she knew what was happening. This gal said "No. She won't stand up for me." Then she repeated it as if I (we) had not heard it the first time. "No. She won't stand up for me."

So me being me - typing faster than I could probably say it out loud when I am annoyed - sent an email off to the girl who sits across from me who mostly feels like I do saying "So I don't want to f#$king hear her complain about having to do HIS work anymore!!!!!!!"

Except I sent it to the girl behind me, the one who I was talking about, not talking to.

There was that moment of breath being held and synopses not firing - before the finality and STUPIDITY of my act became real to me. OMG. I knew it wouldn't do any good to try but I quickly fired that cursor up to 'actions' and to 'recall message' and clicked on it. Then the cursor was frantically clicking on 'send and receive' as if I wasn't even the one doing it - and as if that would make the lightening speed of our company email slow to a crawl and not let that email reach the girl in the cubicle behind me.

I heard the email hit her inbox - "RING-G-G!!!!" Like a telephone. The old fashioned kind. As I waited for her reaction I opened a new message and started typing my apology. Then from behind me I heard - "Thanks BJ." Cringe! Arg-g-h-h-h!!! "I know.." was the only reply I could get out.

My apology was along the lines of - "obviously that was not meant to be seen by you and I am incredibly sorry. I get annoyed when people won't stand up for themselves because it hurts all of us. But that is no excuse. I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt your feelings."

Or something.

Reading a post not too long ago by Amanda over at The Wink about a similar incident that happened to her - I had relived the one time it had happened to me before. And vowed to myself that it would never happen to me again. The time before was years ago - but it was almost the exact same thing. I was annoyed and fired off an email about someone - and sent it to the person I was writing about. That time it was vague enough that the woman I sent it to did not realize it was about her and I dodged a big bullet.

Not so lucky this time.

So. Does anyone think this will stop me from being catty? Will I learn my lesson and not say nasty things about other people when I am annoyed/aggravated and what? Feeling a little superior maybe? I cannot tell you how ashamed I was. She was very nice about it, accepted my apology, and by the time we went to lunch we were talking and laughing as if nothing happened. Which made me feel even worse.

Will I learn? I actually kind of doubt it - if I am being honest. I mean - I will try - but when I am in a snit - gee - doesn't sound good to try to defend it, does it? By the end of the day the girl whose position had been eliminated got a stay - and an extension of a week. The girl whose feelings I hurt went home wishing me a good weekend and smiling on her way out the door.

How am I going to learn anything if we all basically sang kumbaya and skipped down the yellow brick road side by side with arms linked? I always learn things the hard way, I guess this is no different. ARG-G-G-H-H-H.