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Digital Blunders 2: Text pain and sex on the brain
You're a clumsy lot - you really are...

By Will Sturgeon

Published: Tuesday 26 August 2003

The Digital Blunders are still pouring in, and they are keeping us highly-amused. But we're a caring sharing team here at silicon.com, so here for your reading pleasure are the latest pick of the bunch blunders from the editorial mailbag.

As the first blunder shows, many of these ill-considered tech faux pas have more than a little to do with sex, but read on - because as the last story shows us, sometimes a blunder can work in your favour.

Password: jigglytits... "My password was 'jigglytits'. It was the result of working in IT with a call centre of approximately 600 lovely ladies working upstairs who had to walk past my window every morning. Not very PC but memorable all the same. But what was typed in idle jest became somewhat of an embarrassment when desktop support had to come fix my dial-up settings - predictably they sent a rather attractive well constructed girl who was politely amused though still managed to pass sentence with just one look. Using my limited male powers of ESP I got the faint impression that she though I was a 'merchant banker'."

SMS is a bitch... "A few months ago, I was having serious problems with one of my flatmates. She was going away for a week, which myself and my other flatmate were looking forward to very much - some peace, quiet and sanity for a few days.

"But I got back from work midweek to discover the contents of her rucksack all over the lounge, hallway and kitchen - she'd come home early and gone to the pub by the looks of it.

"I texted my other flatmate to let him know she was back, simply putting 'the bitch is back' as the text. About five minutes later, I got a text from flatmate-from-hell 'Who's the bitch?' After a few minutes of confusion it occurred to me that I had sent the text to her in a moment of total insanity. After several more minutes spent chewing my knuckles I left the house to go to another pub to think up an explanation. Given that we still had several months of tenancy left, and financial commitments, it took a great deal of explaining to get out of that one..."

Pay rise confusion... "I was having an ongoing battle to get a pay rise from my boss this January which had dragged on for several weeks, and when he eventually told me what I was going to get I was so upset I had to email a colleague about it. I typed a short email saying a couple of comments about him, adding that it was time to start looking for another job... and hit send...(you know what's coming next)... only to realise about two minutes later that I did in fact send it to my boss instead of my friend. Fortunately one of the secretaries here does have access to his inbox, so I ran to her office, pushed her off her machine and deleted the message, but still to this day I have no idea whether he saw it or not."

But for all this talk about Digital Blunders, sometimes it would seem these howlers can turn out to be a real blessing in disguise as this final example shows us:

Apologies all round... Some time ago, working for a major multinational, I was peeved by a directive taken by one of my bosses, which affected a major deal I was working on. I wrote a very angry email to him letting him know in no uncertain terms what I thought of his action. Then I sent it.

As soon as I had done this, I realised I had accidentally sent it to ALL the directors, world-wide. I was sure that my career was finished. Instead I received apologies and cancellation of their last directive FROM EVERY DIRECTOR WORLDWIDE.

It just goes to show.

Keep the Digital Blunders pouring in. Email editorial@silicon.com