Email Woes

Although this situation occurred nearly two weeks ago, it is nevertheless too good not to document for posterity's sake.

As Headmaster, it is my esteemed duty to manage complaints. Fortunately, I don't have many, but when they arise, they almost always seem to come from the same three or four families.

I usually pride myself on being able to manage naysayers with respect, patience and diplomacy, but two weeks ago I damaged my record a bit. You see, I had spent the latter part of the day talking with a student who had a history of poor behavior, but who had in recent months improved dramatically. He experienced a small setback on this day, and I, along with his teacher, spoke with him about not backsliding any further. Case closed, or so I thought.

The next day I received a short, terse email from the boy's parents telling me they had learned he was sent to my office without their knowledge and based on the story they heard, we had no business chastising him.

I promptly composed an email to the boy's teacher to share the parents' dissatisfaction. I kept the entire email as professional as I could, but added that I would not tolerate this kind of accusatory tone from this family anymore. I clicked the "Send" button and as I waited for it to shoot away toward its intended target I noticed that the boy's parents' email address was hanging in the "To:" field! Before I could do anything, the email window vanished and it was delivered directly to the wrong address.

I freaked out. After a few minutes of pacing up and down the halls, I decided to call the family immediately, confess my mistake, read the email directly to them, and try to turn the whole matter into an opportunity to discuss what had become a lingering sense of animosity between this family and the school. Luckily, the conversation become just that, but I anguished over my idiotic mistake for days and days.

I love computers and could never imagine going back to life without email, but one thing this event taught me was to never hit "Send" before triple checking the recipients.

How's that for some nonsense?