Survey: The high cost of workplace communication screwups

Always—for the love of Pete, always—wait a tick and double-check before hitting “Send.”

That’s the pertinent takeaway from a survey conducted by TollFreeForwarding, which gathered a galling collection of mortifying miscommunication debacles from 1,000 U.S. workers. Fifty-six percent of respondents admitted they had sent work-related information to the “wrong person” before, which can be benign—or possibly career-ending. The survey gathered these cautionary tales:

We all make mistakes, but it appears males are more prone to committing workplace communication blunders. According to the survey, “Men (70 percent) are more likely than women (49 percent) to mistakenly send out a message, and email is the most common purveyor of miscommunications (34 percent).”