The Wrong Group Chat

Serena had two chat groups open at once when she typed the message. One was with her three closest coworkers, called "Lunch Squad." The other was with her entire twelve-person department, called "Team Updates."

塞琳娜打出那条消息的时候，同时开着两个聊天群。一个是她和三个最要好的同事的群，叫“午餐小队”。另一个是她所在整个部门十二个人的群，叫“团队动态”。

She meant to complain about her manager, Anwar, in the first one.

她本来是想在第一个群里吐槽她的经理安瓦尔。

"Anwar just gave me feedback on my slides for the THIRD time today," she typed. "I genuinely think he enjoys watching me suffer. Someone tell him fonts are not a personality."

“安瓦尔今天第三次给我的幻灯片提意见了，”她打字道，“我真觉得他以看我受罪为乐。谁去告诉他，字体可不是一种个性。”

She hit send and went back to her spreadsheet, feeling briefly better. It took four minutes for her to notice that her coworker Nadine had responded with a single row of laughing emoji, in the wrong chat. That was how Serena finally understood what she had done.

她点了发送，又回头去看她的电子表格，心情一时好了不少。过了四分钟，她才发现同事娜丁在回复她——只是一排哈哈大笑的表情，而且发在了错误的群里。塞琳娜这才明白自己干了什么。

She scrolled up. The message sat there, fully visible, in Team Updates. Anwar was in Team Updates. Everyone was in Team Updates.

她往上翻了翻。那条消息明明白白地躺在“团队动态”里。安瓦尔就在“团队动态”里。所有人都在“团队动态”里。

"Oh no," she said out loud, loud enough that Nadine looked over from the next desk.

“糟了，”她不由得说出声来，声音大得让娜丁从隔壁工位转过头来。

"What?"

“怎么了？”

"I think I just sent the fonts thing to the whole department."

“我好像把字体那句话发给整个部门了。”

Nadine's expression shifted from amused to genuinely alarmed in under a second. "Delete it. Delete it right now."

娜丁的表情在不到一秒钟里，从觉得好笑变成了真的惊慌。“删掉。马上删掉。”

"I did. Three minutes ago. But he's always logged in on two devices, and I don't know if the notification already went to his phone."

“我删了。三分钟前就删了。可是他总是两台设备同时登录，我不知道通知是不是已经推送到他手机上了。”

For the rest of the afternoon, Serena refreshed her email obsessively, half expecting a meeting invitation titled something ominous. Nothing came. By five o'clock, she had almost convinced herself that Anwar's phone must have been on silent, or that he simply hadn't checked his messages.

那个下午剩下的时间里，塞琳娜一直不停地刷新邮箱，心里隐隐担心会收到一封标题不祥的会议邀请。可什么也没有。到了五点钟，她几乎已经说服了自己：安瓦尔的手机肯定是静音了，或者他根本没看消息。

Then, walking past his office to leave, she saw him at his desk, half smiling at his screen in a way she didn't like. "Serena," he called out, without looking up. "Before you go. My fonts, as you put it, would like a word."

然后，她经过他办公室准备下班的时候，看见他坐在桌前，对着屏幕半笑不笑，那副样子让她很不喜欢。“塞琳娜，”他头也不抬地喊道，“走之前，我的字体——照你的说法——想跟你谈谈。”

She stopped in the doorway, deciding whether honesty or a dramatic exit would do less damage. "In my defense," she said slowly, "I stand by the joke. I just deeply regret the audience."

她停在门口，在老实认错和戏剧性地逃走之间权衡哪个造成的伤害更小。“我辩解一句，”她慢吞吞地说，“那个玩笑我不收回。我只是特别后悔发错了对象。”

Anwar actually laughed at that, longer than the moment probably deserved, and told her to go home before she embarrassed herself any further.

安瓦尔听了真的笑了起来，笑得比这个场合应有的时间还长，然后叫她赶紧回家，别再继续丢人现眼了。