Almost half of office workers have sent an e-mail to the wrong person by mistake and two-thirds have copied people in on an e-mail unintentionally – with sometimes disastrous consequences.
A survey of 500 office staff by recruitment firm Pertemps underlines just how important it is to think before pressing 'send', something that the job-seeker who sent an email boasting about the lies on his CV to the HR director of the company he had just applied to would doubtless agree with.
Some of the other more embarrassing mistakes that have resulted from not applying this simple rule include the woman who sent an explicit message meant for her boyfriend to her line manager and another woman who sent a rant against her company's boss to the boss himself rather than to a friend.
But the reddest face belongs to a new business co-ordinator who sent 80 new business prospects a film of two rabbits mating instead of the corporate video she had meant to send.
Pertemps' Tim Jones said: "There's no doubt that email has made business communications quicker and easier, but carelessness can turn it into an office worker's worst nightmare.
"There is ample scope to cause a lot of embarrassment and even damage your reputation, so it pays to think before you press the send key."