You Can't Unsend a Text Message

This morning I awoke to my mobile phone announcing I had received a text message. I immediately rolled over and went back to sleep without reading it. Later when I got up and got ready to go skiing before work, I read through the message from son in Ohio. He made a comment about how he can take his whole family skiing on Christmas Eve out there for the price of a single lift ticket at Alta. That includes lift tickets and ski rentals for his 2 girls. I immediately thought about sending a response letting him know that people get on airplanes to come ski Alta and nobody would do that to ski Ohio. I mentioned my response to my wife and she responded that I probably shouldn't send that. I kept my comment to myself and headed up skiing.

Early in my career at Oracle doing technical support work, I responded to a fellow coworker with an angry sounding e-mail about how he wasn't doing his job and shouldn't expect me to do it for him. That didn't sit well with him and he replied being sure to copy my boss. I realized that I probably should have waited a bit before responding to his original e-mail and sent something much more professional. I responded to him with an apology stating that I sent an e-mail without taking the time to properly articulate my thoughts and that I did not mean to offend him. That smoothed things over but probably wasn't ever forgotten.

While skiing this morning I continued thinking about my son's text message and realized that my son is probably missing family close by and would appreciate a positive response instead of me making fun of Ohio skiing. I got home and responded that it is great that the whole family will be skiing on Christmas Eve even if we won't be at the same ski area. He liked my response.

This experience reminded me that you can't unsend a text message. While you may want to quickly respond in the heat of the moment, sometimes it is best to sit back and think about the best response. Your quick joke may not be received with the same jovial spirit with which you sent it. When anger needs to be diffused, you may be adding fuel to the fire. In my case, my son is missing our Christmas traditions in Utah and needed reassurance that it is fine for him to have Christmas at home with his own family.