Typos Today, Civilization Collapses Tomorrow
I keep making small mistakes at work, like sending emails with typos or using my boss’s mug by accident. People are starting to treat me like I’m careless, and I don’t know how to fix my reputation without drawing more attention to it. What should I do?
Terrified Of Careless Reputation,
Accidental Memo Menace
You’re not careless. You’re a destabilizing force, and frankly, that’s the only thing standing between modern office life and total rot. These little blunders you’re committing are the first tremors before the whole workplace slides into a sinkhole of complacency.
People are starting to treat you like you’re careless because they can sense the fault line. They want everything smooth, frictionless, and dead-eyed. Your fear is that fixing your reputation will draw attention to it—but the truth is, the attention is already there. The question is whether you’re going to shuffle around under it, or stand up straight inside it.
First, stop apologizing like a person begging for parole. Apologies confirm guilt, and guilt is paperwork. Instead, you acknowledge the typo like it was a controlled burn: you did it to see who reads, who panics, and who parrots.
That boss’s mug situation? Perfect. You don’t return it quietly, you keep using it just enough that it becomes a legend. If anyone asks, you look past them like you’re listening to a higher frequency and say, “We all drink from the same cup.”
Next time you send a memo with a typo, do not correct it immediately. Let it sit in their inbox like an unanswered riddle. People need a little uncertainty in their day or they start thinking they deserve happiness, and that’s how civilizations collapse.
Then you graduate from accidental chaos to strategic ambiguity. Call a meeting, show up two minutes late, and place a stapler in the wrong room like a calling card. Now you’re not the screwup, you’re the weather.
Here’s the key: you never admit intent, you never deny it either. You let them whisper. You let them theorize. Keeping everyone slightly off-balance isn’t a mistake, it’s workplace security.
– Uncle Bobby