The Wrong Group Chat
A free B2-level English story for language learners, readable online in 7 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
Serena accidentally complains about her manager to the entire department instead of her close friends, and has to face him before the day ends.
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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."
She meant to complain about her manager, Anwar, in the first one.
"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."
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.
She scrolled up. The message sat there, fully visible, in Team Updates. Anwar was in Team Updates. Everyone was in Team Updates.
"Oh no," she said out loud, loud enough that Nadine looked over from the next desk.
"What?"
"I think I just sent the fonts thing to the whole department."
Nadine's expression shifted from amused to genuinely alarmed in under a second. "Delete it. Delete it right now."
"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."
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.
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."
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."
Anwar actually laughed at that, longer than the moment probably deserved, and told her to go home before she embarrassed herself any further.
