Have I said “You can’t make this stuff up” in the last six weeks or so?

No? Cool. You can’t make this stuff up.

In case you needed a cautionary tale about workplace communications, here is a doozy.

Jovan Thomas was a liaison for crime victims and witnesses with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. On January 26, his boss (DA Brooke Jenkins) sent an email calendar invitation to all employees about an event commemorating the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was brutally murdered in Wyoming in 1998. Mr. Thomas replied to his boss's calendar invite as follows:

“What color are your panties?”

Yes, that's what he said to his boss.

Did I mention that he replied to all? He replied to all.

Right after he replied to all, he realized his mistake. He sent an email (again, to all) apologizing and saying that his email was supposed to have been a text to a friend of his.

According to Mr. Thomas, he was “laid off” the day of his unfortunate email, and a couple of days later, that “layoff” was converted to a termination for cause.

Meanwhile, somehow – inexplicably! – the San Francisco news media got hold of the email, so everybody out there heard about it.

Last week, Mr. Thomas filed a lawsuit against the SF District Attorney’s Office, DA Jenkins herself, and a cast of thousands, asserting every legal claim in the book: Invasion of privacy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, defamation, violation of California Labor Code Section 1050, negligence, intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress, fraud and deceit, etc., etc., etc. For the most part, it was related to the fact that someone in the DA's Office allegedly shared Mr. Thomas's "panties" email with the media. There were also public statements saying that Mr. Thomas's email was "misogynistic" and that it violated the DA's Office code of conduct. 

And then it got even worse, because somehow the media also found out that Mr. Thomas had been sued in 2018 for allegedly taking advantage of a woman who was participating in his crime victim and witness program. That also got reported in connection with the email incident. (The plaintiff in the 2018 case sued Mr. Thomas but then dismissed him from her lawsuit, and her claims against San Francisco were later dismissed by a court on the ground that San Francisco was not legally responsible for Mr. Thomas's alleged conduct, assuming it occurred.)

Mr. Thomas alleges in his current lawsuit that all of this bad publicity about the email and the woman's lawsuit has made it very difficult for him to find another job, in addition to causing him to suffer severe emotional distress. More details, including copies of the emails, are available here.

Back to the panties

Anyway, back to the "panties" email, which is what I really want to talk about. Here is Mr. Thomas’s side of the story, as stated in his lawsuit:

He is a straight male who had a straight male buddy who was in New Zealand burying his deceased father. According to Mr. Thomas, the buddy “was distraught and grieving the death of his father,” and the intended “what color are your panties” text was meant to cheer up Mr. Thomas's grieving friend.

Ooookaaaay . . .

Mr. Thomas said that he was texting with this “distraught and grieving” straight male friend, and while they were texting, the calendar invitation from DA Jenkins about the Matthew Shepard memorial came through. Mr. Thomas thought he was texting his friend about the panties, but accidentally sent the “text” as a “reply all” email to DA Jenkins and everybody else in the DA’s Office.

Dear readers, now I must ask for your help. How could you be texting someone and accidentally send the text via email? I don’t even understand how that could happen. Granted, I'm a boomer.

And why would you try to provide consolation to your distraught and grieving friend – “a straight male who did not wear panties,” as the lawsuit helpfully notes (I am not kidding) – by asking what color his panties were?

On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't judge. I don't know about you, but I have accidentally replied to “all” on an email when I didn’t mean to, and I was embarrassed and apologized. Fortunately for me, it wasn't about anyone's panties, and my apology was the end of it.

Four tips

So let’s give Mr. Thomas the benefit of the doubt here, you haters. What can we learn from his mistake(s)?

No. 1: Business and pleasure don’t mix. Don't be texting (or emailing) salacious content during the work day. Of course, you may have to reply to a personal text during the workday once in a while. But avoid the nasty stuff while you're at work. Accidents can and do happen. Keep it clean during work time.

No. 2: Personal texts and work-related emails don’t mix. You probably have to use different applications to send a text versus an email. My work-related email is Microsoft Outlook, but I text only using Messages from Apple and only on my personal devices. OK, once in a blue moon I've "chatted" using Teams, but that was 100 percent work-related. Whatever applications you use for text messaging, it is a good thing to have your own private account on your own private devices where you can say whatever you want (within reason). And then use Outlook or whatever for work. If your texting and work emailing apps are separate, you are much less likely to accidentally email a text with personal content to someone at work. Assuming such a thing really is possible.

No. 3: "Reply all" is an abomination. I understand that every now and then, we have no choice but to "reply to all." But not nearly as often as most of us do. Use "reply all" only when you absolutely have to.

No. 4: If you mess up despite my great advice, come up with a plausible excuse. Examples:

• “Panties”? Oh my gosh, I meant to say “pansies”! Aren't you a master gardener? That's what I've heard, anyway. Darned autocorrect!
• “Panties”? I am so sorry – that should have been “pants.” When I saw you this morning, I couldn’t decide whether your very professional-looking pantsuit was khaki, ecru, or Urban Putty. Darned autocorrect!
• “Panties”? Sheesh, silly me. I meant “panes.” Didn’t I hear recently that you had a stained glass window installed in your front door? Darned autocorrect!

In other words, make autocorrect your panties -- er, I mean, patsy.

Or, if those are too far-fetched, how about this?

“Please forgive me – I thought I was emailing my wife (because I’m a straight man, as you know). Her name is Brenda June Thomas, and her email address is bjthomas@aol.com. So it starts out just like your email address, and I guess after I typed in “bj,” Outlook took care of the rest. Darn it! Anyway, Brenda had told me she’d purchased some new lingerie at Neiman Marcus. She said that she got a lace teddy in cyan, so I was wondering whether her panties were the same color. Not that I, as a straight man, would care about anything like the color of women's lingerie, much less know what "cyan" is. I just wanted to show my wife that I, a straight man, loved her.”

I'm just kidding about Tip No. 4. Don't lie. 

It will be interesting to see what comes of this lawsuit. My bet is on the DA's Office for the win. Even in California.