Woman Accidentally Responds to a Funeral Message With Skull Emoji

We've all been there. You're at work and you do something totally embarrassing. Maybe you're new to the office and you aren't sure where to eat lunch so you vent on TikTok about your situation and then your coworker awkwardly messages you to tell you she saw your video. Or maybe you accidentally deleted your store's entire inventory. It happens to the best of us.

But most work mistakes don't usually have the potential to offend someone about a deeply personal issue. And most mistakes don't involve emojis, but this woman's did. One woman took to TikTok to fill us in about the mortifying emoji mixup she had with a coworker while working from home.

When working from home, there are so many things that could go wrong that probably wouldn't happen if you were in the office. For example, maybe someone forgets to turn their camera off during a call and then everybody sees them shirtless. Or maybe someone forgets to mute themself during a call and then everyone hears them moaning.

But it's not too often we hear about a remote work faux pas with emojis.

TikTok creator @gingerisfreckling took to the platform to share the embarrassing and insensitive mistake she made while working from home and using Microsoft Teams.

"I just made the worst mistake I've made in three years of working from home. Three weeks I've been on this team. A coworker posts that she's going to be gone on Monday to attend her brother's funeral," she says.

@gingerisfreckling explains that her team is very keen on emojis and she's been trying to adapt. "I search for something that's like a support or a hug. Oh my gosh, I must have pressed enter as I was searching because it was a skull. I reacted with a skull," she exclaims.

@gingerisfreckling claimed she "lost oxygen" and "blacked out" after seeing what she unintentionally did. She then changed it to a heart emoji as quickly as she could.

But @gingerisfreckling knew someone probably ended up seeing the skull reaction. And she was right.

The coworker who posted that message privately messaged @gingerisfreckling and assumed she was laughing about the funeral. @gingerisfreckling explained herself and the coworker told her not to worry about it. (Phew!).

But understandably so, @gingerisfreckling couldn't just shake it off.

In the comment section, people felt for @gingerisfreckling.

"Omg girly I would be sending in my resignation immediately I could not deal," wrote one user. A second user said, "The way I would immediately pass away from embarrassment."

Meanwhile, another user claimed they likely would have made a similar mistake. "My toxic trait is I wouldn’t have read it fully and said 'have a great time' before it processed lmao," read their comment.

Others claimed that they found comedic relief in @gingerisfreckling's mistake. "I lost my mom in March and if any of my coworkers had done this it would have given me a needed laugh…it also would have given my mom a laugh," said one user.

While it looks like @gingerisfreckling got out of this incident unscathed, we can only imagine this might haunt her forever. In response to one user in the comments, she teased "[I] can't wait for this to come up in my annual review."