coworker trashed me in the group chat. plot twist: wrong person.

ok so this genuinely happened and I still think about it.

I work at a midsize manufacturing company, not a huge corp or anything, just your standard place full of old-school kkondae¹ energy. Been there 3 years. My team is me, a few people who started before me, one newbie, and the team lead. We're not close. Strictly work talk. Especially the team lead, he's kinda prickly so nobody even dares to gossip around him.

My job is design. Honestly? Not that much work. Meetings, reports, listening to the team lead say the same buzzwords on loop. "Future-oriented design." "Customer satisfaction." "Creativity." I used to watch everyone else doing overtime and think lol I'm kinda killing it.

Anyway. One day after a meeting we were getting coffee and my coworker Minji (fake name) suddenly goes "oh your hair looks cute today!"

My brain just. Stopped.

Because Minji does NOT compliment people. Ever. She's got zero social awareness on a normal day. So why is she suddenly being nice?? Something was up. I could feel it.

I went back to my desk but the vibe was off. Like I could feel someone watching me. Kept side-eyeing her. Bad feeling in my gut.

Fast forward a few days. Team group chat. Normal work stuff. And then Minji drops this:

"honestly I think OO's design skills are complete trash. always making weird designs, barely talks in meetings, totally incompetent."

In the GROUP CHAT. With my name.

I literally stopped breathing. And then??? Other teammates started replying. "fr" "agreed" "100%".

I'm sitting there like am I being bullied in real time?? In a work chat?? I wanted to march up to her desk and scream. But I didn't. Tried to stay calm. Started spiraling. What did I do wrong. Did I mess something up. Was there something I didn't notice.

BUT HERE'S THE TWIST.

Turns out. The OO she was talking about was NOT ME. There's another person at our company with the same last name as me. She was trashing THAT OO. She just didn't double-check the name before sending.

I was SO mad. Like all that panic and hurt for NOTHING. I wanted to scream into a pillow.

And the cherry on top? The other OO is actually way better at her job than me. So if she's the one getting called "weird designs, incompetent"... what does that say about me??? I instantly became insanely jealous of her. Like irrationally. AAAAAA.

Minji realized and posted in the chat "OMG SO SORRY I MIXED UP THE NAMES IT WASN'T OOO IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE!!"

You should've SEEN the faces of everyone who had agreed with her. Pure "oh god" energy. Even the team lead snapped at her like "Minji, be more careful next time."

Everyone asked if I was okay. I didn't know what to say. Half laughing that I almost cried over nothing, half seething with jealousy at the other OO.

After that Minji started being WEIRDLY nice to me. Buying me coffee. Complimenting me. Coming over to comfort me when I looked stressed. It was so forced. So uncomfortable.

And the worst part? Now I avoid the other OO. Can't even make eye contact. I just shrink. It's not her fault. I know that. But still.