TIFU by hitting reply instead of forward on an email about someone I was about to fire

I was a manager, and there was an employee I'd been building a case to let go of. It had been going on for weeks — performance conversations, documentation, HR in the loop. Everything above board and, honestly, entirely justified.

He emailed me about something routine. I don't even remember what. I went to forward it to two other people on my team with a bit of commentary, because I was tired and frustrated and I wanted the release valve of saying something unprofessional to people I trusted.

What I typed was some variation of "can't wait until this idiot is gone."

What I hit was reply.

I noticed roughly four seconds after sending, which is exactly long enough to be useless. There's a particular feeling when you realise what you've just done and your hand is still on the mouse — like the floor has quietly been removed but you haven't started falling yet.

He read it. Of course he read it. He replied. Then it went to HR, and the fairly clean process I'd spent weeks building suddenly had my own words sitting in the middle of it, and I got to spend a series of meetings explaining a sentence I'd written in about two seconds.

The thing that still gets me is that I was right about the situation. It was the correct decision. And I handed him the one piece of evidence that made it look like the whole thing had been personal all along.

I don't write anything in an email now that I wouldn't be happy reading aloud in a meeting. Not because I've become a better person. Because I know I'll press the wrong button again eventually.

TL;DR: Meant to forward an employee's email to my team with "can't wait until this idiot is gone." Hit reply. Sent it to the employee I was about to fire, days before firing him.