Leave your IRC client
set to away for a day, and then check your private chats later that night.
It's amazing some of the strange banter you get:
[someuser] hi..
[someuser] yesterday we completed the network config change in all servers, and now network part is clear
[someuser] ;P
[someuser] ;P
[someuser] :p
[someuser] please ignore above 3 lines
For the record, I was helping a fellow admin out with configuring a series of bonded interfaces for a server (7 connections - 3 bonded, one not).
I take it the first two lines of the message tells me it's been completed.

The next 3 lines were meant for someone else, whilst the last the user recognised what they had done.
The lesson for today: Check which window you're in before typing.