On Thursday a large number of HBO Max subscribers received a mysterious email. The subject line read “Integration Test Email #1,” and the body read, simply, “This template is used by integration tests only.” It was clearly some internal hiccup, and jokes were quick to pile up. Director James Gunn joked that it was “somehow the first step in extremely clever viral marketing for #Peacemaker.” Fun was had by all.
The streamer itself was also quick to make light of it. “We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in,” wrote the company’s social media person. They then confirmed that “yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it.” In other words, no one got fired for a dumb thing most people will forget in a day or two.
Everyone else had the same idea. Rather than dunk on the mystery intern (if it even was an intern), people tried to provide comfort. Some pointed out that, you know, s*it happens.
Hope the intern knows we're cheering for them, we've all been there :)
— Adriana Porter Felt (@__apf__) June 18, 2021
HBO Intern, you are breathtaking! I mean it! Congrats on making your first big mistake. It's like a right of initiation for us developers
HT to @_workchronicles pic.twitter.com/8SsQNiXBBr— 👍 Charles C. Pustejovsky III (@CCPustejovsky) June 18, 2021
https://twitter.com/jaylynstoesz/status/1405957502911410176
Even Monica Lewinsky herself weighed in with some calming words.
dear intern:
it gets better.
♥️
ps. don’t wear a beret for awhile, k?
— Monica Lewinsky (she/her) (@MonicaLewinsky) June 18, 2021
And a lot of people shared similar stories of accidental blunders.
Dear Intern, I was using my desktop calendar to make a monthly note of when I started my menstrual period, but after several months I realized I was making that note on a calendar I shared with all of my colleagues company wide. I was 37 years old.
— Caissie (@Caissie) June 18, 2021
As an intern I dropped a table in a prod database. I decided to resign immediately, packed up my stuff and went to tell my boss. She was talking to the CEO of the company so got terrified and went back to my spot to find out connection expired before it could run.
— @jcchavezs@mastodon.social (@jcchavezs) June 18, 2021
Dear intern,
I once globally took down Spotify. It almost happened twice. My team was awesome about it and I'm still here. You managed to find something broken in the way integration tests are done. It's a good thing and will help improve things. Good luck <3.
— Daenney (@daenney) June 18, 2021
Dear Intern,
I once didn’t recognize then-VP George HW Bush and almost didn’t let him into a meeting…in the Cabinet Room. Of The White House. Where he worked. 🤷🏼♀️
He was actually as gracious as HBO Max Help appears to be being…you’ll be fine.— ͏Postcards4USA 🟧 (@postcards4USA) June 18, 2021
https://twitter.com/Ali_Rehmatullah/status/1405908920024059910
Dear Intern,
It's an email. At least you didn't erase the entire Community Access TV station's chyron graphics archive on accident.
Signed,
A Broadcast Engineer who once erased all the chyron graphics at a Community Access TV Station by accident when he was an intern.— Mark "Noodles" Kewman (@mkewman) June 18, 2021
Dear intern,
It’s ok. I dropped a prod database when I was a senior engineer. These things happen more often than you might think. Building good systems is about having resilience against human mistakes. Because we, humans, always make mistakes.
— Jaana Dogan ヤナ ドガン (@rakyll) June 18, 2021
Dear Intern,
I once auto-populated a mass vet email from @morris_animal to list the constituents as their “dogs name” instead of their first name and it got the best email response ever. A mistake turned into a new marketing process when we sent mass emails.
— James Harper (@JHarperMedia) June 18, 2021
As an actual hired employee I changed the last name of everyone at the company in the HR system to “Holland”. A change which required them to restore the database from a backup.
This was during my first week.
❤️
— Burke Holland (@burkeholland) June 18, 2021
Dear Intern, when I was 25 I made a PDF assigning each employee to the Muppet they reminded me of the most. I meant to send it to my work friend, but I accidentally sent it to the entire company. My supervisor (Beaker) wanted to fire me, but the owners (Bert & Ernie) intervened. https://t.co/zMKvQ6nxjj
— aerin (@AerinChevyFord) June 18, 2021
Some pointed out that they might have actually done good.
To the intern:
Hi! 🙋🏿♂️
I'm an Engineering Director on Google Play. Our team's systems send the emails for the Play Store.1. You'll be fine! As replies show, everyone breaks production!
2. Congratulations on helping your team find missing guardrail features and capabilities!👍🏿
— Mekka 💉x7 @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io (@mekkaokerekebye) June 18, 2021
https://twitter.com/TinkerSec/status/1405864707777515525
https://twitter.com/AubryAndrews/status/1405880049891487750
And some pointed out that failing is a great way to learn, provided, of course, that you do learn.
https://twitter.com/edward_of_clt/status/1405879747687727105