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 🙂
— Adrienne 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
Dear intern,
I woke up to that email this morning and immediately thought, “oof – been there buddy.”
We’ve all broken production! Besides, as a great boss once told me, if you never make mistakes you’re not really trying. It’s gonna be ok! pic.twitter.com/TSAunSFXu4
— Jaylyn Stoesz (@jaylynstoesz) June 18, 2021
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.
— José Carlos Chávez (@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
Dear intern,
My first FT gig as a FE was @Wayfair where my first deploy to production code was to create a shimmering animation for the Sale menu item. But there was a naming collision for the keyframe animation that I wasn’t aware of…
Recreated it below.
It happens 🙂 pic.twitter.com/6L9hUJ8ae4
— Ali Rehmatullah (@Ali_Rehmatullah) June 18, 2021
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.
— JBD 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
*My Mask Protects You* Okereke (@mekkaokereke) June 18, 2021
Dear Intern,
Every rule and every policy/procedure has a story like this behind it.
Good job being part of the discovery of a new vulnerability. You’ll be part of the solution to prevent this from happening again!
(Let us know about your next finding!
)
— Tinker Secor (@TinkerSec) June 18, 2021
Dear Intern,
By sending out Integration Test Email #1 (It passed btw) might be the best marketing that @hbomax has ever done. Congratulations! Get yourself a beer, or two. https://t.co/Par26ZNFE4
— Aubry Andrews (@AubryAndrews) June 18, 2021
And some pointed out that failing is a great way to learn, provided, of course, that you do learn.
Dear Intern,
An engineering manager once told me, “Experience is what you gain from wins, wisdom is what you learn from losses.” Congratulations you just earned some wisdom!
Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid of not growing. I’m proud of you.
A Platform Engineer
— Eddie Herbert (@edward_of_clt) June 18, 2021