Sometimes, people can be so mean online. Other times, though? They’re genuinely great, nice people.
We’re seeing the latter show out in the HBO Test email fiasco. Lots of HBO Max subscribers took to the internet to figure out if anyone else had been sent a random test e-mail from the service.
The e-mail was empty and it looked sort of like it was a potential phishing attempt which, obviously, can be pretty dangerous.
No one quite knew what was going on. The email only said it was an “integration test email #1” and that the template was used for integration tests only.
Yeah, no idea what that means.
Integration Test Email #1.
Anyone else get this from HBO Max 🧐 pic.twitter.com/NuYAVvKjnI
— Eduardo Cuevas (@EduardoCuevas) June 18, 2021
Turns out we were never supposed to see this. This was an e-mail accidentally sent to subscribers from HBO Max. And, funnily enough, it was because of an intern.
We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it. ❤️
— HBOMaxHelp (@HBOMaxHelp) June 18, 2021
Whew boy. We all know how this usually goes. People never miss a chance to pile on someone’s mistake — especially when they’re an intern.
People love to make fun of bad tweets by saying the intern sent them. Which, by the way, is completely messed up and disrespectful to interns who are only trying to make a way in their respective industries.
But…that’s not what happened here. It’s not even close! People on the internet were actually nice!
They sent lots of tweets about mistakes they’ve previously made and sent words of encouragement to the intern. It was pretty awesome.
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,
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,
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
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
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
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,
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
Dear intern,
This was NOT your fault. You were just the one unlucky enough to discover a hole in your teams process. The real error was that it was possible for this to happen in the first place. The product will be better thanks to you.
— Rose W (@rose_w) June 18, 2021
honestly I feel HONORED to have received this test email!!! thank you HBO intern!!!
— Alexis Gay (@yayalexisgay) June 18, 2021
Shoutout to the internet for being cool. This was dope.
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