When you catch a major mistake by a brand, the first words out of our mouths are, ‘Oh, someone’s getting fired.’ Knowing that making a mistake is stressful for employees, especially interns, most of Twitter rallied in support of the HBO intern after the recent event.
HBO intern sends an email
What had happened was that the intern at HBO Max rolled out an email accidentally. It was sent to a number of its 44 million subscribers. The recipients were initially confused so they started sharing screenshots of it online. HBO Max immediately took notice. They responded with a tweet clarifying the situation. It was mentioned that the intern had done it and that they were helping them through it.
“it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it.”
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
Dear Intern
After this, the internet was overloaded with ‘Dear Intern,” tweets. And all of them were super supportive of that intern. In fact, they even started sharing their own experiences of when they made a super major mistake.
I mean, just imagine making a menstrual calendar and that being shared with all colleagues.
The point of all those tweets was to make sure that the intern does not resort to self blaming and slip into depression.
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
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 logged into a Prod server to check for anomalies and saw user "root" was logged in. I killed "root" and that meant killing 30 banks Mobile Banking access. Mind you I was in Church, I should have paid attention to the Pastor. Fyi it was my boss that logged in😂😂😂— Bright Mawudor,PhD (@BRIGHTZEED) June 22, 2021
Dear Intern, here is a time i caught netflix having a production data issue. pic.twitter.com/Ysvfgr3ehS
— Benjamin (@bsautner) June 18, 2021
I’ll raise you one. pic.twitter.com/REuX5QvCRm
— Katie (@KatieMeeks2) June 18, 2021
Some of these tweets were most definitely hilarious and some just incomprehensible. How can a company let go of adding a murdersome tone description to something as light hearted as sponge on?
As someone who has already made their first major mistake, I can definitely attest to this. It does seem like the world would end, or that you would get fired but that does not happen. The first major mistake serves as your initiation into the ranks. It is the mistake that makes you bolder. You become more comfortable at taking risks. At the same time, however, it tells you the limits of what you shall not cross. And as an employee, you make sure you stay well within the limits.
If you were in place of HBO Max, how would you have reacted? Also, what do you think the HBO intern must be going through? Would it be all glitter and roses even within the office or would he be getting bullied by the senior employees? Let us know in the comments and we’ll sure to add them in the article. Until then, do share your own version of the ‘dear intern’ tweet.
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