It’s April Fools’ Day. The one day a year when the office idiots feel duty bound to pull sh*t jokes on everyone.
But if you thought the ‘cling film over the toilet’ trick by Dereck from Accounts was bad, just look at what Google tried to pull.
Someone at Gmail thought it would be a great idea to get into the April Fools’ spirit and make a cheeky little addition to their email service for April 1. It really wasn’t.
They basically added a Minions-inspired ‘send and mic drop’ feature to emails. So when you sent an email it could add a hilarious GIF of those irritating yellow characters dropping a mic to signal the end of the conversation.
Hilarious if you hadn’t inadvertently clicked it on an email to your boss, new business client or potential employer.
The Verge explains that the new button replaced the ‘send and archive’ function which allows users to usefully close out a conversation and store the email string away for records.
So anyone used to using this normally-helpful function, running on autopilot, may well have been unknowingly firing off Minions on their email sign-off.
Some were reporting a bug which sent the GIF even when using the ‘send’ button.
If this doesn’t sound too bad to you, then Andy Baio mocked up a nightmare example of how wrong this cheeky prank could have gone for Gmail users…
WHAT A HARMLESS APRIL FOOL'S JOKE, WHAT COULD GO WRONG pic.twitter.com/Maw8a6VUSA
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 1, 2016
And for some people it apparently did…
Strange, none of these people seem to share the Gmail team's sense of humor. https://t.co/12tIQvgrEM pic.twitter.com/60VAp4SZ5P
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 1, 2016
This woman sent a prayer request to 50 friends and family. After realizing what she sent: "I was mortified." pic.twitter.com/ObyPMpJ94M
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 1, 2016
Google keeps the laughs coming! 24 more hours to go! pic.twitter.com/6WOjjGiZS4
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 1, 2016
Google were forced to take it down after a few hours, after a flood of complaints from people who had been firing off similarly serious emails with a daft Minion attached.
The internet giant apologised on this Gmail blog: “Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. ? Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.
