April Fools’ jokes have a habit of being more annoying than funny lately, and Google seems to be leading the pack this year with their ill-advised joke on Gmail.
At midnight, the company introduced a ‘mic drop’ feature – a spin on the send button which sends a Minion mic-dropping GIF at the end of your email.
Google announced in a post: “Everyone will get your message, but that’s the last you’ll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won’t see it.”
Basically, Google decided to place the mic-drop option on every users ‘compose’ window in a place that could very easily be accidentally clicked.
You can probably see where this is going.
The message was meant to humorously convey that the sender was leaving the conversation, but some users said they accidentally sent it to bosses, clients, and other people who may not appreciate a mic-dropping minion.
One man posted his experience on the company’s Gmail help forum, titled ‘Will Google give me a job?’:
Thanks to Mic Drop I just lost my job. I am a writer and had a deadline to meet. I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her. I inadvertently sent the email using the ‘Mic Drop’ send button.There were corrections that needed to be made on my articles and I never received her replies. My boss took offence to the Mic Drop animation and assumed that I didn’t reply to her because I thought her input was petty (hence the Mic Drop). I just woke up to a very angry voicemail from her which is how I found out about this ‘hilarious’ prank.
And he wasn’t the only one, some people took to Twitter about the ill-advised joke:
Others posted their stories straight onto Google’s forum:
One user wrote: “I just sent off an email with my resume to the first person who wanted to interview me in months. I clicked the wrong button and sent it with the mic drop. Well, I guess I’m not getting that job. Words cannot describe how pissed off I am right now. I’m actually shaking. One click, ONE CLICK and I lost the job. Goddamnit. Not funny, Google. I’m going to go cry now.’
Another forum user complained the prank may have potentially cost them a job, calling it ‘perhaps the most stupid thing [Google] could possibly come up with.’
They said: “I have been interviewing with this company for three months now and mistakenly sent the email directly to guess who? The HR! Why would you do that? I so want this job; was due to start on Monday!”
And another said the mic-drop feature cost them their biggest client.
While these bosses probably need to lighten up, it’s definitely not fair to those who have suffered over Google’s ‘harmless’ April Fools’ prank.
The company has since pulled the feature and issued an apology.
Not cool, Google.
