OHSHIT: Unfortunate and awful story title & email subject line
41When something goes terribly wrong here at Mediocre we draft up internal memos called “OHSHIT REPORTS”. We use OHSHIT REPORTS to help share details across the company about what went wrong, coordinate work across teams for how we’re going to fix it, and dive deep into root causes.
Today’s story title was originally 'Til Death Do Us Pulse, and the daily email went out with that line as the subject. We’ve gotten a few emails waking us up to the (now obvious) unfortunate connection to the terrible mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.
I’ve changed the title to “Blend” instead. I’m sorry we had that headline and email subject line, and I take responsibility for not seeing that connection.
Sending this as the email subject line was even worse than the home page headline, as there wasn’t the follow-up wedding story connection to help clear up its meaning. In the future we’ll be reviewing the story header and email subject line in our morning meetings and make sure we have additional people checking the content before it’s emailed out.
- 18 comments, 21 replies
- Comment
Oops
Thanks for being real people, who make mistakes and admit them, and apologize, and fix them. I must say, the OHSHIT reports from spectacular computer fails are much more fun. Could you arrange one of those, please? We need a clown act to take our minds off politics.
@OldCatLady you mean I’m not watching a clown act?
@RiotDemon OHSHIT…I thought we were watching an episode of PUNKED!?! That makes it more like “AWWW SHIT!!”
As the guy who wrote it, I just want to say I’m really sorry about that title. I should’ve caught the obvious connection, but I didn’t, and made people feel bad with an unwanted reminder of a truly awful event. I hate it when that happens to me, and I hate to think I did it to anyone else. I’m sorry.
@JasonToon we forgive you.
@JasonToon This is a very responsible post; thank you.
Glad to have our stand up team respond to this. Many here missed the accidental connection including myself. Hopefully anyone offended will see the correction. I’d like to add my apology as well. Thanks @dave and @JasonToon for the quick work.
@snapster I did not make the connection either.
Whoa, thought that I broke meh for a minute. Glad it was just @snapster doing a shitty @ job.
@jason ha. yes. oops.
I blame
/goat
@medz The blame may be better directed to next month’s goat.
Count me among the clueless on this one. I didn’t get the connection until I read this thread.
@djslack Pretty sure I’m still missing some pieces, but I appreciate how this was handled.
@salaosantiago Pulse was the name of the nightclub where the Orlando shooting took place.
@0armada By a homosexual defense government contractor of Afghani descent, who owned weapons legally as a part of his job & was frustrated by his Latino lovers & took up radical Islam as a result. He also made a point not to kill African-Americans by the way. It’s like a holiday for tolerance.
@serpent Huh?
@baqui63 I think you meant to say @serpent -
@mfladd Well, yeah. But I try to be a bit tactful, at least initially.*
*Unless I’m really pissed off about something. Then a anything is possible and full-on thermonuclear response is already locked and loaded.
Also, the phrase “locked and loaded” has always bothered me… doesn’t one load BEFORE locking, regardless of whether said lock is wrt to the breech or the target? If so, shouldn’t it be “loaded and locked”?
@baqui63 No one has ever accused me of being tactful, unfortunately.
@mfladd Me either. But I can dream, no?
Are folks actually that thin-skinned? And would they believe that Meh was actually referring to the nightclub deaths in such a manner?
@lwheatcraft it’s not about either of those things. no one thinks Meh would do it on purpose.
it’s about bringing up a painful memory so soon after the event occurred.
@carl669 So people in China shouldn’t say ‘Carl’ for how many weeks?
@MrsPavlov eternity, although I suspect ‘fuck’ would elicit more violent reactions.
Some folks look to stir anger and take offense. Best not to give them opportunity.
@MrsPavlov i’m guessing the Chinese are over my visit by now hopefully. then again, i am asian, so they should be happy they had someone to bargain with instead of all the crazy tourists paying full price at their stands. i literally had one woman yelling at me, “no! not enough money!” who else would have brought her so much entertainment?
Hey Meh,
How about selling a Nice Truck next?
Whatever.
I hope this resolves anyone’s concerns seeing as I’m certain most people including myself would of never picked up on that connection in the first place
Honest mistake. Thanks, guys!
Wow! Someone made a mistake… admitted it, fixed it and sincerely apologized. This must be some new age cutting edge technique of resolving issues. This needs to be distributed to those who find blame in others for their mistakes. Or, meh… you know, whatever
You’re good! Thanks for the apology.
/giphy you guys rock!
Huh, a David Mitchell gif. Didn’t expect to see that on Meh. Ever.
To the whole meh crew: you are all good, kind-hearted, genuine people, and in the end, only kindness matters.
One of the many reasons I love meh.com. Thank you for recognizing the potential hurtfulness and addressing it.
lwheatcraft dismisses insensitive feaux pas that do hurt feelings and ssanc153 flippantly conflates complaint with blame. For those who don’t understand why “death” and “pulse” in the same email subject line as part of an unrelated joke could hurt feelings, read this, it’s what my mind went through and made me feel shitty all day: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-orlando-pulse-nightclub-shooting-timeline-htmlstory.html
Oh, and serpent, you may think you’re funny or informed but you’re not.