The company introduced what it called "Gmail Mic Drop" which enables users to attach a GIF from a "Despicable Me" scene showing a minion dressed in king's clothes dropping the mic. The feature is embedded on the "Send and Archive" button, redesigned as "Send + Mic Drop" button. Google says replies to the email with the GIF will not be visible to the sender.
"Email's great, but sometimes you just wanna hit the eject button," Google explained in a blog post. "Like those heated threads at work, when everyone's wrong except you (obviously). Or those times when someone's seeking group approval, but your opinion is the only one that matters (amirite?). Or maybe you just nailed it, and there's nothing more to say (bam)."
But not everyone is happy with the prank.
A look at the Gmail Help Forum shows several complaints about the prank, with some saying it has cost them their jobs.
"Thanks to Mic Drop I just lost my job," Allan Pashby wrote in the forum. "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 offense 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."
User Justin Boxill had a similar story: "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. G****t. Not funny, google. I'm going to go cry now."
Another user named Abdus Salam also feared that the prank could cost his job prospects: "I have been interviewing with this company for 3 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!"
"April fools jokes are great fun but not when they affect my business correspondence and increase the chance of something serious occurring like not seeing my clients' responses to important emails," wrote user Online Works, followed by an expletive-filled rant.
"I sent out an important email to 30 recipients and I inadvertently clicked the 'Mic Drop' Send," wrote user AJ456. "I completely did not mean to, and I realized what had happened after the fact. I tried to resend it without that, but it was too late."
Amid the backlash, Google dropped the feature and has been responding to complaints with this statement: "Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the MicDrop 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."
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
