An odd piece of correspondence from Microsoft to intern recruits has gone viral as of late.
Microsoft, one of the tech industry's older mainstays, sent many prospective interns an email on July 5th regarding a company event in San Francisco named “Internapalooza.” The email started with the greeting “Hey Bae Intern <3”, and went onto say there would “be hella noms, lots of dranks, the best beats and… we’re breaking out the Yammer beer pong tables.”
The correspondence ended by saying, “Hell yes to getting lit on a Monday night” in all caps.
Many have called out the email to have been a poor attempt on Microsoft’s behalf to appear cool, while others have simply commented that certain parts make no sense.
For example, “drank” usually refers to a formula that includes cough syrup that is used to get high, as opposed to a drink.
There has been some speculation that the email was not really from Microsoft, but this speculation was shot down by an official apology from a company representative, who stated:
"The email was poorly worded and not in keeping with our values as a company. We are looking into how this occurred and will take appropriate steps to address it."
It was worth noting that this isn’t the only controversy that Microsoft has been involved in during the past few months.
In March, Microsoft’s attempt at a deep learning chatbot named Tay ended in the AI repeating racist and otherwise offensive remarks.
Microsoft became embroiled in additional controversy that month over dancers who were inappropriately and offensively dressed at an Xbox party on the heels of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
It is safe to say that Microsoft will approach correspondence with millennials differently in the future.
