It's no laughing matter!

Many years ago, we experienced a minor breakdown on a server during a software update.

We realized that it would take a while to fix, so we updated the site with a message.

I wrote something like:

The site is down for maintenance. We hope to be back up in a few minutes.

And then added a smiley.

Nothing fancy, just this one -> 😊

After a few minutes, I received a call from my manager. He had seen my message and was not happy – Not happy at all! Why? Because of the smiley!

"It's no laughing matter!”, he said - quite upset.

The story reminds me to this day of how perceptions of a text - or a symbol - can vary from one person to another. From being a friendly apology to … a mocking message?