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My automated email welcome series sent 500 copies to the same person
It happened last Tuesday when I forgot to set a limit on the loop. The poor guy got a 'Welcome!' email every 5 minutes for two days straight. What's the dumbest way your automation has ever broken?
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umaanderson6mo ago
My test server once sent 12,000 password reset emails to our entire company mailing list because I mixed up the test and live database flags. I was the one who wrote the bad check, just like you said, but I spent an hour blaming the email service before I checked my own code. It's so easy to point at the tool when the real problem is in the logic we built on top of it. Your car example is perfect, we built a system that ran on bad instructions.
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troyh556mo ago
You said "automated email welcome series" but that's not really what broke. The automation itself was fine, it just did exactly what you told it. The bug was in the logic you wrote that forgot the limit. I've done similar things where I blame the tool when really I just wrote bad instructions for it. It's a small difference but an important one to get right when you're fixing the problem.
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lisa_carr6mo ago
Wait, are you saying the automation itself didn't break? That's a good point, but I still think calling it a broken welcome series is fair shorthand. Sure, the logic had the bug, but the end result was a broken experience for the user. The tool did its job, but the system as a whole failed because of my code. It's like blaming a car for stalling when you put in the wrong fuel.
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