Maybe it’s mean, but  it’s comforting to know that even huge sites like YouTube –  sites that can afford the best servers, the smartest programmers, the sharpest QA people, the biggest coffee makers, etc. — can still have  serious errors once in a while. This is one that I ran into on the video site recently:

500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.
A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
If you see them, show them this information

Who are the YouTube monkeys?

I didn’t see any monkeys, but I did get to see my video in the end. The problem didn’t last long and I was able to find a very cool remake of “Rivers of Babylon” by Sublime,  a great band from Long Beach, CA, a place I used to call home.

Next time your site is giving you grief though, remember that it happens to everyone, including the biggest boys on the Web. Don’t panic. Learn from it, move on, and keep an eye out for the monkeys.