Look, I don't want to come off as judgemental, but it really wasn't funny. He was genuinely afraid of bees, perhaps bordering on a phobia. Whether that's a "rat

Look, I don't want to come off as judgemental, but it really wasn't funny. He was genuinely afraid of bees, perhaps bordering on a phobia. Whether that's a "rational" fear or not isn't important (although the epipen/adrenaline makes it sound like it's quite rational; people can die from bee strings), people have all kinds of fears and they almost never find practical jokes about them "funny". Even worse, you put him in the extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing situation where the entire office was laughing at him over it. It sounds like an absolutely horrible situation for him. "What do you expect out of hiring people in their early 20s?" is a lame excuse. A 11-year old? Sure. A 21-year old should know better. We all make errors in judgement, but this really was a spectacular error, and some "official" response was entirely warranted.