Today: I spot a misspelled word. Spell check didn’t pick it up. It is an actual word. This is a formal work email. The faulty word: pooped. The sentence reads: ‘I’ve just pooped your request in the …’ The sentence should read: ‘I’ve just popped your request in the…’ Bang head on desk. Snort and chuckle to self. Proceed to make amend. Send email.
A year ago: Spell check done. All clear to go. This is a formal work email. I spot a misspelled word. Oh pants. The sentence reads: ‘I’m having a busty day…’. The sentence should read: ‘I’m having a busy day…’ Bang head on desk. Snort and chuckle to self. Proceed to make amend. Send email.
Last week: Spell check done. All clear to go. Send. Email gone. Ping back moments later. Response reads: ‘Who is Jeff?’ * Feverishly empties out contents of sent folder * Ahem, discovers that email should have been addressed to ‘Trevor’. Pulls chair and self up from floor. With a bruised head proceeds to respond: ‘Apologies Trevor…’
A month ago: Spell check done. Email sent. Then… two weeks later while having lunch with colleagues I have a memory-recall moment, out of the blue. Everyone tucked around the table gawks at me. Suddenly I remember an email I’d sent a couple of weeks previously. I snort and chuckle and want to bang my head on the table. I don’t, there’s a bowl of curry staring at me. In the email I sent I’d invited our long-standing courier service to be the official transport provider at a fundraising event. The event was a high-profile ball. Sure, it would be entertaining to see people in ball gowns squeeze into the back of a clapped out courier van. I should have sent the invite to our long standing taxi service to be the official transport provider at the event. Both companies are based in the same city, and both provide a vehicle operated service. Does that save me from insanity? I suspect the courier service is still figuring out whether to provide transport by offering upturned plastic crates in the back of their vans, or provide an open rooftop service with rope handles just as a measure of good fun?
15 years ago: Working in a newspaper’s classified team taking adverts telephonically. Wired up with telephonic contraption over head. In the process of taking an advert from a soft spoken chap. Read advert back to him to confirm wording. Thumbs up, proceed. Advert appears in newspaper. Advert should have read: ‘Local DJ with widest range of music.’ Instead, advert reads: ‘Local DJ with wildest range of music.’
Same period: Accountant calls up to advertise his services in the classified section of the local paper. Advert appears in newspaper. Advert falls under ‘Livestock for Sale’. Advert should have appeared under ‘Business Services’. Somewhere in Africa there’s probably a grunting accountant still sheepishly looking for a buyer.
Do you muck up too? Or am I the only one constantly on a blip roll here? Think I need to invest in a fluorescent jacket and keep a hazard triangle several yards from my desk.
