Re: WANTED: Dumb Tech-Writer Stories

[Leanne Rollins <leanne -at- mitra -dot- com>]

I probably shouldn't admit to this one, but it's really funny.

A few years back I was a tech writer co-op student working at the head
office of a large corporation. It was my first co-op job, and I was all
eager to take on any extra responsibility they wanted to throw my way.
One of my tasks was to send out broadcast email messages to all of the
stores throughout the country. These message detailed price changes,
corporate policy updates, etc.  One night I was working pretty late, and
a bunch of my friends were waiting for me to finish up one last
broadcast email before going to a nightclub. I was typing furiously, and
my friends were all laughing and talking around me. The message detailed
a price change in sheep manure, and when one of my friends asked what
the message was about, and I replied "It's about the price of sheep
shit". Without reading the results of my hastily typed message, I fired
it off to all the stores, then went to the nightclub blessedly unaware.

Unaware of what awaited me the next morning. I got a phone call from the
owner of almost every store, congratulating me on my great sense of
humor! A little hungover, I wasn't sure what the first, or the second,
owner was talking about. I quickly re-read the email message I had sent,
and arrrgh!%$. Just at the point where I told my friend what I was
typing, I brain-dumped "shit" right into the header of the message:
"SHEEP SHIT PRICE CHANGE". Oops.

Fortunately, everyone who received the message thought it was highly
amusing. When I left the job at the end of the term, my boss framed a
copy of the sheep manure message for me, as a keepsake. It still makes
me laugh every time I look at it.

LMG