Stupid Things I Have Heard At Work 6

[AnotherHiggins]

I've been thinking about starting this thread for a long time....

My company has recently gone through some pretty major layoffs. As a result, a lot of my reliable sources of stupid-things-I-overheard-at-work stories are now gone. But I have collected some pretty outstanding stupid-people stories.

I don't have time to list them now, but here is something from an email that was just sent out to literally thousands of users in the company.

.... All and all, we are on track....

This is followed by five paragraphs that seem to have been lifted straight out of a Dilbert cartoon, replete with more buzzwords than you can shake a stick at (stick-shaking is a common standard of measurement here in the South).

Any good examples you'd like to share?

[tt]_____
[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
[tab]-George Bernard Shaw

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[manarth]

An expensive spelling mistake

A spelling error in last month's education white paper meant it had to be reprinted the day before publication at a cost of "just under £23,000".

Education minister Lord Adonis, who made the admission in a written reply, blamed "minor drafting errors".

A slogan was mistakenly spelt "Higer Standards, Better Schools for All".

Liberal Democrat spokesman Baroness Walmsley said this raised questions about the "standard of literacy" among some Whitehall officials.

you'd think, on a £23,000 print run, they'd proof read it!

<marc>
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[GwydionM]

Spell-checkers check spells, presumably. However, even a spelling-checker would have missed those.

One million Google hits for spellchecker. 2.1 million for spell checker. Is something being hidden from us Murgles?

PS. I also found 130 references to speling checker

------------------------------
An old man who lives in the UK

 

[Zathras]

I just did a spell check in Word on that BBC quote. It flagged "Higer" as incorrect and suggested "Higher" as an alternative. But of course, that is the U.S. version of Word so perhaps things are different across the pond.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Apparently, Aussie newspapers have a 'proofing' problem as well..

This headline:
Stocks higer as rates hole

seems off, somehow.
Full article here:

http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17114938-5001024,00.html

To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[BJCooperIT]

Found this interesting site TranslationDirectory regarding typos:

Years ago, I learned of an intriguing Chinese cultural custom. I don't know if it still exists. When a Chinese person wrote a letter, the writer always made one deliberate spelling mistake. This was meant as a sign of humility, to acknowledge that the writer did not consider himself a perfect human being. Other cultures have similar customs, leaving works flawed to show that only God is perfect.

That is my excuse form now on!

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant Developer/Analyst Oracle, Forms, Reports & PL/SQL (Windows)
My website: Emu Products Plus

 

[Stella740pl]

... the writer always made one deliberate spelling mistake. This was meant as a sign of humility, to acknowledge that the writer did not consider himself a perfect human being.

I would say, this shows arrogance more than humility. So the writer thinks, that, unless he makes one deliberate mistake, his writing would otherwise be perfect and no flaws can be found? How overconfident.

 

[LFI]

So the writer thinks, that, unless he makes one deliberate mistake, his writing would otherwise be perfect and no flaws can be found? How overconfident.

I would say that the writer makes the deliberate mistake JUST IN CASE there are no other mistakes.

I'd say that the side benefit (or, perhaps, the original intent) is that the reader is extra attentive to the text, looking for the spelling eror.

Fun!

--Dave

P.S., Yes, I misspelled 'error' on pupose! (<--that too!)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
O Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!

 

[SkipVought]

I learned in a World History class, that many of the great master painters did the same thing -- marred their paintings in order that it would NOT be perfect.

It always seemed rather presumptuous to imply that apart from a deliberate blemish, the author considered the work to be PERFECT.

Skip,
[sub]
[red]Be Advised![/red]
The band of elderly oriental musicians, known as Ground Cover, is, in reality...
Asian Jasmine![/sub]

 

[tgreer]

Those Google stats on "spell checker" vs. "spelling checker" prove the point: "spelling checker" is correct. The majority is always wrong, or so everyone says

T.

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

 

[Stella740pl]

...deliberate mistake JUST IN CASE there are no other mistakes.

That IS EXACTLY what's arrogant in the whole thing!
So they do believe in the case of no other mistakes and consider the possibility of their work and themselves being perfect - of course by pure chance! Besides the spelling mistakes, there can be stylistic and many other kinds.

It always seemed rather presumptuous to imply that apart from a deliberate blemish, the author considered the work to be PERFECT.

Ditto.

On my very first job, an older friend/coworker/mentor once taught me to never ever consider a recently found programming error (of any nature) to be the very last, and the work to be completely done and closed. Any found error should always be considered at least one before last. No matter how many errors have already been found, and how perfect and finished a project seems to be, there always can be found at least one more flaw. So far, I was never able to prove her wrong.

Why it would be different with writings/paintings, etc?

 

[grande]

From now on, I'm going to make sure there's at least one error in all my programs, just to show humility.

I just figured it out! That's what Win98 was!

-------------------------
Just call me Captain Awesome.

 

[Stella740pl]

I just figured it out! That's what Win98 was!
You mean, each of the programmers involved made just one intentional error?

From now on, I'm going to make sure there's at least one error in all my programs, just to show humility.
Oh. Then yours must be perfect indeed ;-). I know mine already have, but it either not detected yet, or not urgent enough for me to drop everything and go fix it.

By the way, don't you have users you can rely on to help you experience humility?

 

[SamBones]

That reminds me of a quote I heard once...

If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.

Or something like that.

 

[djbjr]

OK Ive got one.

About six months ago one of our Oracle programmers had to fix a bug she had installed earlier that week.

Once she fixed the procedure, she ask the DBA to re-move the procedure to production.

The DBA then removed it from production.

This procedure was for scheduling jobs to run so it was a pretty big mess.

We then got a memo that the word remove is no longer to be used in either contexts.

 

[tsdragon]

My boss sometimes can be a real wit. His wife, Jeanne, is our CFO (it's a small company). We also have a relatively new networking tech named Eugene. The other day my boss and I were talking and his wife walked by. My boss told her: "I love you, Jeanne." She told him she loved him too. Then he said: "No, I said 'I love Eugene'."

(Fortuntately she has a good sense of humor.)

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[tsdragon]

Just remembered one of my favorite Microsoftisms. I actually saw this on some MS program's popup dialog:

Press Enter to Exit


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[r937]

this sentance has three erors



r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[GwydionM]

Check twise

------------------------------
An old man who lives in the UK

 

[SantaMufasa]

this sentance has three erors

So how many erors have people found?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[

http://www.dasages.com:

Providing low-cost remote Database Admin services]
Click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips if you use Oracle in Utah USA.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

I see four right off the bat.

[tt]_____
[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]

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