Monday, February 16, 2009

Stupid Is As Clients Does

Terry S - You were the Valentine's Day drawing winner! Please email me through my website (janadeleon.com) and provide your mailing address and who you would like the book autographed to, and I will send out your Valentine's package.

So last week I talked about stupid interviews, and I was going to segue into stupid bosses this week but I had a situation come up with a client about a week ago and I just had to share. I'm a technical writers for a software company at my day job, and I wrote a set of custom documents for one of our clients. The product that the documents were for is one that produces pdf printouts with barcodes that you fax along with backup and the system automatically files it for you in a digital storage system. Very cool if you do a lot of paperwork (especially government). Since we had no way of knowing whether printers would be available in every classroom, I printed out the pdf scanning documents and merged them into my training guide so that they could see an example and the instructor could explain how to organize the pdf copies along with their original documents before scanning.

So I get an email from the training manager wanting to know if I have the original pdf's used for my training guide because the clients would like to have the digital file. I said I did but I was not in the office that day, could they wait until Monday. He thought so and I figured we were done. A little while later he emails again. This is what he said (paraphrased):

You are going to get a laugh out of this one. I got an email from one of their managers saying that they were going to have an employee scan the pdf files and attach them to an email to send to me so that I knew exactly which documents they wanted.

I emailed back and asked "At that point, what would I be sending back?"

I almost fell off my chair laughing. So the client wants a digital copy and they're going to SCAN the document (thus making a digital copy) to tell us which digital copy to send them. Wow! So far that is the Stupid Comment of the Year. Might take a lot to best that one.

So any of you work with clients/the public? Got a stupid story to share?

Deadly DeLeon

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL! People are so strange!

Nothing work-related but I saw a headline in a CNN news email I get that stated "Plane crash reports worsen flying phobias". Gosh, ya think? ROFL!

Terry S said...

That is hilarious. Sometimes I wonder what people use their brains for because it certainly appears it's not for thinking!

Hey, Jana, I did email you through your website last week when you announced I won your Valentines Day Blog and have done so again this morning using your Contact Me form. Did you get it?

Wendy Roberts said...

Thanks for the morning laugh! Stupidest moment I've seen lately was a woman standing outside her car freaking out because the remote on her key chain had a dead battery and she couldn't get it to unlock the door. I pointed out that she still had the key. It never occurred to her to use it lol!

Keri Ford said...

Ugh. I worked in a resturant and we had some guy order a rib sandwich (not on our menu and ordered during the busy time). We tried explaining to him that the bones were in the ribs. He said that was fine and to add lettuce, tomato, onion, and whatever.

We never figured out how he at that sandwich exactly.

Jana DeLeon said...

LOL Tori - nothing like stating the obvious on a national news channel, eh? Gee, I would never have known that otherwise!

Jana DeLeon said...

Terry - maybe they take them out and play with them. :)

I will check again. I am wondering if I have an email problem. If so, I'll let you know. Thanks!

Jana DeLeon said...

LOL Wendy - You don't even want to know how many times that happens now - especially with all the new-fangled car entry systems. But really? Are you ten? Have you never seen a key before? :)

Jana DeLeon said...

Keri - now that's just plain weird...unless he eats bones or was taking the sandwich to his dog?????

Christie Craig said...

Jana,

LOL.

I worry about our race sometimes.

CC

Jana DeLeon said...

Me too, Christie!

Unknown said...

This is hilarious, you have made my day! ROTFLOL

Jana DeLeon said...

Good Virginia!!!! Providing people with a laugh is what I live for. :)