Yes, they did really say that…
[Those of a sensitive disposition, look away now!]
I ran an event recently for a group of purchasing managers, discussing the proposal process – and sharing thoughts on how they could engage bidders more effectively and write better RFPs. (The unofficial sub-title of the course is “What Jon wishes he’d known when he worked in procurement”!)
The conversation turned to proofreading, and one of the buyers shared her most embarrassing mistake in this regard. She’d just led the evaluation team on a major tender, and was presenting to the Board with their recommendations.
She clicked onto the slide titled: “Weighting and Ranking” – only to find that she’d accidentally swapped around two very important letters….
It reminded me of the all-time worst proofreading error I’ve seen in a proposal – which, fortunately, was noticed at the very last minute. The team was bidding to a major city’s “Mass Transit Authority”. Some content contributors had decided to merge the two words together – “Masstransit”. And a document manager, tight for time, had simply accepted the word processor’s recommended correction.
The result? All the way through the proposal, the bidder had referred to the customer as the “M*sturb*te Authority”.
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Public without an ‘l’ is really bad . . . this was published in a not-for-profit newletter. The organization offered services for disadvantaged youth . . . . I can’t remember the exact context, but something was up for a vote of “pub*c approval” . . . Yikes!
Our parent company recently asked me to do a marketing survey for a new company they were forming. It was for an online company that would let individuals shop for private health insurance as an option to COBRA. One section of the survey offered a choice of possible website names. An unfortunate typo added an ’s’ to the end of the first word and changed BenefitExchange.com to benefitsexchange.com.
I had a similar experience many years ago… sales manager decided to ‘craft’ out his own covering letter and send it to a potential customer…
in the address it had something similar (names changed to protect the innocent)
Mr J Bloggs
Chief Buyer
ACME products
15 high Street
BEDFORDSHI*E
instead of befordshire
I called the customer to explain that there had been a typo and although at the point in my life had never been to bedfordshire, I am sure it was that bad of a place to visit….
Barbara, that is hilarious!!!!