I just checked my e-mail for Dogs on Skateboards, my joke site. I got three e-mails asking for advice on what equipment to use (pretty standard), one e-mail asking me to post of video of their dog (at least expected), and then a real gem that is quite possibly the best e-mail I have ever received. Rather than explain the e-mail, here it is in its entirety:

Hi Curtis,

Sorry to email out of the blue… I work for Talkbackthames on ITV1′s hit entertainment show ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, which is now back for a forth series. The show gives people and animals the opportunity to showcase their talents in front of a panel of three judges (Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden). The last series was watched by nearly 20 million viewers and is hailed as one of the most successful talent shows
of this century.

The show is open to absolutely anyone – any talent, any age – and over the past three years we’ve had a huge variety of acts. This year we are really keen to showcase gifted animals… there is always space for animal acts on the show, which the judges and audience love to see. I came across your skateboarding dogs website online and would really like to get in contact with some dogs who skateboard in the UK. I would really appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction and put me in contact with any skateboarding dogs you know of in Britain?

Over the last three years we have had a singer, dancer and dance group win and although they were extremely talented there may be more unusual talent in Britain that could benefit from the opportunities they have, namely a grand prize of £100,000 and the chance to perform at The Royal Variety show in front of Her Majesty the Queen.

We are auditioning up and down the country over the next couple of months and wouldn’t want you them to miss the opportunity. You can contact me on this email or call – XXXX XXX XXXX.

Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

Louise Major
Researcher
Britain’s Got Talent 4

Unfortunately, the e-mail was sent back in October, otherwise I would respond to it. I don’t know what I’d do if they mentioned the site on the air—it’s not like there’s much to do there.

So that’s my latest brush with fame. Visit the site and share it with friends!

Lindsey, one of my employees, sent out her latest design to me and fellow manager Nick asking for feedback. I gave her some feedback, including this:

I think the users need something they can connect with on the form. I’m thinking a penguin. Could you make a penguin holding a little pennant that says, “College is cool”? I think this will speak well to the young, hip generation. The pennant should be red.

Nick came back with this:

Brandon, not sure on the penguin – but if you have any supporting data that penguins indeed drive lead volume, then I will relent.

To which I replied:

Here’s the supporting data. So you can imagine what we could do with the pennant!

I’m waiting for the perfect opportunity to use this image.

I’m getting ready to leave the following note on Liz’s desk:

Dear Liz –

The Kingdom of PPC Development hereby grants you this designer paper clip and tiny pad of Post-It notes as a peace offering in light of the events that transpired during Friday’s webinar. Curtis Hornbuckle, our court jester, has been flogged for this offense. We sincerely hope that our gift of one designer paper clip and tiny pad of Post-It notes will ensure a friendship between our two kingdoms for years to come.

Give my regards to Duchess Erica! [Liz's manager]

Brandon Gregory
The Duke of PPC Dev

We’ve been doing webinars lately to help our affiliates transition over to the new system. I was light on work today, and I found out that my dear friend Liz was going to be leading the webinar, so I couldn’t resist logging in as Curtis Hornbuckle and having a little fun. This happened in the chat window:

Curtis Hornbuckle
I am qwrite for the getting leadforms in xml. is this posible?
If I in xml format the leadform acciedentally?
API is ready yes yes?

Host
This is not something available right now but it could be in the future.

Curtis Hornbuckle
The future of leadforms?

Host
No no it is not ready.

Curtis Hornbuckle
leadforms are not ready?
Put a shoe on head

Host
Put a shoe in your mouth!

Curtis Hornbuckle
Put shoe on head and I will get you the leads!

Host
Looks like you need more work.

Curtis Hornbuckle
Oh, uhhh… What are you talking about?
I will go get you some leads!

So, you know those articles I’m proofreading at work? One of them contained a fact that looked questionable, so I decided to fact-check it really quick. I went to Google, typed in the subject, and just pulled up the first page. The good news is, the fact was correct. The bad news is, large parts of the article were word-for-word the same as the article I fact-checked against. (For the sake of the company that wrote the content, I’m not going to disclose anything.)

The best part? The article is on trademark law.

Now, bear in mind, it’s not like there’s a ton of original content and they just plagiarized two paragraphs. Well, there might be. The point is that I just don’t know. This is the first piece I’ve found without even looking for it. So now, I’ve got to stop proofing the articles and start checking them for plagiarism.

Did I mention that all of the articles deal with patents, copyrights, and trademarks?

My current task at work involves proofing a large number of articles that were written by an outside group. These were not written by professional writers, and they’ve never been proofed. Here’s some of what I’m finding:

• “a-lot” (The correct spelling is two words, and I’ve seen the incorrect one-word version, but never hyphenated.)
• “Others may be things that yow old never have thought of in your wildest dreams.” (What?)
• “Basically, society owes bucket loads to inventors because they have shaped the very ground we walk on.” (Let’s see… Redundant words, check; unprofessional colloquialisms, check; ridiculous overstatement, check.)
• “The Performing Arts, how we love and appreciate them!” (That’s the opening statement to a rather lackluster article on the performing arts.)
• “Inventing usually starts at a young age, and children usually start to become better and better investors as they grow older with time. One young inventor, Mathew Wood, said ‘I love inventing; it gives me something to do and is loads of fun.’ ” (That quote is one hell of a non sequitur.)
• “Intellectual property is defined by online dictionaries as…” (“Online dictionaries?” Bear in mind that this is an article about intellectual property that’s not giving credit to other intellectual property.)
• Hyphens in place of dashes, I can understand, but dashes in place of hyphens? Really? If they don’t know how to make dashes when they need them, how do they end up with them in the middle of words?

And all those are only from the first third of the articles. Fun times ahead!

This has got to be some sort of record for most problems encountered for a small project. I got the request ticket to add two paragraphs to a client’s offer on one of our website. Here’s a brief run-down on how the project progressed:

• Tuesday, 10:00 a.m. – Got ticket to make some content changes to a form. This will be easy!
• Tuesday, 10:15 a.m. – Discovered that we did not host the website, and I did not have FTP access to the form. Requested FTP information from I.T.
• Tuesday, 11:45 p.m. – Got FTP information from I.T. and discovered that the form is built in an unfamiliar framework and has a back-end admin section. Asked if anyone had the login information for the back-end admin section. Nobody knew it existed. Had the idea to get the password from the database. Requested database information from I.T.
• Tuesday, 12:00 p.m. – Got database connection information from I.T. Discovered that direct access to the database had been disabled. Asked I.T. to enable direct access. Should be done with this soon!
• Tuesday, 12:45 p.m. – Got I.T. to enable remote access. Discovered that password is encrypted.
• Tuesday, 2:45 p.m. – Had the idea to encrypt a new password and create a new user. Discovered that password is encrypted with an encryption key that we first had to decipher. Now cursing whoever invented this website as a form of torture.
• Tuesday, 3:30 p.m. – Got a new user login with admin privileges. Discovered that content I need to change is not in the back-end admin section. I am crushed. Back to the database…
• Tueday, 4:45 p.m. – Content I need to change is not in the database. I discover that there are three databases for this website.
• Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. – Stuck in meetings all day. Cannot work on project.
• Wednesday, 4:30 p.m. – Information is not in any of the databases. I am crushed. Back to the server…
• Wednesday, 5:15 p.m. – Found the file after searching through hundreds of files! But, since I’d be making changes to the live site, I want to make sure Proofing can get to it immediately, so I’ll put this off until tomorrow. Almost done!
• Thursday, 8:45 a.m. – Made changes to page. Got a weird error when I tried to upload the file, and it didn’t work. Computer crashed and I lost changes.
• Thursday, 9:30 a.m. – Tried uploading file through SSH. No luck.
• Thursday, 9:45 a.m. – Tried changing write privileges on the file. Did not have access to do that. Discovered that FTP user does not have admin privileges. Asked I.T. if they have another FTP account we could use or could enable admin access for current FTP user. Also demanding address of web developer so I can punch him in the face.
• Thursday, 3:00 p.m. – Got I.T. to give me access to alter the file.
• Thursday, 3:45 p.m. – Changes made! This project is done! Let’s resolve the ticket.
• Friday, 4:30 p.m. – Just got notice that client is no longer going to be running their offers through my company. WTF FML I now want to die.

We have a stock photo site that we use at work to get photos for our advertisements. We occasionally run into one that’s a little ridiculous for one reason or another. We’ve run into blonde Amazon women with spears while searching for African American females, and we’ve run into topless nuns while searching for religious photos. There are some photos that are weird because of their descriptions. This one takes the cake.

Our company just purchased a new site relating to massage therapy training and work. We’re redesigning, so we need a new logo. Here is my submission. The good news is, as we’re going to be Wii boxing to determine the winner, I stand a good chance of winning!

I recently received this e-mail at work, which was sent to the management team:

Hey guys,

I’m trying to get a feel for the structure of each team’s regular team meetings.

What do the meetings consist of?
Examples: continuing education for your team, cross training with another team, updates on client projects, etc.

If you could send me any feedback on the frequency and structure of these meetings so that I can get a gauge of this, that would be great.

Thanks,
Joe

Here is my reply:

Hey Joe –

Good questions. My team meetings are held on dates one less than multiples of three if said date is on a work day and not on a Friday. To formalize the tone of the meetings, all speech is in Latin, excepting readings from the ancient web design texts, which are in the original Greek. On odd-numbered dates, we discuss web design topics (we discuss front-end design on prime-numbered dates and development on all other dates), and on even-numbered dates, we talk about why we are here, with a focus on Existential freedom (mainly Sartre, but we delve into some Kierkegaard from time to time). All discussion of Hegel is disallowed, and discussion of any of the other Idealist philosophers is frowned upon.

We’ve also held special meetings lately to talk about the ontological impact of the Postmodern shift on the career college industry, with specific regards to Kierkegaard and gunsmithing. No official conclusions have been drawn, as we encourage each employee to exercise his or her individual freedom and choose an outcome for himself or herself.

I hope this helps.

- Brandon Gregory