Our first of what we believe to be many Dookies in the Pool!
Sometimes people tend to take themselves just a wee bit too seriously. For example, lets take a look at an actual letter that was received at a very well respected New York based company from an irate gentleman located somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line:
Gentlemen,
I have received my last insult from your organization.
The next letter will come from my attorney. This may be amusing to you but it is very embarrassing and quite disturbing to continue to receive mail addressed to #### F*ck. My secretary has called on several occasions and asked you to re-address this letter. (The mailer in question not a letter it was actually a catalog which was returned with this nastygram attached. The address on the nastygram was misspelled as well but somehow made it to the correct address. Perhaps someone at his company F**ked this up–Ed)
The irony is that ##### ######## Corp. promotes itself as a ########## ####### with expertise in ######### Communication and ##### #########. How can you send mail out like this and promote yourselves as ######## in ######### and Tact? What a joke!
Let me put it very bluntly. Keep sending this profanity and be prepared to defend yourself legally. (People would pay good money to see this case in a courtroom. Could Judge Judy Pay-Per-View be on the horizon?–Ed)
Seriously and Sincerely,
#### *. F**k (Anonymity protected–Ed)
Not
#### *. F*ck!
It turns out that this well-respected company had purchased a mailing list based on stringent demographic criteria. I have been assured that profanity as a part of the last name was not one of the criteria. When informed of this irate letter, the company in question took the following actions:
1. The Director of Sales called immediately to apologize. Mr. F**k Not F*ck refused to take the call so the Director of Sales left a message with his secretary stating that the matter was being looked into and that a follow up call would be made later that day.
2. The Marketing Manager discovered from the source code on the returned catalog that the name & address had indeed come from a rented mailing list. The name and address were immediately removed from the list and the list broker notified.
3. The Director of Sales followed up later that morning. Once again Mr. F**k Not F*ck refused to take the call. The Director of Sales explained the situation to Mr. F**k Not F*ck’s secretary, stated that the issue had been rectified, the list broker notified, apologized once again and made a very generous offer to Mr. F**k Not F*ck. To date, Mr. F**k Not F*ck has not called back to take advantage of the company’s offer.
Does this qualify as a Dookie™ in the Pool? Sure it does–a small manageable Dookie™ for the company in question and a much larger Dookie™ for Mr. F**k Not F*ck.
Had Mr. F**k Not F*ck understood that people make honest mistakes and had the gumption to call himself, he could have had a very good time with the people answering the phone at the company in question and a come away with a very good story to tell. Imagine the possibilities: Hello this is Mr. F**k Not F*ck. I’d like to speak to the CEO/VP of Marketing/VP of Sales etc. immediately! I’m sure you can take it from there. Instead, this guy gets the business twice; Once with his name incorrectly spelled on the catalog and again here on the Internet.
What more could the company have done? Not much really. We can’t plan for every possible scenario. Sometimes a Dookie™ slips into the Pool unnoticed and all you can do is shrug your shoulders, make sure that it doesn’t happen again and admit that you F*cked Not F**ked up.