Don't use fake quotes in draft emails. Especially if you're calling your opponent an asshole.
There are many good reasons why designers use the fake-greek text "lorem ipsum..." as placeholder text. Among them, because the alternatives are bound to lead you into trouble.
A few years back, a friend in higher education told me that her college had to reprint tens of thousands of dollars worth of those glossy viewbooks because they failed to swap out a fake promise of "millions in water polo scholarships."
And now, the Kansas campaign of Jim Slattery for U.S. Senate has been embarassed (and suspended a staffer) for accidentally sending a broadcast email with a placeholder quote:
John from Dodge City shared this,
"Pat Roberts... is an asshole"
Seriously, folks. Remember the first rule: Don't do anything that might get you fired. From the Topeka Capital-Journal:
A campaign aide for U.S. Senate candidate Jim Slattery was suspended today for sending to thousands of people an e-mail containing unflattering comments about Republican rival Pat Roberts.
And don't blame the technology. The technology didn't magically put those seven letters together. More from the C-J:
In the follow-up explanatory e-mail, Staples said "technical issues on the part of our software vendor" contributed to a "system malfunction" that automatically sent the draft document to e-mail accounts.
As the C-J editorialized:
As self-inflicted wounds go, the e-mail blunder by Jim Slattery's campaign staff was a doozy. ...[T]he campaign stumbled in citing computer problems for the gaffe.
Whatever.
It's hard to believe a computer was at fault for someone typing an offensive word on a keyboard and saving the document.
What's harder to believe is that anyone in the public eye would still include such a term in a computer document, especially an e-mail. ...
It remains to be seen how much the issue will hurt Slattery's campaign, but it certainly didn't help. At worst, it makes the Slattery campaign — and, by reflection, Slattery himself — look amateurish and poorly organized.
'Nuff said.
Team Slattery, now that you've taken your lumps, get back to work. Just 70 days or so to beat Pat Roberts.
Kari Chisholm | September 1, 2008 | Comments (4) |
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Posted by: fsdf | Mar 19, 2009 8:34:30 PM
Just a thought, maybe it was deliberately sent to sabotage the candidate.
Posted by: Tom "Carpal" Nicholson | May 26, 2009 11:28:11 AM
Or maybe it was a way to create publicity. Bad publicity is still publicity. :)
Posted by: Tom | May 26, 2009 11:31:16 AM
好秘书 我爱皮肤 中国公文网As self-inflicted wounds go, the e-mail blunder by Jim Slattery's campaign staff was a doozy. ...
[T]he campaign stumbled in citing computer problems for the gaffe.
Whatever.
Posted by: fasd | May 29, 2009 1:24:44 AM
