Fun With Horrible Writing
Sep. 16th, 2004 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
napoleonherselfI tend to have a rather informal style of writing when it's something I'm putting online -- emails, IMs, LJ, et cetera. Half the time I'm not even using something anywhere near proper grammar. Thing is, I know how to write properly when I need to.
But not everyone does.
Behind the cut is a complaint letter written by someone else in my english class. We had to write a letter, as a representative of one company, asking another company what up with the crappy software they be sellin' us. Then we switch and take someone else's complaint letter and write a letter of apology back as someone from the software company.
So here's this guy's letter:
"
Dear Mr. Higgings: [we weren't told who exactly to write the letter "to", so while I chose To Whom It May Concern, this guy chose the instructor. Perfectly acceptable, except the instructor's name is Higgins.]
For being a steady costumer [sic] of Software Solutions for the last ten years, I would think that any software we received from your company would not cause any problems for our company. SportsText relies on your software and unfortunately we are having problems with some of the software packages. I hope that this type of problem can be resolved. We need your software upgrades maintain [sic] our business.
On July 30, 2004, I ordered twenty upgrade packages of Sports Interactive 3.0 on our company's charge account (Invoice #100289G). To my surprise I found that almost half of the upgrade packages failed to install properly. This type of problem has forced our company to have a decrease in organizing and packing our data into our computers. [wtf?]
Each software package came with unique serial number [sic] for each individual package. The software fails to recognize certain serial numbers. After entering the serial number, a pop-up shows and then says there is an "Install Failure-Serial Number does not exist. Please contact Customer Service". I contacted your customer service through the Internet and filled out a standard email service request on August 10, 2004. I heard from your company almost immediately and they informed me that the problem would be fixed in forty-eight hours. Well, it has been over three weeks, Mr. Higgins.
I would appreciate that the problem is fixed in one week or I want a full refund for the software that we purchase. [sic]
Regards,
"
MY EYES, IT BURNS
But not everyone does.
Behind the cut is a complaint letter written by someone else in my english class. We had to write a letter, as a representative of one company, asking another company what up with the crappy software they be sellin' us. Then we switch and take someone else's complaint letter and write a letter of apology back as someone from the software company.
So here's this guy's letter:
"
Dear Mr. Higgings: [we weren't told who exactly to write the letter "to", so while I chose To Whom It May Concern, this guy chose the instructor. Perfectly acceptable, except the instructor's name is Higgins.]
For being a steady costumer [sic] of Software Solutions for the last ten years, I would think that any software we received from your company would not cause any problems for our company. SportsText relies on your software and unfortunately we are having problems with some of the software packages. I hope that this type of problem can be resolved. We need your software upgrades maintain [sic] our business.
On July 30, 2004, I ordered twenty upgrade packages of Sports Interactive 3.0 on our company's charge account (Invoice #100289G). To my surprise I found that almost half of the upgrade packages failed to install properly. This type of problem has forced our company to have a decrease in organizing and packing our data into our computers. [wtf?]
Each software package came with unique serial number [sic] for each individual package. The software fails to recognize certain serial numbers. After entering the serial number, a pop-up shows and then says there is an "Install Failure-Serial Number does not exist. Please contact Customer Service". I contacted your customer service through the Internet and filled out a standard email service request on August 10, 2004. I heard from your company almost immediately and they informed me that the problem would be fixed in forty-eight hours. Well, it has been over three weeks, Mr. Higgins.
I would appreciate that the problem is fixed in one week or I want a full refund for the software that we purchase. [sic]
Regards,
"
MY EYES, IT BURNS
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 06:23 pm (UTC)We are sorry to hear about the trouble you have experienced with installing our product. We do, however, note that "almost half" of the upgrade packages we sent to your company contained a digit "1" or "0" in their serial numbers. I recommend that you instruct your employees not to use "l" and "O" (letters) in place of these numbers and try reinstalling the software.
We also regret that our service department did not respond to your request in a timely fashion. However, be assured that we will respond to your original E-mail as soon as we can find a tech who can read it without bursting out laughing and having to be hospitalized as a result. Inspired by a Monty Python sketch, we've had some of our support staff attempt to run the letter through Babelfish many times, hoping to remove whatever deadly property it contains, but the translated version turned out to be fatal. We will, of course, send invitations to the funerals of the affected employees at your request. It has also been forwarded to the fine folks at Rinkworks services in the hopes that they can find a more productive use for your inquiry. Keep them in your prayers.
We also do appreciate the sports uniforms your company has graciously provided us over the past years. Our sports outings have benefited a great deal from your costuming efforts. We hope you will continue to purchase Software Solutions products and learn to use computers as effectively as our test Rhesus monkeys. (We think we may be within a few days of the last act of Hamlet. They got rather hung up about the killings and still can't spell "Rosencrantz" correctly, but then my name is not "Higgings", so I'm sure you understand the difficulty. I had quite a time myself when first trying to enter your name, ", into our database... the computer seemed to insist upon letters being in the customer name.)
- Higgins
Head Cheese
Software Solutions, a division of Pennand, Inc.