Excellence and Bad Spelling

I’m not anti-mistake I’m pro excellence. Today I gave a guy his toasted bagel and the bag that should have had two butters and the bagel in it. I missed the bag and dropped both pads of butter into the drawer adjoining the toaster. When the customer got the bagel he told me, “This is missing the butter.” I told him I’d put it in there. I hadn’t. That was a mistake which he noticed and I corrected. Sometimes the situations are never corrected through error or ignorance. Following is a list of errors I’ve encountered over the last month along with some others.


Sign on a cooler at work: “Don’t use this cooler. Its broke.”

On a church website, “Over the last couple of years he has severed as head usher and a board member…” At least it didn’t say he severed the Head of the church or the body of believers.

A friend in HR once received a cover letter in which the applicant wrote, “I always pay attention to derail.”

The daily schedule at work last week had the day and the form spelled out on the top line; Sadurdays Bultin (bulletin).

The unfortunate thing is that most of these mistakes go unnoticed or uncorrected. These are the small ones. It’s a problem in our culture and our workplaces that we don’t take the time and effort to pursue excellence. When a mistake happens it isn’t addressed or made right. Perhaps I’m just being overly critical. I suppose it depends on which side your bread is budderd on.

Feel free to add more examples of error in the comments!