Saturday, December 22, 2007

dumb moments in business

I don't have anything too original this weekend. We leave to see family for the holidays tomorrow morning, so rather than taking the time to compose something fresh I am leaning on an article I read recently.

Fortune posted its list of 101 dumbest business moments of 2007, though I have to say that calling all of them business moments is quite a stretch. Even so, here are some of my favorites.

#7: Toilets Combust
A Japanese company named Toto offered repairs to thousands of its customers' toilets after three of them catch fire.

#13: Not Such a Small World
The "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland has to be closed so that the water channel that passenger boats travel on can be deepened. This has become necessary because the ride has been getting stuck when loaded with heavier passengers.

#22: Death of Cold
A funeral home in Scotland has to address reports that employees used the ashes of some of the dearly departed to spread over slippery sidewalk ice. The employees didn't go as far as Keith Richards (#28) claimed he did, though, when he stated that he snorted his father's ashes.

#38: Is Your PC Running Too Well?
An IT security consultant takes out a Google ad with the text below. Over four hundred people click on it.
Is your PC virus-free?
Get it infected here!
#51: They Took Candy from Her Too
When a nine-year-old girl sent a letter to Steve Jobs with ideas of how to improve the iPod Nano the response was a letter from Apple's legal counsel telling her not to send any more letters.

#53: Ouch
A Japanese arm wrestling game breaks three people's arms.

#58: Which Border Should We Head To?
Taco Bell advertises in Mexico City that it does not pretend to serve Mexican food.

#59: They Made It up in Volume
Radiohead puts an album online and asks people to pay what they think the music is worth. Less than forty percent of people who download pay anything.

#66: Your Other Left
Three different patients have operations on the wrong side of their heads in one hospital in one year.

#69: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
A whistleblower alerts Exelon Nuclear to people working on a security contract sleeping on the job. Exelon then gets rid of everyone on the contract, including the whistleblower.

#75: Can't Get Rid of the Old Man Smell
A homebuyer who got the house from a bank who had repossessed the house finds the previous owner mummified inside the house.

#87: It's in the Bag
SkyWest is forced to apologize to a passenger who had to urinate into an air sickness bag when he was disallowed from using the restroom.

#99: She Must Not Have a Sub-Prime Loan
The senior vice-president of marketing at Century 21 predicts that the 2007 housing market will be one of the best in the past 30 or 40 years.

1 comment:

Achtung BB said...

Some of those are pretty good. I'd like to know how a toilet catches on fire?