Editor’s (Rachel’s) Note: I wrote this blog a week ago and have been agonizing over publishing it. I know it’s silly to agonize over a blog post – I’m paranoid about keeping my blog as G-Rated as possible. I just hate being offensive in any way. So what I finally decided to do is to replace the one offensive word in the post with “salt” – my reason in picking “salt” is because, as I have published before, when Ali says salt, it sounds like the word I am replacing it with. Confusing, I know, but it will make sense once you read the post. I hesitated in replacing the word because of the fear that the post would lose all of its humor, and so it might, but I think I’d rather risk writing an un-funny post than an offensive one.
One more note: Ali learned “pepper” the other night also, and ironically, the way she says it has the same meaning as the way she says salt. So now she says “(salt) and poopoo”.
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I don’t know how I let this slip by unblogged, but I had a very significant “professional” event happen last month. May 28th was my 10 year anniversary at Slappey Telephone!! I started working for Slappey when I was 16 years old – right at the end of my Junior year in High School. I started as a file clerk in the accounting department. I worked part time through the rest of high school and college, gradually becoming an accounting clerk, and gaining more and more tasks. When I graduated, I became the accounting “Team Leader”, and a year or so after that became the Accounting Manager. A few years of managing and I gladly demoted myself back down to part time, taking my favorite parts of my job (HR and Payroll) home with me when I had Ali. I have worked during her naps ever since, and take Ali and go into the office once or twice a week for an hour or wo, which Ali thinks is a complete treat for her!
So, to celebrate my decade of service at Slappey Telephone, I thought it appropriate to relay my most hilarious memory at Slappey. For anyone that knows Bill Slappey, I’m sure that you can imagine that there are MANY funny and outlandish moments. That is true. But there is one that sticks out in my mind, and still makes me laugh out loud EVERY time I think about it or re-read it. And oddly enough, Bill Slappey had no part in it. I’m not sure he even knows about it. It was an email. A very unfortunate email. One that I still search for in my saved mail at least once a year just to laugh myself silly.
It was May of 2001. There was a salesman that had worked for many years at Slappey and that was known for being loud, boisterous and a bit rash with words. He also sometimes failed to look back over his emails before he sent them. Let’s call him “Oscar”. Let me say that this email was a COMPLETE accident and he was QUITE embarrassed by it, although he was able to laugh at himself enough to admit to it. Also, all emphasis and capitalizing is original – I simply copied and pasted it exactly as it happened, except for the above noted one word replaced with “salt”. The following correspondence took place between him and a customer, who happened to be the secretary for the Pastor at a very conservative local Baptist Church:
Customer: Oscar, We wired the work area between two offices for a phone if needed in the future. It’s the future. Can you give me a price on installing just a basic phone in that office space? ASAP.
Oscar: sure….$167 for the basic phone and $100 labor….BUT…….if you want…..we can simply SALT TO YOU A PHONE AND YOU CAN PLUG IT IN YOURSELF. We probably made it HOT, but I would have to look at the paperwork to see. IF IT IS HOT, all you would have to do is plug in the phone and it would work. you want me to send you out a phone??
Customer: Oscar, Careful with your spelling! Can I come pick up a basic phone today? I can come around lunch time if you have them in stock.I will never forget that moment.
p.s. – the word he was trying to type was “ship”
