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Previous: Voice mail interface | Main | Next: 9-11 Commission search
April 7, 2005 12:05 AM
Broken: (Just for fun) Store receipt
Jim Grusendorf writes:
Stopped at Safeway on my way home, and picked up a jar of "Skippy Peanut Butt". Mmm...my favourite.
On Saturday, we picked up some Easter treats at Zellers, including, apparently, "Yellow Pee" (Peeps). Also, the "Lying Bunny" is a stuffed animal, which we haven't found to be at all dishonest so far.
most receipts end up like this unfortunately.
after buying lots of food at a wholesale club, i wondered how much some of the stuff cost.
looking at the receipt, however, left me wondering instead what i had bought instead of how much it cost...
My guess would be that the full names are in the system, but the software just truncates the strings for the receipts. The Yellow Pee is about as perfect as a glitch gets, though. :)
I had a machine parts invoice once for an assembly of some sort - I don't know what the full actual name of the part was, but the printed version was "Watch Dog Ass" (I'm going off memory here, but I believe this is accurate).
Let's hear it for truncation!
Forget the "just for fun," this is definitely broken. Not just because of the funnies. On the first receipt, what is a two-piece set of "overa"?? With proper abbreviation, we wouldn't have to make as many wild guesses.
I while ago I dug up a old receipt of mine that just said "SCUBACOW". I couldn't figure out for the life of me what that was, but it was $80 or so...
In a similar fashion:
I work at Hot Pepper Studios, but when I call home and my wife looks at the Caller ID on our cordless phone, she knows she's getting a call from her "Hot Pepper Stud".
Auto truncation is bad. At the very least the systems should be able to back track to the last space character in the string.
In a similar fashion:
I work at Hot Pepper Studios, but when I call home and my wife looks at the Caller ID on our cordless phone, she knows she's getting a call from her "Hot Pepper Stud".
Auto truncation is bad. At the very least the systems should be able to back track to the last space character in the string.
Did anyone see the red lobster post? I saw it on my.yahoo, but when I clicked the link it was gone. Now I see no mention of it in the feed.
Oh, If I was to guess, I would say that a Watch Dog Ass is a Watch Dog Assembly. Depending on the watch you can have dog ring gears and crystals that then wind your watch from your movement, not relying on batteries or a quartz movement.
When my broter-in law comes to Las Vegas he always stayes at Binions Horseshoe Casino and Hotel. He calls the house and the caller ID shows "Binions Horese". I thought that was cute.
Re: Watchdog Ass:
This is why "Assembly" is *always* abbreviated as Assy.! Avoids a whole class of problems.
Some supermarkets you can tell that it's not that the receipt is truncated, but that there is a limitation in the database: you get items like "SS HMG MKGR".
I like the Wendy's (North American fast food chain) Sour Cream and Chives baked potato. It shows up on the receipt as "SCRM POT." Not a bad abbreviation, but it's funny to hear the cashier holler "One Scrampot!" to the people in the kitchen.
One screen of the payroll system at work truncates the department to 9 characters. Thus we have a few people working in the Final Ass department.
Here's a funny one that was featured by Jay Leno.
http://www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/headlines/H_2746/30.html
I think it's really supposed to be an album by the group "Crystal Method."
My favorite purchase ever was a garment that showed up on the receipt as "Casual Hose." I was in college at the time, so you can imagine the juvenile titters that inspired.
I have laughed my ass off at you people. i never have payed much attention to receipts. i watch when they ring it up. so i usually throw them away, unless it's important then i stick it with the box.
i'm going to start though.
thanx to everyone i was in a bad mood until i read this.
I was buying a chocolate box for mother's day called a "Pot of Gold Premium Assortment." Can anyone guess what it was abbreviated to on the receipt? That's right. Heart of Gold Premium Ass.
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Previous: Voice mail interface | Main | Next: 9-11 Commission search
One has to wonder whether the people performing the data entry that ends up on supermarket receipts think about how best to abbreviate product names to prevent the occasional off-color double entendre. I used to work for a company that had to abbreviate its procedures in a UNIX system that had severe character limitations, and had to change one when I saw that our admin had shortened "Moisture Analysis Test" to "Moist Anal Test."
Posted by: Tim at April 7, 2005 09:26 AM