Sometimes the best intentions will get you nothing, or worse.
It seemed like an innocent enough little promotion on the radio station I worked for 30 or so years ago. You would say the name of some one, usually drawn from a phone book at random and wish them a happy day. The intent was that they or their friends would hear it and would get a bunch of well wishes from the radio stations listeners. It would make the happy day person feel good and it would spread word of mouth about how great the radio station was. And it worked like a charm. Until that one fateful day.
I had just announced the happy day name for the second or third time. The studio phone lit up and I answered in my best radio voice. You never knew when it might be a groupie! “Is this that station that wished so and so a happy day just now?” the voice on the other end wanted to know. “Yes it is!” I replied, confident I was about to be thanked profusely. “Well so and so can’t really have a happy day.” The voice said. “Why is that?” I wanted to know. “Because he’s been dead for ten years now.” Was my answer.
It seems that whoever was in charge of finding the names was using a OLD phone book.
I think we continued to do the happy day deal for a while but we were sure the verify life first.
It seemed like an innocent enough little promotion on the radio station I worked for 30 or so years ago. You would say the name of some one, usually drawn from a phone book at random and wish them a happy day. The intent was that they or their friends would hear it and would get a bunch of well wishes from the radio stations listeners. It would make the happy day person feel good and it would spread word of mouth about how great the radio station was. And it worked like a charm. Until that one fateful day.
I had just announced the happy day name for the second or third time. The studio phone lit up and I answered in my best radio voice. You never knew when it might be a groupie! “Is this that station that wished so and so a happy day just now?” the voice on the other end wanted to know. “Yes it is!” I replied, confident I was about to be thanked profusely. “Well so and so can’t really have a happy day.” The voice said. “Why is that?” I wanted to know. “Because he’s been dead for ten years now.” Was my answer.
It seems that whoever was in charge of finding the names was using a OLD phone book.
I think we continued to do the happy day deal for a while but we were sure the verify life first.
No comments:
Post a Comment