?!

I’m beginning to think so. I work hard to make sure that when I publish something for work (which means that I am getting PAID to publish), I do everything I possibly can to make sure that my product/document/etc. is free of basic misspellings and/or grammatical errors. Most of the time, I’ll solicit coworkers to review my work before I determine that it’s final so that I don’t end up looking like a schmuck somewhere down the line.

What I’m realizing, though, is that I apparently don’t need to try so hard. In fact, there are people out in the REAL WORLD that are getting paid to publish, even if there are mistakes. Would you like some examples? Here goes:

First, I noticed this in an examination room at a “prompt care”-type hospital clinic.

The picture isn’t totally clear, but the text reads: “We also need to tell us: …”. Really?! They forgot an ENTIRE word from that line, yet they went ahead and published the documents as it was. I’m guessing that this particular hospital made at least a couple thousand copies of this one sign/document, and I hope that I’m not the only one that noticed the mistake…

Second, I saw this one on the interweb:

Yep, that’s from a local news station’s website. They forgot to change the verb into an adjective for that headline. It ALMOST makes sense the way that it’s written. Almost.

Lastly, this one is from a calendar that is published by the gym that I attend, which just happens to be partially owned by the same hospital that had the FIRST mistake in this post:

Really? So… on “Member Appreciation Day” I, a member, am welcome to attend the gym for free? How innovative!!! Oh. Wait. They meant to say NON-members. My Bad.

I fully realize that I have made plenty of mistakes here on my blog, but that’s just it – it’s MY blog. I don’t get paid a single dime for posting here (although I wouldn’t be offended if anyone wanted to start a collection for me J ) so I don’t mind if I let a few mistakes slip in here and there. I just don’t know how people can hang on to their jobs as writers and/or publishers with these types of glaring mistakes.

It’s almost like the weathermen/women. They get paid to guess about what the weather might be like over the next few days, and they get to keep their jobs whether or not they were actually correct. Unbelievable.