OT: Mattel oops

[Elefantino]

Mattel screwed up. But there’s a me back story.

Twenty years ago almost to the day, on Election Day 2004, we printed a phone number for the Florida election hotline. Problem was, it was actual the number for a porn line.

Yours truly had to explain it to readers, the Columbia Journalism Review and the Los Angeles Times.

I have now passed the torch.

[makoti]

[gbcoupe]

Just marketing for their adult line of dolls.

[Spaghetti Legs]

I’m gonna have to see what all this hoopla is about.

[texbike]

Lol!

My first real job out of college was with a subsidiary of Siemens Health that focused on hearing loss. I worked for the healthcare practice management software division of the company but was based in an office that also did repairs to hearing aids from both Siemens and other manufacturers (All Make). The phone number for the office was a standard, local number but also had a special line forwarded to it that was "1-800-All-Make" for those that were inquiring about hearing aid repairs.

We had our voice mail set up to take messages after hours/weekends. Each morning we'd have to wade through a number of interesting messages that were left overnight by people trying to reach a gay porn line with a very similar number to ours - "1-877-All-Male". Occasionally we'd get a mistaken call during regular business hours as well. It probably didn't help that we answered the phone, "Siemens. How can we help you"?

Texbike