Software house breaches Council Race policies...
I used to work for a software house which made bespoke systems for councils - these were nice little earners - 25-75k/year, so we would work hard at getting everything *just so* for that all important first sales pitch in front of the great and the good of the council.

So we are all set up and ready to demo to a large council. The system is hooked up to a Barco so is in glorious Gianto-Vision on a screen, very important so that everyone can read all the words. The first of the dummy records is called up, and an audible gasp comes from the audience.

It would appear that our rather unreconstituted Directory of Marketing has decided to key some test data into the system, so the first person in the database would appear to be:-

"Mr Zippah De Doo Dah"
10, Am Dat Wate'melon Street"
Blacksville
Darkie Town"

...he'd been busy because the next few were, shall we say, similar. Oddly, we didn't get the contract.
(Mousy Tongue ...Generally bemused by life..., Sat 27 Oct 2007, 12:52, 2 replies)

Always check the details
As a certain very large software company found out to its cost.

Seems that they released all the Spanish software without really checking the helpfiles properly.

Someone who *did* check it, long after release, kindly informed them that Spanish/Latino ladies didn't like to be referred to as 'Bitches' when it came to descriptions of their gender.

Cue one large apology and a prestigious grant-maintained library situated in Madrid courtesy of a certain software philanthropist picking up the Bill.
(Fanta Menace Is tall enough to see over the fence, Sat 27 Oct 2007, 14:03, closed)

Memory Sticks
My company was demoing it's HR software a while back, the presentation was stored on the salesman's memory stick.

Salesman turns up, puts stick in laptop, sets up projector screen and is somewhat crestfallen when the file listing on the memory stick is beamed up in front of a packed conference room and visiting company's HR department.

Apparently "schoolgirl anal.wmv" raised a little controversy.

Bizarrely, we got the contract...
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 29 Oct 2007, 10:35, closed)