I happen to be a perfectionist in an imperfect world. I just can’t seem to help it. When the judge on People’s Court made an incorrect statement about rules of the road for bicyclists, I emailed the show’s website to set them straight. I may have gotten an automated reply but that was about it. When I saw a misspelled word on a vocational college’s TV commercial (neurodiagostic instead of neurodiagnostic), I did the same thing. As near as I can remember, they tried to sign me up for courses (but eventually corrected the commercial).

Recently, I visited a website for a manufacturer of RV repair diagnostic equipment (said company to remain anonymous). The home page had a narrative that looked like it was written by a brain-damaged chimpanzee. Just to be clear, this wasn’t a business run out of someone’s garage. It’s a company selling equipment throughout the US and Canada. Well, you know what I had to do. They had a contact form on the website and I used it. The owner and I exchanged a couple of emails. I didn’t make any specific change recommendations but told him that it certainly didn’t make a very good first impression. Here comes the amazed and astounded part. A few hours after I sent the last email (about 2 days after this saga started), I checked the website again, thinking I might count the actual errors. To my surprise, it had been cleaned up already. Most of the previous narrative was simply deleted and the remainder didn’t have any glaring grammar or spelling errors (although I would still take exception to their use of the ellipsis). It’s really nice when a complete stranger takes your advice 🙂