Kissing Coaches

Ok, let's get one thing straight.. I am not Superman. I am not perfect and today is a perfect example of that. Now, while some people make mistakes and either try to hide them, deny that they did anything wrong, or try to disguise their mistakes by pointing the finger at someone else, I am man enough to say loud and clear "Oops! I screwed up!". At least today's little boo boo is entertaining (more so to others) and has "blog this" written all over it... plus this helps me get ready to write tomorrow's "incident report". It's always embarrassing making major goofs in front of coworkers.. but maybe I finally have a way to distract people from my infamous "locked in the bathroom" story from a few years ago (I'll have to save that one for a future blog...).

I don't typically write about my job, but today I'll make an exception.. I currently supervise all of my company's websites (10 all together) and function as the lead designer for the sites. All the sites together, there are over 10,000 pages of content to keep track of, so making sure each page is correct and current can be tricky. This week is particularly challenging as we are facing major updates to most of our sites as we release new products next week and have to have new page designs done, content implemented, support videos produced, etc. So it makes for a busy time of year!

To make things easier for us, we are implementing some new technology: Nothing that will be visible for site visitors, but behind the scenes for my team. In order to test this new process, we had to develop a testing site with content completely different from our typical motorhomes. So we came up with an idea that made sense to the team: Our tribute to our favorite classic rock bands. Images would be readily available online so we didn't waste time making new images and the content was so different that it would be easy to tell that things were working correctly, without getting confused with "real" images in place.

And so we quickly developed our test site. We had some pretty good laughs.. In our "woods" section typically used to hold photos of wood cabinetry colors, we now had Tiger Woods, James Woods, etc. Our colors page featured the likes of Pink Floyd, and Yellow Submarines, rather than coach exteriors... We were quite entertained by our own little in joke. The software was tested successfully, and the site discontinued as we moved on to other things.

Today, as we prepared for next weeks big updates, we had to put a "clean" copy of the sites on line. This meant putting up new versions of everything in order to make some new technologies possible to us. And so in the middle of the day, the sites were redeployed. A simple process to move all the files in place, check to make sure all is well, and then move on to other afternoon activities.

At 5:00, I did one last check through the sites to make sure all was well before leaving the office for the night. That's when I discovered... it. On our most visited website, on the front of the most visited product section, rather than a picture of a beautiful motor home.. there was KISS, staring back at me, scary make up and all. It was like one of those movies where someone suddenly has a terrible realization, the camera zooms from wide shot into a close up with that increasing screetching soundtrack. All zooming in to my face, suddenly going pale and yelling "NOOOOOOOO!" The realization that visitors had been seeing KISS on our sites all afternoon instead of motorhomes.. was not a fun one. What had happened was simple: one of the files from our little "Test" had not been removed and had been moved to the server with our update, thus activating it live to visitors, instead of the image that was supposed to be there. As my job is to check to make sure that everything was ok, before making content live.. this was my screw up.

Granted, within about 5 seconds, I was on the server and had the files switched, but knowing that KISS was there.. for several hours... staring at our conservative, wealthy, retired target audience.. I just wanted to hide under my desk. And it didn't help that my whole department was now in hysterics at the thought of KISS on the Holiday Rambler website all afternoon. I have already been informed that "Beth" is my new nickname, and now there is talk of designing a gag coach with exterior paint made to look like KISS makeup.. all to give me a hard time (If anyone produces any parodies for me, I'll post them...). As I was walking out of the office 45 minutes late now, and shaking my head in shame for this little screw up, I said to a coworker "I'm never going to hear the end of this, will I?" He just smiled and said "Nope, not for a LOOOOOONG time"

Hence, the "Holiday Rambler Navigator KISS Edition" was born...