This story is stunning in it's ridiculousness.

Steve Valdez, a man born without arms, is told he cannot cash a check at a Bank of America in Tampa without providing a thumbprint. Maybe they don't understand basic anatomy, but it usually follows that if you don't have any arms, you probably don't have any thumbs, either. 

So I guess a new doll showed up on the Costco store shelves that was "politically incorrect" and people started complaining about it so they had to pull it.

While I'm not one to get on the "pollitically correct" bandwagon, I kind of agree with them. I mean look at that doll. It's an African American baby girl with a headband that says "Lil' Monkey". Honestly people. No one saw this as offensive? The doll went from design to production to packaging to the store shelves and no one thought it was in the least bit offensive?

The company that produced this doll said "We don’t think in that way. We don’t operate in that kind of thinking. We have a really diverse family-operated company that’s been around for 28 years.". Come on.

/facepalm

I find it funny when failing companies try to stay afloat with rebranding themselves to make people think they are different in some way. Every time I've heard of a company doing this, it has never gone well for them and you'd think they would learn from past mistakes, but they don't. Just like KFC's failed attempt at rebranding , Radio Shack is also trying to rebrand themselves.

Let's face it. Ever since the Internet has taken the middle man out of shopping, it has been the top competitor for brick and mortar businesses. Who wants to physically go to a store and deal with obnoxious sales reps just to pay more than it's being offered for online. I'm not saying every brick and mortar store should just give up trying to beat the Internet, but maybe it's time for them to change their business model and embrace technology.

Ever since I can remember, Radio Shack (now trying to call themselves "The Shack") has pretty much been a useless store. They have NEVER had good prices; most of them are located in malls; they have those obnoxious sales reps I was talking about; and they don't even offer good products. I can't recall one time I've gone to a Radio Shack and walked out finding what I needed.

Apart from all the problems Radio Shack faces to stay afloat, I just don't get the whole idea of expecting that changing your name will help you get more customers or money. The worst part of this particular rebranding is that they don't even have enough assets to change the signs on their stores to say "The Shack". Instead, they are asking the few customers that actually come to their store to change their name for them.

This is probably the worst rebranding /facepalm I've seen.

It's obvious that every human makes mistakes once in a while, but it seems like they guy who made this sign was one too many beers over the allowed limit at the sign making factory. Every word on this highway sign is misspelled except "exit". That's quite a feat if you ask me. It's even more impressive that it went through multiple hands before it was actually put up on the highway. 

• Person types text into a computer to make the sign
• Company that makes the signs for the government reviews them before sending it out
• Whoever actually creates the physical sign probably had to look at it to make it
• The sign arrives at a company and probably gets loaded onto a truck to get hung up on the highway
• The person physically hanging the sign up probably had to look at it.
  

Just based on the assumptions above, that's at LEAST 5 people that saw this sign before it was put up on the highway.

Either no one cared, no one read it, or no one knew how to spell those words. Any way you cut it, it's a /facepalm.

It's no secret that I am very against bad customer service in the airline industry (actually any industry). There are countless accounts of how airlines like United and American treat paying customers and most of them make me mad. I came across a funny video on youtube today that tells yet another story about the airlines showing horrible customer service. Check it out...

I'll be the first to say...I hate country music. Don't blame me that it's country...I know...BUT I think this is a great video. It's actually done pretty well from a music video perspective, and I think it does a great job getting the message across. 

Taylor guitars can cost anywhere between $1,000-$5,000 so let's just say his was around $3,000 just for an average. I would be willing to bet that it would be MUCH cheaper for United to just pay to replace the guitar than the damage it will do to them through this video. I hope this video gets huge and hurts United's brand more than they could dream of. I also liked this video beacuse it wasn't some angry customer cussing and yelling about anything. It was just a guy who makes music and wants people to know not to fly United because they break guitars.

Good job Dave Carroll