Watch your Writing; It could Cost You!

As project managers, we all know how important it is to pay attention to the details. We’ve all seen those pictures and signs that adorn cubicles and office spaces that remind us to pay attention to grammar and punctuation. We even have two of those signs displayed proudly by members of our very own PMO team.

But did you realize just how important writing accuracy is and how much it could cost you if ignored? In a recent article from the BBC website, I read about a few very costly incidents and how important the comma is. Let’s look:

“An appeal court in Maine has ordered Oakhurst Dairy to pay dairy farmers $10M in back wages due to their interpretation of Maine’s overtime law.

Maine’s law says the following activities do not qualify for overtime pay: “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods.”

The drivers said the lack of a comma between “shipment” and “or distribution” meant the legislation applied only to the single activity of “packing”, rather than to “packing” and “distribution” as two separate activities.

And because drivers distribute the goods, but do not pack them, they argued they were therefore eligible for overtime pay – backdated over several years.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39300432

Lockheed Martin, a US defense company, has also felt the pain of the comma when in their negotiation of the contract to build Hercules military transport planes they had a typo in their formula to determine the price of the aircraft. A comma was one decimal place out and is reputed to have cost the firm $70M.

Back in 2005, stock trading on a newly listed Japanese firm (J-Com) was severely disrupted due to a Mizuho Securities stock broker’s typo. The broker listed 610,000 shares for sale for 1 Yen when he meant to list one share at 610,000 Yen. The error could not be reversed in time and ended up costing the securities company $333M. We don’t know what it cost the broker, but I bet they pay more attention to detail now.

Another poor writing example is when a collector of a very rare beer (Allsopps) incorrectly spelled it as “Allsops” and listed it on eBay. He was expecting a lot of bids and a huge pay check, but due to the incorrect spelling he only got two bids and ended up selling it for $308.00 The next owner listed the exact same bottle two months later, this time using the correct spelling. The new owner received 150 offers and sold it for more than $500,000.

Other examples include airlines incorrectly listing tickets to exotic destinations for hundreds of dollars instead of thousands. So, the next time you put an offer on a house, list something on eBay, write a check, etc., remember to pay attention to your writing accuracy. It could end up costing you a lot of time, effort, and money.