Groupon Fail

If you are not familiar with Groupon here is the quick and dirty of it. It is a website that offers deals from local businesses. The deal is usually 50% or more off a service or a certificate that needs to be purchased by a minimum number of people in order to be available.

This can be a great marketing tool for your business. The hope is that it will bring in a large number of new customers who are getting a great deal. Because of the deal and the terrific customer service they will recieve when they visit your establishment they will return.

As I mentioned it is really used as a marketing tool, so I find it kind of hilarious when something like this happens:


For those of you who might not have caught the mistake that I'm talking about the coupon is for "Half off UPSCALE Fare at Glengarry Inn in Fairport" and for anyone above the age of 21 pizza is not typically considered "Upscale fare".

This made me laugh out loud today. (And now I will probably be punished with my own HUGE mistake for laughing at this person). I'm really not sure how no one caught this mistake before it made its way out to the public.

To be fair, we all make mistakes and everyone is allowed a big one now and then. We all screw up and have to try to find a way to laugh at ourselves about it even if it takes a day, a month, or a year. Hopefully at some point you will laugh.

Fortunately at some point today someone caught the mistake and they did rectify it on the Groupon site:

The fact that someone caught this at some point and they made the change help restore some of my faith in Groupon, but if I had my own business it would still make me think twice before using the site to help me market myself.

No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar - Donald Foster (Professor of English at Vassar College)

Learning to Laugh at Yourself

Learning to laugh at yourself takes a good amount of time. Typically it happens without you even realizing. It is often inspired by a combination of close friends and family, those who you feel the most comfortable around. Once you have learned to laugh at yourself these are the people that will help remind you not to take yourself so seriously and who will be ready to make you smile whether they are in the same room or hundreds of miles away over the phone.

These are the girls who make me laugh at myself (and at them):
When I my have a lapse and forget how to laugh at myself or when I can't muster a laugh, but could just use a smile, these are the girls I turn to. These girls are my extended family. These girls know the meaning and power of "Blue Steel".

Now I can't leave out a very important piece of who I am and how I became a person that knows how to laugh at herself. Though my friends may have helped foster this growth, I first saw how to truly laugh at myself through my family. Mainly these three women:
These sisters will always be able to laugh at themselves and each other. In fact there are documented hours and years of them laughing at themselves and at each other, thanks to their father. There is a great history of humor in my family and a great future for it as well. As they say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same".Here's to the people in our lives who have taught us how to laugh at ourselves!

We laugh a lot. That's for sure. Sure beats the alternative, doesn't it? - Betty White

I Love Lucy

I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done. - Lucille Ball

It is a day late, but yesterday would have been famous funny lady Lucille Ball's 100th birthday. Lucy will always have a big piece of my heart. For one thing she and my grandmother will be inextricably linked in my memory. Whenever I see Lucy on Television I see my grandmother in her. I picture my grandmother as many would have known her, but as I never I had, a young, vibrant red head (at heart) who was full of life. I like to picture her as the woman on the screen stuffing chocolates into her mouth and stomping on grapes with her close friend Stella.

I also admire Lucille Ball for her strength and ambition. She was a funny lady that brought a lot of ground breaking ideas and themes to television. Her tv shows and movies never cease to fill you with good feelings and make you laugh hysterically. She truly put all of her heart into what she did and though she may have had regrets they certainly were not for things she had not tried to accomplish.

Here is to Lucy, who really knew what it meant to spend time laughing at yourself!
I am a real ham. I love an audience. I work better with an audience. I am dead, in fact, without one. - Lucille Ball