TOTRtellers

TOTR Award Winners Named

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 18:43:45 GMT

Totally Off The Record stories are ranked by popularity based on how often they are email forwarded from the website. Each week the most popular stories earn a spot on the “What’s Hot” list, which appears on both the TOTR.com homepage and in the weekly “What’s Hot & New” email newsletter.

Just like the Darwin Awards, each year we recognize our most popular Totally Off The Record stories as TOTR Award Winners. TOTR Award Winners are the cream of the crop, the most often shared and ones you’re sure to enjoy.

Here are this year's TOTR Award Winners:

Airline Crew: Safety Info Demo
Military: Air Force Maintenance Logs
Law Enforcement: Mouthful Of Justice
Health Care: In The Notes
School Teachers: Show & Tell
Airline Crew: Seeing Eye Dog
School Teachers: Talking Pig
Automotive: Sorority Toys
Health Care: Help From Above

Enjoy!

TOTR: Legal - The Case Of The Burning Cigars

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 18:58:27 GMT

This old favorite has risen again to the top of the What's Hot list..

Totally off the record... A Charlotte, NC lawyer purchased a box of two dozen very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire among other things.

Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, and without yet having made even his first premium payment on policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires."

The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason:
that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued....and won!

In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous, but stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be "unacceptable fire," and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires."

NOW FOR THE BEST PART

After the lawyer cashed the cheque, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON.

With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and he was sentenced to 24 months in jail and ordered to pay a $24,000 fine.

This is a true story and was the 1st place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

TOTR: School Teachers - The Talkative Student

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:18:26 GMT

Just got this story this morning...

Totally off the record... I was working as a teacher's assistant in a first grade classroom and my desk just happened to be right in front of a student who liked to tell me on Mondays what he did over the weekend.

One day when the teacher was trying to teach he kept whispering loudly saying my name over and over. Trying to keep him quiet I would just look at him and shake my head but he kept saying my name.

Finally I realized that he wasn't going to be quiet until I listened to him, so expecting him to say something like "Guess what? I went to my grandma's this weekend". or something like that I said "What Michael?" and he leaned in real close to me and whispered loudly, "your hair really looks awful today!!!"

Needless to say, the next day I made sure my hair looked better!!!

TOTR: Airline Crew - The Eyes Of Evil

Mon, 19 May 2003 22:34:26 GMT

Every once and while I get a story that really gives me the chills...

Totally off the record... I am a flight attendant for American Airlines, based in Boston.

On September 11th, I had an early sign-in and was quite tired. At approximately 6:15 a.m., I headed to my gate.

My departure gate was one gate to the left of American's Flight #11, which was at the end of the terminal.

As I walked to the end of the terminal, I passed a very evil human. He was staring at me as I walked by. I felt his stare before our eyes met. When I looked at him, it felt as if evil passed through my body at that moment.

I had chills and felt very uneasy. I quickly looked down at the floor and almost ran to the jetbridge door. I just kept thinking that once I get behind that jetbridge door, then I will be safe.

As I walked down the jetbridge to my plane, I thought to myself, "God, that guy was really creepy. I hope he's not on my flight."

I never again thought of that moment, until I saw Mohamed Atta's photo on TV. I jumped and gasped for air, then started to cry.

How could I ever mistake or forget that look in his eyes? I looked at photos of all of the other suspected terrorists on Flight #11 just to be sure. I am not mistaken. It was Mohamed Atta.

His evil ripped through my soul that morning. I know... I felt it. Sometimes I know things before they happen. I only wish my intuition was sharp that morning. If only I had been less tired and more alert. Maybe then I could have said something to someone and my friends and coworkers would still be here today.

Coming Additions

Wed, 12 Mar 2003 20:40:21 GMT

We're working on adding some important improvements to the TOTR experience. More specifically a What's New chart, similar to the What's Hot, to the home page. We're also interested in adding a capability to geographically track were an individual story has 'traveled' to based on the IP address of the viewer. Your input is welcome.

Cool Site Of The Day

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 23:15:02 GMT

Tomorrow, Totally Off The Record will be the feature website of Cool Site Of The Day. It should be interesting to see what kind of traffic that should generate.

SXSW Website Competition Finalist

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 23:11:51 GMT

I was thrilled to find out from Shawn at SXSW that Totally Off The Record has been named a finalist in the SXSW Website Competition in the Humor/Satire category.

Totally Off The Record: Advertising/PR

Sun, 24 Nov 2002 22:32:00 GMT

Those who toil in the world of Advertising and PR will appreciate Steve Hall's blog called Adrants and will appreciate this story too.....

Pitching IBM With Porn

Totally off the record... I worked in business development for one of the first web design shops in Silicon Alley. It was 1995 and most blue chip companies were looking to land a corporate identity on the web.

We had been contacted 'at the eleventh hour' by IBM to participate in a pitch to assist them in building a web presence. Our team went to work for 48 straight hours, including two all nighters as this was only one of six pitches and RFP responses for that week, and pulled together a very impressive 2 hour presentation.

The next day 25 IBM "suits" come to our parent agency's theatre for the presentation and much to our surprise, Lou Gerstner himself,the company's famous CEO, also attended.

The presentation was opened by my boss and then handed off to me for the section about e-commerce and advertising. The first few screens were simple enough and straight forward jargon. Then we went live to the web in search for excellent examples of our theories in practice.

I was clearly and noticably apprehensive about what was to come, especially with the CEO front and center and many women present. The first site we displayed on a 6 ft. screen was a very popular pornography portal.

Needless to say there was an audible gasp from the audience at the sight of the graphic visuals of naked women with legs spread and such. My audience was clearly confused and in some respects not amused in the least...

I quickly and clearly outlined the business practices that were embraced on the page and begged folks not to concentrate too much on the questionable content displayed.

The rest of the meeting went as planned and we were informed that they would be visiting six other agencies and would contact us if we made the cut to the next round in three weeks.
Mr Gerstner himself came up to me after the presentation and told me that it took alot of nerve to give that presentation to an audience like us.

That evening we laughed so hard at some of the facial expressions seen and heard during that one part of our presentation. One week later we get a phone call from their SVP to tell us that we had literally blown the doors off our competitor's presentations and that not only did we make the cut - they were simply ending their search for an agency and selected us right there and then.

They were a happy client for 5 years.