Missouri State University Spends Over $70K On Misspelled Canvas Bags

Fratthew_Broderick12 years ago

Just go ahead and start running laps, MSU.

Missouri State University took a substantial financial hit this January when the campus bookstore gave away thousands of free canvas book bags to students. The only problem with this, however, is that the bags feature a fairly prominent misspelling. Instead of saying “Missouri State University,” the bags say “Missouri State UNIVERISTY.”

Exactly how bad is it?

The Missouri State University bookstore ordered 17,800 maroon canvas bags with a “Bears” logo on it. Encircling the logo is the name of the institution. On more than 8,500 bags, nearly half of them, the word “university” is spelled “univeristy” with the letters “i” and “s” inverted.

8,500 bags? Jesus, MSU, that’s almost half! (I acknowledge that most TFM readers can easily recognize 8,500 as nearly half of 17,800, but I chose to explain it for the benefit of any readers who are also MSU staff members and may need the extra help). How did you manage to misspell the word “university” on so many fucking bags? This is the first time I have ever heard about any university selling merchandise with the word “university” misspelled. You mean to tell me that you guys are dumber than literally every other university in America? That’s quite an accomplishment.

The bags cost a total of $70,844 to make at $3.98 per pag, according to the media outlet. There were 6,000 bags handed out with the typo. Another 2,500 were destroyed. The cost of the destroyed bags totals $9,950.

Why did you only destroy 2,500 of them? At what point did you just say “fuck it, we’re giving these bastards the defective bags anyway,” and do exactly that? You couldn’t have thought of that alternative option before you destroyed $9,950 worth of your product?

This is one of those instances where simply not acknowledging a fuck up would have worked out so much better. First off, you wouldn’t have destroyed about a third of your defective product, thereby pissing away almost ten grand. Secondly, if this stayed between you and your students, then I wouldn’t be one of several writers posting an article about what a colossal fuck up this was.

The university cannot recoup the costs of the bags because the original artwork submitted by the university was approved on two separate occasions

Remember how when growing up we were always told to double-check our work? Apparently double-checking at MSU is limited to the same kind of cursory glance you give a drunk text at three in the morning.

The saddest part of this is that the MSU bookstore had already been having a shitty couple of months before this bag fuck up. Last August, the former manager, Mark Brixley, resigned after $581,000 went missing from the bookstore. No charges have been filed yet, but since $81,000 was found in his desk drawer, I’m pretty sure that fucker did it.

MSU, I’m sorry Mark Brixley allegedly stole over half a mill from you, but you need to get your shit together. You’re pissing money away.

[via Yahoo!]