The Art of Miscommunication: Letters, Forms and Replies

By Barney Hegarty

Compiling these books reminds the author that the human race is capable of generating fabulous wit and exquisite confusion from the most innocent situations. And that there are some walking amongst us that may well be from another planet.

“The Art of Miscommunication - Letters, Forms and Replies is a collection of complaints, letters, forms, labels and comments all mixed in with one or two random entries that are simply too funny not to include.

The key thing they all have in common is that they were all sent to the author by email from all over the world and have caused him to laugh out loud. This is A Good Healthy Thing, as we all know. So he decided to share them.

Within this volume there are some responses from places you wouldn’t normally associate with personal communication; then there are those that provide encouragement by showing that no matter how stupid you are, there are many who are considerably more adept.

What’s that saying? You can never underestimate our capacity for stupidity?

This book is designed to be short enough for you to read while you take a short trip, a break, a commute, a meal or a drink. And for less than the cost of a coffee.

Be warned, though: there is some mild adult content in here. So, if you are easily offended or are one of those unusual people who cannot laugh at potentially dark situations, please stop reading now. You won’t enjoy this.

Everyone else - enjoy the book. Fill your boots. Share the laughter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barney Hegarty
• Release date: Mar 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910291030

Barney Hegarty

Barney Hegarty is a pen name for Steve Corkhill.Born in Liverpool, UK, Steve was named by a public vote in the bar of a pub in North Wales. After an enjoyable education where his results reflected his passion and occasional aptitude for team sports, he started his working life training to be an accountant.His interest in audits soon waned and he changed jobs, only to be made redundant while he was on holiday. So he followed his childhood dream, trained as a schoolmaster and moved into a position in the glorious World Heritage City of Bath, UK. After a fairly rapid rise through the ranks he took his first major career gamble and accepted a 50% pay cut and an 85% reduction in holidays to move into the developing personal computing industry.It worked. It was quickly evident that there was an enormous gap between the IT specialists and the desires of their customers to be have something both useful and useable. Steve’s particular skills and values were well suited to fill the role of intermediary, specialising in making IT work for businesses across all sorts of sectors. It meant learning every day of his life, which is one of his core principles.At a birthday party one day, he realised that his commitment to clients meant that he was missing out on his children growing up, so took another career gamble. He resigned and went self-employed.So FlatBear was born and with it the plan to develop an internet based publishing arm in parallel with his day to day consulting activities. There followed years of study, investigation, wistful dreaming and, frankly, ennui. The consulting was working well and the indie publishing dream slipped out of sight.He was shocked into action by a series of events in 2013 and 2014 and the result was a series of books under the pen-name of Barney Hegarty, written mainly to test and learn the process of publishing. That established an infrastructure and broke the “one day” barrier.Receiving his very first payment of literally pennies for making international sales changed the game. He was hooked again.He finally wrote and published “Reboot For The Worn Out Professional”, a book he had been planning for years in response to seeing colleagues suffering burnout and stress in their high intensity jobs and of course as a result of his own recent challenges.One day it turned out that he had a heart defect. He went through the experience of open heart surgery, where a barrow-load of beliefs and presumptions were first shattered then realigned. The novel “How To Recover From Open Heart Surgery” is the direct result.At the time of writing he still lives in Bath. It has been easier to base himself there and travel the world than to continually move around after the work. Apart from that, it’s beautiful.Steve is still married to Betsan, the woman he first met in 1980.

Book preview

The Art of Miscommunication - Letters, Forms and Replies

By Barney Hegarty

Copyright Barney Hegarty 2014 all rights reserved

Published by FlatBear Publishing

PO Box 3679, Bath, UK. BA2 4WS

ISBN 978-1-910291-03-0

Smashwords Edition

Part of the Laugh Out Loud emails series

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your enjoyment. If you feel a need to share this book with one other person, you may do so provided the book remains in its complete original form. Outside that limit, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it then please return to your favourite e-book retailer and buy a full copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Table of Contents

The Gay Fight Attendant

Irish Bank Robbery

Christmas Post Office

Why old men don’t get hired

Insurance Claim Forms

Performance Evaluation

Times Letter of the Year

Council House Complaints

Successful Job Application

NHS Notes

In honour of stupid people

Holiday Complaints

Court Quotes

Who’s Your Daddy?

Inland Revenue

Police Complaint

Think Outside the Box

UPS Airline gripe sheets

Do you know who I am?

Medics

More Insurance Claims

More Performance Evaluation

More NHS Notes

More Court Quotes

Police DO have a sense of humour

Bricklayer’s Accident Report

Radio

Samples from other book in this series

About the author

Welcome

I love compiling these books. It provides me with a reminder that humans are capable of generating fabulous wit and exquisite confusion from the most innocent situations. It also makes me think that there are some walking amongst us that may well be from another planet.

"The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate"

J.B. Priestley

The Art of Miscommunication - Letters, Forms and Replies is a collection of complaints, letters, labels, and comments mixed with one or two random entries that are simply too funny not to include here.

The main thing they all have in common is that they have all been sent to me by email from all over the world since the turn of the century and have caused me to physically laugh out loud, which is A Good Healthy Thing, as we all know. So I decided to share them.

Within this volume there are some responses from places you wouldn’t normally associate with personal communication; then there are those that provide encouragement by showing that no matter how stupid you are, there are many who are considerably more adept at demonstrating their own incompetence.

Many were received, but few were chosen.

Be warned, though: while I find these hilarious, there is some mild adult content in here. So, if you are easily offended or are one of those unusual people who cannot laugh at potentially dark situations, please stop reading now. You won’t enjoy this.

Everyone else - enjoy the book and please share laughter with someone else to help make their day.

Barney

The Gay Flight Attendant

This one is simply too funny to not include somewhere!

My flight was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone in a good mood as he served us food and drinks. As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and told us that Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, so lovely people, if you could just put your trays up, that would be super.

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed this well-dressed and rather Arabic looking woman hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines but I asked you to raise your trazy-poo, so the main man can pitty-pat us on the