Microsoft Outlook Ruins Birthday Cake

28 jan 2009

If you like to order a cake at Wegman's bakery, you can simply email them a personalized message that will be printed on the cake.

If you like to order a cake at Wegman’s bakery, you can simply email them a personalized message that will be printed on the cake.

A lady in NY followed the same procedure and ordered a birthday cake over email but here’s what they delivered on her birthday – a cake with some HTML icing.

geek birthday cake

It turned out that she used Microsoft Outlook to send her email but Wegman’s email system failed to recognize the proprietary HTML tags of Outlook and hence this goof-up.

This is best explained by an employee of Wegman – “we just cut and paste from the email to the program we use for printing the edible images, we are usually in such a hurry that we really don’t have time to check. and if we do the customers yell at us for bothering them.” See the thread here.

Also see: Cake Design for Geeks

http://-stuff.blogspot.com Kevin

This is ridiculous… still funny… can’t stop laughing when imagine about the b’day lady :)
Manish

The tags are all valid HTML comments. So, isn’t it the problem of the email program that the bakery used and not that of Outlook.
http://www.alaivani.com Jennifer

Great post. I often shop at this store!!

At the least (or most) it’s a unique and memorable birthday cake!
DaleB

What a load of rubbish. Looks like somebody used Photoshop (not very skillfully) to put a layer of text on top of a picture of a cake. I doubt that even bakery workers are that stupid.
http://deuts.net deuts

poor celebrant….LOL
http://www.rdeepak.net Praveen Ratna Deepak

RLMAO!
http://amnesiablog.com Maniac13

2 questions come to mind:
1. Why isn’t Wegmans using an online form instead of having everyone use their own email client?
2. Sureley you would be suspicious if an 80 year old gets a cake with HTML tags on it – so why didn’t they call to confirm?
http://www.techdreams.org Gopinath

It’s not correct to say that Microsoft Outlook ruined the party. It’s the inability of the printing system to read outlook messages.
Deepak

so funny.. yet interesting
Jake

Ruined? I think this made her party memorable!
http://pontodomira.blogspot.com José Rui Abreu Mira

The old Copy&Paste problem ;-P
Thomas Magnum

So fake…
http://webdesjan.de FuNKeR

PWNED!

This is the best joke this week. Spread the word: Outlook is a trashy mail system.
Albert

Way cooler than anything else they could’ve come up with, I’m pretty sure.
http://thoughts-and-findings.blogspot.com the one who blogs

Fake, but funny. :)
bdog

So funny, there’s always someone that says “photoshop”
Shmoopty

Those are comment tags. Not very proprietary, really.
asdf#1

the cake is a lie!
Sam

ouch that sucks
meme

two words: Confirmation email.
Ashes

Its not Wegmans fault, its the faultof the old woman who cant read HTML
http://www.downloadfreefonts.org Dan

Fantastic :)
At least it is not blue screen of death, you could end up with a blue poisoned cake
http://rob@websitejuicer.com Rob Wallace

Two things:
1. Illogical on many levels.
2. That’s too much refines sugar. Wake up people!
mike

amazing how anyone who hasnt at least an intelligent comment to make just says ‘photoshopped’ – jerks!
ann

How about this one?
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/images/2008/07/10/translateservererror.jpg
Sahil Sinha

I mean if it was an outlook issue, I’m sure it would have been resolved a while back-tons of people use outlook to send their email-they would have noticed something.
http://www.7gen.com David Herron

This isn’t really blameable on Microsoft. Yeah, sure, it’s easy to blame microshaft for every evil. But really this is poor programming or procedures on the part of Wegmans. Depending on the email client there could be non-proprietary tags that get pasted in and passed through the program.
Kevin

This looks shopped, I can tell from some of the pixels and from having seen quite a few shops in my time.
http://andreasdevblog.blogspot.com Andreas

well as a geek i would be very very very happy about such a cake no matter if it was a wrong or right made decision to print it out that way also it would be THE EYECATCHER at a birthday party
Zak

What are you talking about? There are no proprietary tags in that text at all. The only HTML tags are comment tags (i.e. ““) which are standard and any correct HTML parser must recognize. And even if this were due to proprietary tags inserted by Outlook, shame on Wegmans for not supporting one of the most ubiquitous and widely used email applications on the planet. They must have this problem a lot…
pterzw

Shopped. Pixels are all wrong.
http://www.downloadfreefonts.org/ Dan

How can you tell from such o low-res image that it is photoshopped or not
LOL

I used to work for Wegmans. This is really funny stuff.
Danny W.

>her email but Wegman’s email system failed
>by an employee of Wegman

It’s “Wegmans”. Possesive form is “Wegmans’”. It’s perhaps the best grocery store ever, and beloved to the folks of upstate NY!
http://wint3rsh4d3.blogspot.com/ Wintershade

You people who claim it’s photoshopped are nothing more than trolls.
And you people who claim these are “valid” HTML tags, and that the problem is in the application who printed this, clearly have no idea what valid HTML is. Try googling “html validation” for a start. And if you claim that Outlook is “most widely used” or some bull like that, well, I can’t say anything else to you than to return to the cave where you came from.

Shopped or not, I had a good laugh.
Ruined party? I don’t think so. First, everyone probably had a good laugh once a moderately charismatic and computer literate person explained to them what probably happened (however, judging to the comments above, the world’s supply of the former is scarce, and of the latter even more scarce). And secondly, the cake got eaten in the end and what most mattered to people was how it tasted.

Just my $0.02. Cheerz =]
733t

Go to the Bakery department… They don’t even have a PC!
733t

Below from their website –
We’ll personalize a cake just for you by re-creating one of your own photos in icing! Bring your color or black and white photo, any size up to 8×10 inches. We’ll scan it into our computer and re-create the image on frosting with 100% food coloring, then add your special greeting. Your photo will be returned to you when you pick up the cake.

There are additional fees for the sweet images service.
k8gaetono

I’m willing to blame almost anything on Microsloth, but I’d have to say that the folks @ the bakery ‘mailed it in,’ attentionwise, so to speak.
Anon

photoshopped, I can tell from the pixels and from having seen quite a few shops in my time.
singLRT

oh…and the lights are all wrong
http://brokenimage.tumblr.com Chaz

Simpsons did it.
Tony

These guys are italian and are whisng a happy birthday to a parent. Hope not from the Sopranos!!
http://www.nathantresch.com nathan

Hey Danny, &lt!– comment –!&gt is certainly a standard comment tag. I hope you were trolling and didn’t actually think that what you said was correct, I always feel bad for ignorant people.
jason

What makes me think this is fake is the fact that some of the text is bigger and bolder than the rest. Even if they are using a computerized device to “print” the messages on the cake, wouldn’t someone have to make the call which words to emphasize? I don’t think the frosting machine will be interpreting tags and such.
http://www.giftsspace.com George

It all happens in a completely mechanized world.
lol

lol i reckon that the bakers purposely put in the html text as a practical joke.. y not i guess
http://www.belmos.com/freeware-files/ Freeware Files

Great cake, want to eat this. but i missed.
http://www.mattspire.com Matt Spire

Ignoring the issue of why the code is messed up and assuming this is real, the problem is equally with Wegman’s who couldn’t notice such a glaring problem because they were too “in a hurry.” Blind people on acid would notice this.
http://freemoneyteam.wetpaint.com/ http://freemoneyteam.wetpaint.com/

Thats funny, it looks sorta intentional, but its not.
don_sindicatto

maybe the sender sent message exactly in the cake LOL
http://roulettesecretsuncovered.co.uk Martin Lewis

Says a lot about Wegman’s customer service!
http://blog.teledyn.com mrG

Although I do doubt there could exist an employee anywhere so dense (or self-destructive) as to do this cut and paste (at any speed) I think the real news story here is how there are people out there still using Outlook.

I’d thought they were all extinct years ago.
http://www.adminspy.com Max Gizmo

this can’t be real and even if it is real then it’s someone’s viral promotion. Good marketing trick if you ask me
http://ig33k.portzilla.com YeahMan

Funny how they can do that one, I know to not get my cake from that Wegmans….. again…. LOL
Terry Wagar

Obviously a photoshop job. I am an expert so you can trust me in this. The pixels and the lighting are all wrong. A very amateur job to say the least.
Ryan JL

Why is it that every time someone posts a photo, 30 losers come out of the woodwork to scream “photoshoppedd!1″

1) Nobody cares if it’s photoshopped or not. It doesn’t matter.

2) Nobody cares if you’re an “expert”

3) You’re probably not an expert.

4) If you’re going to claim it’s photoshopped, offer up some concrete, real evidence, and not some vague bs like “im an expert and the pixels are wrong.”

5) But don’t, because nobody cares. Just go away.

Now as for the actual, interesting discussion at hand. The tags are definitely “valid.” I am really not sure how mr “$0.02″ can claim other wise. Anyone who has written HTML knows that “” is how to do comments.

However, I have no idea why outlook would have such comments in its programs. They don’t seem to serve any purpose and, indeed, look completely sloppy. Doesn’t really make sense.

Finally, did someone just imply that Outlook is NOT a widely used Email Client? Wow…I guess Windows isn’t a widely-used OS either . . .

You people make Youtube commentators look smart.
http://ecigarettecigar.com/ e cigarette

Funny. I’m not going to claim photoshopped, but IF a decorator was able to write text on a cake with that level of precision, I think she (or he) should win a Cake Decorating Oscar.
Thassa

First.. Outlook embeds html in all sorts of places it doesn’t really belong. They aren’t the only email program that does this, but they are by far the most common offender.

Second, the cake was decorated by a machine that is essentially a cake icing printer. Wegman’s is a very large chain of bakeries and can not only afford specialized hardware like that, it’s actually cheaper for them then hiring a dozen cake decorators (which is what they would need to replace a single icing printer).

Third, it’s obvious that they didn’t design their software to interpret html, which makes sense since html was never intended to be used in email anyway. I know it’s everywhere these days, and Outlook is largely responsible for that. But as something of a purist, I hate seeing it in email.

As for why the cake actually went out to the customer like that.. trust me.. crud happens. In highschool I once let a thoroughly incinerated batch of cabbage rolls go out the door with a customer because I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew they were ruined, but there wasn’t time to defrost and cook a new batch, the boss was out of reach, and the customer was in the shop, so in a panic I just let them pass. Needless to say, within two hours my boss was chewing me out for being an idiot.

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Microsoft Outlook Ruins Birthday Cake

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