Passive-Aggressive Misspelled Text Messages Are The Best Father's Day Gift

So let's say you want to be in charge of communications for the York County Domestic Relations department, which handles things like child support payments. What is a smart thing you could do to improve relationships with the people you work with? Did you answer "send them a misspelled text message insinuating they are a deadbeat while also passive-aggressively wishing them a Happy Father's Day? You are probably super qualified for this job!

When Ricardo Reyes received a York County Domestic Relations-generated text message suggesting he pay child support in honor of Father's Day, he was offended by something more serious than the sender's misspelling of the word "support." [...]

So the 36-year-old West Manchester Township man was shocked at 7: 01 Wednesday morning as he was getting his truck ready for work and he received the following message from Domestic Relations:

"Looking for the ideal Father's Day gift? Make a child suport (sic) payment!!!!"

Hrm. Not to be pedantic, but we don't really see how paying child support is actually the ideal gift FOR fathers for FATHER'S DAY. Don't get us wrong, we are not down with people that do not pay their child support, but from a sheerly logical perspective, if you yourself are the not-paying dad, you probably do not think the best dad gift for you is that you pay something.

Also too, is text-shaming really an effective marketing tool? Was there anyone that read this misspelled over-exclamationed missive and thought "damn, I was totally going to skate on child support this month, but now I'm going to pay"?

You may laugh, but York County is pretty sure they're doing a bang-up job with this text campaign.

York County Domestic Relations Director Theresa Gross said the message wasn't meant to offend anyone, and staff would absolutely send one at Mother's Day.

"We continue to look for innovative ways to get people to pay their child support," she said. "It's just using the latest technology to get the message out there." [...] "If it applies to them, they should read the message and maybe make a payment," she said. "I don't feel as though it would be offensive. We didn't target a gender."

Lady, we are not sure this becomes a more successful strategy simply because you note you'll harangue the ladies AND the menz all over again on Mother's Day 2015.

At the very least, next year you could make sure you spell "support" correctly before text-shaming an untold number of people of either gender. Given that dealing with child support is basically your core mission, you probably better lock down the spelling.

[ York Dispatch ]