On our training day we were set a challenge. The shopping centre's marketing department told us that if we could get 2000 email addresses by Christmas Eve we would each receive a 50 pound gift card. All it requires is getting parents to sign up to an email newsletter, and receive a free colouring set in return.
With most people, it's a piece of cake. 'Do you have an email address? If you fill this in you get a colouring set. Do you want Peppa Pig or Star Wars?'. I'm sad to report Peppa Pig is, on ratio, around 5:1 more popular than Star Wars. To be fair we are dealing mostly with the preschool crowd.
For some people however, the concept is too much to handle. They fill out the sheet, I give them the set, only to look down and see that the email address line is blank. The only line that the form clearly specifies must be filled in to receive the gift. So what do I do? Rip Peppa Pig from the child's hands, simultaneously chastising them for their lack of Star Wars appreciation and hold the parent to ransom until they produce an address? Or, use the information they have given me to make up something I think might possibly pass for a genuine email. As much as I love taking things from children, the latter amuses me much more. I usually play it safe and go for some variation of their name @ generic popular email server. But sometimes, if they're younger or dressed weird I'll mix it up a little with 'weebelfastgirl' or 'ilovejustinbieber' or 'leopardprintisawesome' @ generic popular email server.
This was working nicely - everyone got the colouring set, I was entertained, until we got an update today that although we've collected more than 600 address, many were not counted due to emails bouncing back.
Plan B is to go through my old hotmail account from the days when everyone swapped email addresses, and actually sent emails, and use those of people I no longer care for :)
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