Surely this is the best “out of office notification” ever?

I recently visited Cardiff for a few days of work. Cardiff is the capital of Wales and one thing you notice as soon as you enter Wales is that the road signs are written in both English and Welsh.

This reminded me of a production error which was reported a while ago which to me must rank as one of the funniest results of an out of office notification.

If used properly the out of office notification is a great tool as it lets the sender of the message know if you’re away for a while and who to contact in your absence.

The error here though involved Swansea Council in Wales who required a road sign saying:

“No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only”

They emailed their in-house translation service with a request for a translation of this phrase into Welsh and a reply came back with:

“Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithu”

They then produced the sign with both the English and Welsh text on it and put it in the required place by the side of the road.

It was a while later that some Welsh speakers noticed the road sign and it turned out that instead of telling drivers of heavy goods vehicles that they couldn’t drive down that particular road the Welsh text on the road sign actually said:

“I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”