Another Embarassing Day in The Office

It is Friday... and i was finalising the poll for our D&D theme.



This year we decided to give our colleagues the choice to vote for their preferred D&D theme, rather than we decide and half will come not dressed for it! Thinking thru the process to get the votes, Leng said Survey Monkey's free account is limited to only 100 participants while we have about 300 staff. And for each floor Rec Club representative to get physical votes is way too much.



Suddenly i exclaimed, "But we can do it on blogspot what~ Free unlimited" and i was assigned the job to do the eBlast (mass email announcement). Which i admit, i LOVE it.



Firstly, i need to scour the net for pictures of:

1. Magical Fairy Tale


2. Uniform Craze


3. Back to School


4. Shanghai Triads VS Italian Mafia


5. Wild Wild west
   

Yup. Those are the choices available for the D&D theme. After the photos are ready on powerpoint, it's time to create a blog account and upload them along with the voting poll.



Instead of Blogspot's normal poll, i decided to get from different source bcos Leng wanted the results to be kept private which the former can't do. and besides it's funny if the poll is on the separate column rather than in the post itself.



Anyways, i searched over 15 sites and signed up for like 5 accounts to see how it will appear until i found this one host (forgot the name). can do private, restrict 1 vote per IP add but its ugly plain! But seems we have no choice and we decided to just go ahead with it.



So i created the email blast to EVERYONE in the company incl all the managers and CEOs with a link to our very own blog site!


Guess what? There was a technical glitch!!! The vote didnt seem to climb up but stuck at 1. At first i thought it might be because its set to private, so only pple with an account w the host can vote. After that, i got a call from Andrew, IT Dept. He said, "Eh your poll doesnt seem to work lah. You restrict it to IP address only is it? cannot lah the whole of our company only has ONE ip add." *jaw dropped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* Wait a second... i think i saw some option that says limit to 1 vote per cookie (1 vote per computer)... But will it mean if we delete our cookies, we can vote again? Oh hell i doubt the voters except for IT pple, will know about it and how often would pple clear the cache and then return to the website? So i set to work.



I sent out a notice to EVERYONE incld the managers and CEOs that the poll is down and that we're working on it after i cleared it with Leng. Can you imagine my embarassment?!?!?! As i understand it, Some pple already voted... but rather than prolong the problem, this is the best way to go. Prolly 50% of the employees know Julissa as the AXA Idol... now they will know me as Julissa the AXA Idol who messed up Big time! Argh!



Anyways, i searched the net again for a FREE poll host that restrict votes per cookie unlimitedly, will not show the results even after they voted and at the very least look presentable. I came up with 15 other sites and signed up for some 5 other accounts until i cast my eyes upon Pliner.net.



At first, it seemed too good to be true. But i tested it with my 2 computers at work, with 3 other colleagues from my dept, with Leng and 2 others from her dept. Leng and another person received an error msg that says, "You've already voted." So i had to tally up the votes to determine whether or not their votes were really not counted and thank god it matched! Theirs were not counted.



I felt a bit puzzled though. How can the poll host recognise their cookie? Even if they had visited the site before, it was with another poll host. BUT, my colleagues and i who have been to the site before, dont seem to have that problem. I checked with Andrew, but he said there's nothing he could do as we're not able to control cookies but that it might have something to do with their expiry date?? *shrug*



However, seems that it only affects 80% of the network, so Leng and i decided that this host is indeed workable. Not wanting to confuse the rest, we only said in the eBlast that the poll is up but if you encounter any more problem, please contact us. Only then, we will tell them to delete their cookies! Splendid.



Right afterwards, i received a slightly angry-toned email from a certain someone CCing a few pple. She said, "Do you know that some of us do not have internet access? How then can we vote?" I explained to her that i already wrote in the first email those who dont have internet access can just email their votes to me, that they can view the site from their's friends unit or something. But i attached the pictures for their perusal anyways to base their decision on. then she replied amicably, "Thanks so much for attaching the pictures! Will vote now."



There was also another angry email that said, "The result is already 100% for Magical Fairy Tale. So what's the point of voting?" LOL! This is actually while i was resolving the technical problem. But i explained to her anyways that its 100% bcos there's only been 1 vote so far. and that is precisely why she had to vote for HER choice! LOL.



I wonder, what would YOU vote for? Would you really come dressed for it? How so? What do you think I voted for? Let me know by participating in the polls on the right!!!