A weird set of assembly instructions
I mentioned here, a couple weeks ago, that my wife ordered us some new bedroom furniture.
The furniture has finally arrived. However, there was something definitely weird about the assembly instructions that came with the new pieces.
Bear with me while I explain…
We got a new bed, two new dressers and two nightstands. All matching. Each came with a sheet of assembly instructions. All the instructions were similar, so I’ll use only the one for my new dresser as an example.
The dresser:
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And here are the instructions that came with that new dresser:
Caution: Please read instructions thoroughly before unpacking assembly parts. Sharp, exposed staple tips can cause injury, therefore, for your protection, please remove any exposed staples used in packing.
1. We recommend that you should assemble this product with the assistance of another person; this will make assembly easier, and will help eliminate damage to the product or injury to persons during assembly.
2. Be sure to check all packing material carefully for small parts that may have come loose inside the carton during shipment.
3. Please do not over tighten screws or bolts.
4. Please put all parts on a non-abrasive floor before assembly, and follow the assembly steps to assemble your newly purchased product correctly and efficiently.
And then there’s step five. Here’s a jpeg of that final step. Are you ready for this?
Whaaaaat?
And you can’t even blame this on some weirdly inept Japanese- or Chinese-to-English translation. Check out the address at the bottom of the sheet:
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Here are the full instructions, should you want to see them. As usual, click on the thumbnail to see an enlarged view:
So, was this an elaborate practical joke? Or did the sheet of instructions fulfil an obscure federal law or something?
Or have I already spent too much time wondering about this?
July 17th, 2007 at 8:10 am
It sounds like a joke, but having worked on assembly instructions before, I won’t be surprised if it wasn’t. It could easily be a template where the first four steps are the same for every product, and then step 5 is where the individual instructions start, and they just didn’t bother to make adjustments for the pieces that required no assembly. When I worked at an ad agency, one of our clients was a manufacturer of door hardware (locks, handles, etc.). We had to do instruction sheets for them, and it was a mess. They sent us wrong diagrams and English instructions with various typos and grammatical errors. The instructions were required to be in Spanish as well, so we had to get it translated. Of course, no one at the firm or at the client’s office knew enough Spanish to proof that part of the copy. And just because the address is in the U.S., it doesn’t mean those sheets are made in the U.S. Our client’s packaging stuff were all printed in China. The most hilariously sad project for that client was doing the packaging for a lock set they hadn’t made yet. They said they would make the product to fit the specs of the box.