That story about the rods sounds apocryphal to me (which is a polite way of saying: "It's a goddamn lie").

Every purchase order form I've ever seen, whether it's on a computer screen or on paper, has two separate fields: one for the quantity and another for the description of the individual item. Furthermore, nearly every supplier nowadays has a part number or catalog number for each item it sells. And a 700-foot rod or a 100-foot rod or an 1-foot rod would each have a different part number. That's assuming such things really exist.

Then you would have to calculate the price, and that would provide another check against any mistake.

I just can't believe it would happen as described.