Dear dimwit on the phone

Sometimes the dimwit contacts you. Sometimes you are the dimwit.
Coach sends an email "Hi, Spartan, I am Coach Trey Wood. I coach the North Podunk girls golf team. One of my golfers hit a hole in one, could we get a little story on it?"
I responded, "Yeah that will be great. I'm on deadline but I will contact the coach tomorrow."
"Spartan, I am the coach."

 

Just printed out roster off Maxpreps for the game I'm covering tonight. School has two No. 3s and two No. 7s, both with same name. First No. 3 is a 5-9, 165 senior, the second a 5-10, 154 senior. First No. 7 is a 5-9, 175 senior, the second a 5-7, 195 senior.

 

Printed off a Maxpreps roster for a team that had three 2s, three 4s, two 7s, a pair of 18s and a whole laundry list of kids with no numbers. The kid wearing No. 2 was listed as No. 7. Turns out the roster from from last year. At least the coach included the correct roster when he texted me to point that out.

 

When I find out what game high school game I'm covering, I always call the football or athletics office and ask for a current roster via email. Works pretty much every time.

 

We've just announced another cut in publication days (going down from four to two). We will announce this in the paper multiple times but that doesn't mean anyone's going to notice. Dimwits on the phone in 3... 2.... 1....

(We still get calls from dimwits asking why they didn't get a Thursday paper. We stopped printing on Thursdays three years ago.)

 

We cut Mondays at the beginning of August. I thought getting calls about "where's my paper?" in the first week of September was bad. Three years? Yikes. Had they paid that little attention to the product?

 

It's amazing how little attention people pay even when they're subscribers. Because a lot of those calls come from subscribers, who you would think should know there's no Thursday paper anymore. Most people get the stories for free off our website. They don't need to know when the paper actually comes out.

 

Slid the announcement of our cutback to two days into today's paper. A common question seems to be along the lines of, "It says you're only going to have a paper on Wednesday and Saturday. So this means we only get a paper Wednesday and Saturday?"

The next most-common question is basically, "What happens to my subscription?" That is on us as it turns out because we didn't explain current subscriptions will be extended to cover the same number of issues, just over a longer period of time. Basically, if you had two months left, you'll be getting the paper for four.

There was a funny call today, though. A 95-year-old subscriber understood what would happen to her subscription but she had just renewed for a year. That means she'd get close to two year's worth now for the same price. She wasn't sure she wanted to keep the subscription because she was concerned it would outlive her.

 

Maybe she can include it in her will.

 

Gravesite delivery?

 

We considered this to be a possibliity.

"I got her subscription to the paper? My God, she must have hated me!"

 

Our situation may get a bit more interesting. The City Manager wants to meet with our publisher. He wants to persuade her to reconsider (which she has no power to do; the decision to cut to two days was made at the very top of the chain) or, if he doesn't like what he hears, "bring in someone else," according to our remaining reporter.

So if he doesn't like her answers, he's going to bring in a competitor?