Dear dimwit on the phone

That right there is reformedhack FTW.

 

Real call ... woman calls to berate me for a misspelled headline on A1. I tell her that she called sports. The bitch doesn't care. Starts berating me on how my cavalier attitude about not wanting to make a correction for any part of the paper is why newspapers are in the toilet. As she rants more (and I let her because it's becoming amusing) and drops that she was a 25-year veteran of the paper before the new owners laid her off for cheap, out-of-town, hack labor like me.

I ask if she really called about some fucked up headline or because she wants to vent that she lost her job almost 10 years ago. You can guess which. Pissed her off even more, and I get bored with her.

"Yes, we're all a bunch of stupid bastards from out of state without the chops of seasoned pros like you. To let you in on how incompetent we are, we can't even manage to make $30K per year. I've been here five years and can't pull that money. So I guess you get what the company decides to pay for. Tough shit."

Click.

 

Dear Nutjob,
Please don't call and ask me why your cable went out while you were watching the Final Four.

 

There's a numbnut around here who always calls us to complain about why the major metro up the road didn't cover so-and-so. Or why they don't run the gambling lines. Or why they didn't have a score in the paper. Drives me insane. Especially when he never fails to point out, "I used to be the sports editor at the major metro, so I know how it works..."
The guy was editor there about 30 years ago. They fired him for, I believe, general incompetence.
Somehow, in all these years, I haven't snapped on him yet. It's usually easier to just let him rant for a few minutes and let him go on his merry way. But just once I want to scream through the phone "HEY FUCKTARD! GOT A COMPLAINT WITH THE MAJOR METRO!? HERE'S A NOVEL CONCEPT -- CALL THE MAJOR METRO!"

 

Two favorites, one an oldie and a goodie, one from this football season.
Years ago, working on two high school stories and story on the local college team when the main preps guy answers the phone.
Guy who bagged groceries at grocery store across the parking lot is calling. Called a lot. Wants to know what the score of a big time college football game is.
Our acerbic preps guy: "Well, Jeff, isn't that on TV right now?"
Bagger replies.
Acerbic preps guy: "Uh huh." Click.
Me: "What the fuck was that?"
Acerbic preps guy: "Jeff's at home watching TV. But he didn't want to change the channel to the game and wanted us to tell him score."

From this year, at a football practice to talk with the coach for a preview. QB's dad accosts me. Says we favor the other team in the county in our coverage.
My BS detector — and lack of patience at the end of a day that started at 0830 and won't end until after midnight — goes off.
Dude actually asks me to look up how much more we cover them. We ended the conversation before I could tell him to:
A) Fuck off.
B) You made the accusation. You fucking prove it. Come by the office and I'll give you my pica pole to measure the stories and let you run through the back issues.
C) Fuck off.

 

We've been getting calls from the same guy wanting TV listings. He has more than once said he won't buy a paper then bitches that we don't list Versus in our TV Guide (of which sports has zero control over), and that he thinks were taking it out of the daily log because it's cycling and Indy cars. He then tries to jabber for an hour about Indy and the tours. I actually hung up on him tonight because I just can't take it anymore.
Thank you management for putting the giant billboards around town that say, "Want to know what's going on in the world of sports? Find out, call XXX-XXXX."
People take that literally you know, they aren't smart enough to understand it's meant for you to subscribe.

 

Caller rants and rants. I listen quietly. More ranting. Finally, a pause.

Me: "You're finished? Good." (click)



Love the calls about "You didn't have this in the paper" and I pick up the paper, read the headlines, page number, other stories around it and describe the photo with it.

Them: "Oh." (click)


Dumbasses.

 

"Not having something in the paper" means the article didn't jump out, smack the person in the head and dance on the kitchen table.

 

Another fun story: We had an intern who was about 6-4, 230 pounds or so. One night, intern answers the phone because we're all busy taking results, gets this idiot who had called us to complain about stuff before and had some other complaint. Intern talks to the guy for a few minutes, then the guy calls him a 'fucking asshole' and hangs up.

Few weeks later, one of our reporters takes the intern to a game for him to get the feel of reporting on a game and sees the guy there. Reporter walks up, introduces himself and says, "So, I heard you called us a couple weeks back." Guy admits he did.

Reporter then says, "Our intern who took your call is here. Let me introduce you to him." Intern comes over and guy's jaw drops to the ground.

He never called to complain again.

 

Dearest caller, we do not apologize that we didn't print a copy of the NCAA Tournament bracket in our newspaper. Our community newspaper covers high school sports, in a county that has two big-city daily newspapers that did print brackets. The reporter that you hassled, by the way, was getting ready to take a three-hour round trip to see one of our girls' basketball teams play in the state quarterfinals that night. If you'd like to come back and read his story, please do.

 

This. You just saved me some typing.

 

Had a call Tuesday afternoon to criticize a story I wrote. Never took an angry tone - he just wanted to express his displeasure with the topic. We had a good conversation actually. It was the strangest thing I've experienced.