Anybody else with helpful co-workers?

You're either defensive or blind, or in rare air.

Um, how many sports guys at smallish papers out there have ever got the eye-roll from a newssider when you come in to begin your day at 4 and they utter some remark about how "the sports guys never work?" I remember those days.

 

When I was at the small-town daily years ago, I had this one moronic funeral home director call on a Friday night around 11 p.m. Deadline for everything was 11:30, and press start was midnight for the Sat. a.m. edition, and we didn't have a Sunday paper. It was a p.m. paper M-F.

So the guy calls at 11, and wants to get in a late obituary. I answered the phone because our reporters had gone home and the one editor on duty was also on the phone about something or another. Funeral home director demands to get the obit in because the funeral is Monday morning, I tell him he's too late, which he should have known, because he'd been a director for 20-something years.

Funeral home guy: "What time does your printing press start?"

Me: "Midnight."

FHG: "Well, then you have time to get this in."

Me: "No, we don't. Deadline to submit things in was 8 p.m., unless we know in advance that it's coming, so we can allocate space for it."

FHG: "Your printing press doesn't start until 12. I can fax this over right now. You can get it in."

Me: "No, we can't. We have other pages that we have to finish. We have to take time to type your obit into the computer, then we have to tear up the page for the obits which was done at 8 and already prepared for the printing press. We don't have time to do that."

FHG: "Well, what are you guys doing there all night? What do you mean, you don't have time?"

Me: "We're working to get out the other parts of the paper finished. It's now 11:04, and I've just lost four minutes arguing with you. You are past the deadline."

So the director then demands to talk to the assistant editor, who was in charge for the night, who just got off the phone, so I transfer him over. AE listens for a minute, tells him, "You're past deadline." and hangs up.

That Monday, the publisher swings by and said the director had called at 11:15 at his home, and asked me why we didn't get the obit in. I told him that it was past deadline. Publisher replied that the FHD told him that he had called at 7 p.m. I told him that the FHD was a liar. Publisher agreed.

 

No, there are those idiots.

You imply the newsroom is always done at 7, though. Outside of Sunday shifts, I don't recall that happening too often.