Dear dimwit on the phone

Oh, God, don't get me started. We have a community sports page each week and the president of the local swim club sends in literally hundreds of results from kids ages 5-25. I formatted it once in agate type and it still took more than half a page. She was irate when I told her we just didn't have the space. Yes, we run some other results, but they are like 2-3 inches of agate, not half a page.

Finally, I just had to tell her that not enough readers wanted to read half a page of kiddo swimming times for us to devote that kind of space to it. We would run the link to their club website and those who are interested could read them there to their heart's content. I swear she still hates my guts.

 

I swear I get the strangest phone calls. For reasons unknown this side of heaven, the night outside line rings directly to my desk. So I get all strangers calling at all hours of the night about all sorts of items.

1) Last week, one poor soul called in tears that (I'm not making this up) her cat had run away and could we put a notice on page 1 about it. (No, we're not a 2,00o circ. weekly. We're a daily in a state capital city.) A colleague on the news desk was kind enough to inform me that classifieds runs those for free. Well, at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, classifieds won't be around until 8 a.m. Monday. "But he might be dead by then." I suggested she call the local animal rescue people. I was told I'm a heartless (expletive).

2) Some PR guy with some governmental lobbying agency calls up and frantically demands we not run a press release he had sent us a few hours earlier in the afternoon. News desk told me story was held because of tight newshole. (Never mind that this issue surely was the most important thing in the history of western civilization.) Crisis averted.

3) Little ole lady calls at 11:30 pm one night to complain about overcrowding in the school cafeteria and that some students are being forced to eat lunch in the hallways. (What, exactly, she expected me to do about the matter was unclear.) I suggested she call the city editor the following morning and he could determine whether or not to assign a story to a city reporter. She then proceeds to question why I work at a newspaper, why I don't have kids and asked if I had ever eaten at said school cafeteria. I finally had to hang up or sports would never have made deadline that night.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I'm asking the IT guru if they can rework the phone lines so I don't wind up answering every damn call in the neighborhood.

 

Yesterday, I got a letter with clippings from the statewide daily. Scrawled in either old man or young child handwriting was "Ha, ha they win again!" and "Wish your fish wrap had this info!" The clips were agate from the state basketball tournaments. Just scores and schedules, not boxes.

But we did have all the scores. Even of games that didn't involve our local teams. We even had all the scores, whereas the statewide had (n) listed for games that started at 8:30 or later. And we ran it in bigger point size than agate. I honestly don't know how this idiot didn't see it in the section.

Naturally this guy didn't include his return address. So I couldn't send back a letter saying "Yeah, we had those" and include the clips.

 

I used to love handling the "We already ran it" phone calls.

A very satisfying feeling to read the date of the paper, and the page number to the guy/gal griping on the line about how we never run their stuff. Which would inevitably be followed by a request to run the same thing again. I then would have to explain the concept of a daily newspaper in which readers usually expect something different to read each day.

 

Dear Vo-Tech Spring Parent,

I'm sure you'll bitch again this season when we don't give your baseball team much coverage.

I'll tell you again what I told you last season: Every other school's baseball coach - heck, every other team's coach in every sport - knows the rules and plays by them. In fact, your baseball coach is told the same thing every coach is told at the start of the season: If you're the home team, or if you're playing out of the coverage area, please call in the score unless you talked to one of our guys at the game.

Your coach chooses to call in nothing throughout the season. He's the only coach who calls in nothing. No, we're not going to call him for the scores. We're busy covering games and taking calls regarding other teams in all sports whose coaches are happy to play by the rules.

Why don't you talk to the coach?

Regards,

The Row

 

The best is when you have that "we already ran it" conversation with someone who works at the paper. Or someone who works in the sports department.

 

Someone just called today (Thursday, March 11) wanting to fill out an NCAA bracket.

Dear fucktard:
Until the selection committee fills out its bracket, we don't fill out ours.

 

North Carolina, UCLA, Arizona and UConn should be a safe bet for the Final Four

 

Ding! Ding! We have a winner.

"You guys are conspiring with the NCAA to not reveal the bracket! You guys already know who's been picked!"

 

Wow. That's hee-larious.

 

Not a phone call, but still this email made my night.

Came from a tennis dad asking me if he could still send pics to me of his daughter's high school tennis team this spring. And wanted to know if we were going to do an "athlete profile" on his daughter because she's a senior.

My response: Sir, I actually haven't worked at (the newspaper) or even lived in (your state) in 14 months, since December 2008. I live 1,400 miles away and I don't think there's a great deal of interest here for your daughter's high school tennis team.

Naturally it was a tennis parent.

Another tennis coach from the city I used to work/live in called me about a month after I left and asked if he could send me an announcement for tryouts, camps, etc. Told him I hadn't worked at the paper for five/six weeks. Two months later he called back to report a tennis score, at 10:45 p.m. local time.

Me: Coach, I still don't work at the paper.

Him: Oh, shoot. That's right, you're back in (state) now, aren't you.

Me: Yes, for the past three months. Thanks, goodbye.

 

Oh, so she's 18 now. Yeah, go ahead and send them.