Dear dimwit on the phone

had a campaign manager for a state representative call and yell at me yesterday because she thought a photo of the candidate i used with a debate story wasn't flattering. a couple of hours later i got a call from the candidate himself apologizing profusely for what the campaign manager did. thank god i can escape with some friday night football photography tonight - in spite of the cold front coming in.

 

No, sir. At 8:30 p.m., I don't know the score of a game that began at 7 p.m.here in town because I'm in the office tonight. But if YOU would like to know the score, you could go to the stadium or tune in the radio station covering it.

 

No sir, I will not give you the phone numbers of the writers that picked against your precious podunk team in our weekly picks.
Grow up.

 

I got a question here for you guys.

One of my coworkers will answer the phone and be taking a call-in when another phone rings. Eventually all of us are on the phone taking call-ins. Well, said coworker will continue to answer the phone and place callers on hold. Sometimes, said co-worker will have as many as four coaches on hold at the same time. I'm under the belief that he's so fearful if he doesn't keep them on hold, they won't call back.

Now, here's what I do when the situation happens and there are not enough people to take all the calls. I let the phone ring and ring and ring and do not answer it. I'm too busy with the first call-in and I know the coach will figure we're busy and call back. As far as I know they all call back because the players' parents would be pissed off they didnt get the story in the paper. I also write-up the call-in before moving on to the next call whether if its ringing or on hold. My opinion is, it's first-call, first serve basis. I have no fear that all the call-ins will get called in and will get in the paper unlike said co-worker.

My questions is am I being a jerk? Or am I being more efficient with my time? I'm trying to save time by not going back and forth answering phones and saying can you hold on to coaches, then back to the original call-in.

What do you guys think?

 

In my days as a daily paper prep rewrite guy, the ASE would answer the other line and ask the coach/statistician if I could call them back. They understood and were cool about it. They understood that a lot of games were ending at once, and they knew they'd quickly get a return call.

 

I don't think we can put people on hold. I just take the call-ins as they come, and hope everybody else calls back or sends an e-mail.

How would I know if they don't?

 

We have two phones right next to each other, and if I'm on one, I'll ask the caller to hold just a minute and answer the other phone. I find out who it is, ask if I can call back in five minutes, and proceed. But I don't write up the one piece before I call back. It's not a first-come, first-served basis. It's about putting out the best product and getting everything you can. I write during the down time. If that means when all calls are in, so be it.

 

We have one guy that answers the phones on Friday night. He takes down the score then farms out the calls to the rest of us. If we are all busy, then he takes the info. The good thing for us is there is only 1 actual line for the calls, so if he is on the phone, then if someone else tries to call, it will be busy.

 

what's a busy signal?

 

When I'm on the phone, that gets my full attention. Heck, a fire alarm could go off and I'd probably ignore it. I try to write stuff up as soon as time permits, but I only do one phone call at a time.

Being a slot guy, I'm usually the last guy to take a call, so if I'm on the phone, it probably means everyone else is, too.

 

Pretty much the replies that I expected. Wish my "said co-worker" could get this through his thick skull.

 

Some grandma apparently called Friday to bitch us out about how much coverage two local teams receive while the third, which is ranked top 5 in the state, gets nothing. Our set up is one team gets a feature on Wednesday, another on Thursday and the third on Friday. State-ranked team's features have run on Thursday the last few weeks because of scheduling issues and their gamers have been the Saturday centerpiece six times in nine games.

It seems granny doesn't get the Thursday paper.

It was probably a good thing I was 175 miles from town to cover Friday's game. I might not be employed right now if I'd taken that call.