Dear dimwit on the phone

It was the home team which sent it in, and it probably was a home team win. But it wasn't specified, and when all you do is copy two pages from the varsity scorebook and jam them in a fax machine without even providing the other pertinent information from a varsity game (little things, such as records, shots taken, turnovers, rebounds, etc.), my desire to trust you isn't too high.
Besides, I don't want to mess up any scrapbooks or cost a JV kid a scholarship -- though, to be fair, no JV individuals were even listed.

 

What's their issue?

 

"Yes ma'am, I'm sorry you didn't get your paper delivered today. But you do realize that there's a major snowstorm going on, right?"

 

If you're on the news side in an area hit hard by the blizzard, just fucking forget about receiving any comments that resemble rational human thought.

 

My 4 area schools have had 11 scholarship signees (6 of which have been JUCO or NAIA...) so far with at least two more to come. Being a weekly, I write gamers for 2 or 3 games a week and shoot photos. I have 4 pages and the back page is specifically geared towards basketball. I don't always have room to run these photos, but alas, a parent emails my editor and complains because her kid (who signed with a HORRIBLE juco team) ran to get the paper and it wasn't in there.

An excerpt from the email: "He then came , took pictures, wrote down names, and left. Now a week later no one bothered to put this important event in your paper! My daughter was so excited, went to get the paper as soon as she got home today only to find that her picture and signing were not there!! This is ridiculous!!"

 

A few years back, I was working for a six-day daily with one main high schools and few smaller surrounding schools. Had about 8-9 people going to various colleges at different levels. Only one was a NCAA D-I scholarships signees. The rest were D-II, III, NAIA, JUCO or walkons.

So I did a separate story on the one D-I scholarship signee (baseball) and did a roundup on the others that ran a few days later. Got accused of being biased, but the rationale was the one guy who got a D-I scholarship merited a separate story. We had, after all, covered these kids throughout their high school careers, so anyone who read the paper on even a semi-regular basis knew who they were and what they did.

 

There have been no dimwits for three days?

 

Hold on, there was one today....

Funeral home person: Yes, I'm calling to see if you've received the death notice for (Susie So-and-So).

Me: (looking through email) No, I don't see that one.

FHP: Well ... I mailed to to (the previous managing editor)'s email address.

Me: She's no longer with the paper. She left three weeks ago.

FHP: Well, I wish someone had told us.

Me: We did. After all, we've been getting your obituaries in the three weeks since she left. In fact, the other two you've sent us today got to me just fine.

I swear I could hear the steam coming out of her ears. But it's not my fault that no one told her and this was the first time she in particular had called.

 

I soooo do not miss taking those phone calls. A local funeral home at my last paper still insisted on dropping off the info instead of email. This was 2 years ago!!!

 

Funeral home directors, at least in my experiences, are 1,000 times more demanding/impatient than prep parents.

It's amazing how these people expect us to drop everything we're doing to make sure we got a classified obit or scanned a photo. I'm getting pissed just thinking about it.

 

Twice I had to deal with grieving families that were sent BY THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR to our office to scan a photo after the main office was closed or was the weekend.

1) Fuck you...scan the photo at your place and email it in.
2) Worst attempt at small talk...EVER.
The 1st time they did it, I brought them in and they waited for me to do it...just odd, terrible silence. The next time they sent someone over, I made them stay in the front office and brought it back to them. I sent off an email to the funeral home after that to NEVER send people to us again.

 

The only good thing is that I only have to take those calls for four more days. The new managing editor starts Monday. It's only going to be three weeks between ME's this time, not a year and a half like last time.