Dear dimwit on the phone

Your guess is incorrect. I know the pressures of deadline and I deal with in a professional manner.

I'm sorry you don't get enough notice for events. I'm sorry people call you on deadline. Boo hoo.

It's your job and it apparently has been part of your job for a while. Maybe you should figure out a better way of dealing with it?

 

Maybe you should blow off some steam by joining another profession. BREAKING NEWS: Journalism and working at a newspaper is frustrating.

 

Are you fucking serious? You actually think we say stuff to readers that we post on here?

 

Jeez, children, grow up.

It's an internet message board, nothing more, nothing less. Everyone on here expresses opinions one way or another about all sorts of stuff. This thread has included quite a few funny stories and a lot of commiserating over various things.

 

You know, that attitude works both ways. If you don't like this thread, you're more than welcome to take a hike, son.

 

When did we allow assholes on this board.

Oh, wait...I'm one of those...please...commence.

 

I was gonna say ...

 

Dear SnarkShank,

I went back and read the first few pages of this thread, found tales I could relate to because they happen to every sports writer, tales I couldn't relate to because things were done differently at papers I worked at, and tales I suspect I might relate to in the future because I just started a new job.

But you know what? As a fellow newbie, I know that, regardless of what each person on this forum did or didn't do as part of their job description, that they run into dimwits who think they know everything about how every newspaper works.

And dimwits don't just exist in the newspaper world, but at every job we've ever held.

And I don't jump on anyone here because I've dealt with dimwits before -- not just in the newspaper world, but in every other job I've held. I could tell a bunch of stories about dimwits in the restaurant or at the car wash I worked at.

And nobody is venting about these dimwits because they are unprofessional jerks. They are venting because that's what people do after they have just dealt with a dimwit. If they didn't vent here, they'd vent to their spouse, parent, sibling, friend, co-worker or anyone else they knew personally. Because if you didn't vent to somebody else, you'd drive yourself crazy.

So stop acting like you never had something to vent about in the course of your newspaper job or any other job.

To the rest of you: No, this was not an attempt to brown nose.

Sincerely,
Sports writer who can think about nine different tales he could vent about right now.

 

Welcome newbie. You don't even have to get me a beer!
OK, I keed about that...make it a Boston Lager!

 

Are these people also being whiny and unprofessional in their field of work by posting these stories?

There are idiots all over the world. And people who are in the same field will experience the same types of idiots. And there are forums such as this one for people to let off steam and share stories about these idiots.

Unless you think an employee has an obligation to agree with the woman who thinks her iPod is an iPhone.

 

I rise in defense of this thread, despite its somewhat unfortunate name.

This is exactly the kinds of conversations sports editors, reporters and deskers have when they're sitting around gassing when off deadline. It serves a great purpose of remind each of us that we're not alone in what we have to deal with. And if you read long enough, you realize that most of us are trying to assure that those who call us go away with a not-negative view of the transaction.

The corollary point, and this cannot be emphasized enough, is that trying to make unhappy callers happy is a fool's errand. Some folks don't really want to be helped.

Carry on.

 

One of my pet peeves is persons who work in customer service or retail who don't seem to know a darn thing about the company or its products. Happened when I was trying to get my phone fixed recently. I was soooo tempted to say to all three of the people at the counter "well, why are you working here today, because you obviously don't know anything".

Hey, at least I made an effort to learn about the functionings of other departments: classifieds, circulation, display advertising, press room, etc. Seems that's the least you can do in any job.