Dear dimwit on the phone

Here's one thing that sort of bothers me that I see happening more and more often....... Used to be, you made a mistake, usually an honest, simple mistake (like an editor on deadline writing "Elway" instead of "Manning" in a Broncos' headline) and it was seen by a few thousand people.

Now, with the internet and all this social media stuff, stuff gets broadcast all over the world. Sure, people like to share their successes. But when we make mistakes --- and we all do --- it seems to get blown out of proportion. You have 20 million people looking at something and saying "what a dumb ass". It's almost like we go out of our way to find errors and broadcast them (like the TV station with the Korean pilots' fake names). Does it somehow make us feel better?

 

Holy shit. Please crawl back under the rock from which you came.

If you don't want to see what us regulars post in here, don't fucking read it. It's as simple as that.

 

Depending on the day or the particular hour, there's a possibility that when I answer the phone at work that there might be a dimwit on both ends of the phone.

Those conversations can be the most amusing.

But I usually try to pretend that they didn't happen.

 

And sometimes you have Romanesko or someone else re-posting them for even more people to see.

 

I blame soccer.
And orange slices.

 

So it's dear dimwit you work for?

 

If I read the original post correctly, the caller wasn't looking to get information or find the right person to bitch at. They were just bitching. Sounds like they just wanted to vent directly at someone.

 

Dear wrestling grandpa

It's interesting how the internet age allows us to feel super comfortable emailing insults to people. See you sent me an email straight-up blasting my intelligence and education. Why was this? Because the article about the state meet didn't mention your grandson's third-place finish, which came after he spent most of the season ranked No. 1. If you'll note, 10 goddamn area kids went to state, and a full list in the article would have eaten up about a third of it.

I even apologized we didn't have a breakout listing every finish, and that is an oversight by someone in the office, and by virtue of being at state, that's not where I was. I explained how I had a small amount of space to mention your kid's teammate who came a few seconds from winning state, your grandson's team finishing in the top 3 despite a system that doesn't favor smaller schools and the kid who had a massive winning streak, won last year and fell short of back-to-back.

Oh, that explanation brings more abuse? You say we're in the pocket of a family because we sometimes wrote about the kid that hadn't lost in two years? Well that's nice. I'm starting to see why your grandson declined to talk to me after losing in an earlier round of the tournament even though he still advanced. High sense of entitlement there. And grandpa is threatening to cancel a mess of subscriptions he apparently controls because he's never liked our wrestling coverage. That seems an effective threat since the season just ended, but I assure you, with our short staff and one good team in the area, you won't get much more any time soon.

Note: A day later grandma called. She was pretty even-keeled. I explained, noted the oversight and apologized. She seemed to understand, despite being a tad disappointed, which is what it is. I'm sure the grandson who choked gave zero fucks.

 

I've gotten calls from people who were upset at a different department, knew fully well I wasn't in that department but expected me to deal with their issue myself anyway.

 

Which benefits absolutely no one.

 

I've had circ calls go like that. If they don't get the answer they want from the circulation manager (or if the problem isn't fixed), I'd get the call. I had no authority over circulation and could do nothing to fix the problem, but I'd get annoyed enough for having to deal with the call in the first place that I would go bother people in the circulation office. (And to preempt Snark's snarky comment, I was always polite to the customers on the phone and would give them the publisher's number as a resource for them to use. Often I would be called first if there was a problem just because they knew I would look into it, so there.)

 

I'd just like to see more Snark and less Shark. What's the point of pissing on this thread anyway? People are just venting, and sure, some of the "dimwits" aren't as dim-witted as others, but if you don't like the thread then don't read it. Nobody is whining about their precious time, and I'm sure we all know how to handle callers professional. Just a place to vent, and nothing more. Lighten up, folks.