Dear dimwit on the phone

Oh, man, she set that one up on a tee for ya.

"Ma'am, I'll tell you exactly what my problem is. The problem is we're attempting to publish a professional newspaper with a report on what happened in a soccer match. And thus far you've been unable to provide us with the most minimal information. Now, why don't you track down a representative of the opposing school, give them our phone number and politely ask them to call me. If they do, we'll be happy to fill in the blanks that you left."

Yeah, I've gotten a lot of those calls through the years, especially non-league games. They usually end up as very short tack-ons.

 

I always say to people: "Both sides or neither...can't have it half-done." They usually get either pissed or understand....usually the latter (even if they are pissed).

 

Soccer is the only sport where this seems to be a problem, but it's chronic with them.
I have invoked the "courtesy" notion - if you get their names, they'll be sure to get yours when you visit their place - but now I'm at the point where we'e just going to declare that, unless you provide scoring info on both teams, we're only going to run the score itself and no other information.

I'm at my wit's end on this.

 

Were both sides in your circulation area? If Podunk loses to Cowtown, and I don't sell papers in Cowtown, I'm not gonna sweat it.

 

I get it now. You're what the kids call a troll. Please stop.

 

Yes, both from our core area. In fact, the visiting team was a defending state champion on the boys side.

 

"So who scored for the other team?"
"Missy J, Samantha S and Julie G."
"What are the last names?"
"That's all they wrote down in our book."

 

Oftentimes, you can unscrew that with the help of the rosters on MaxPreps, if there's time.

 

The Bears-Ravens game was airing in my region, so when they switched to another game because of the storm delay, it reminded me of a woman who called to complain that we had a TV listing wrong because a tennis major wasn't on when she tuned in to watch. Not only had it been rain-delayed, but she wasn't even on the right channel to begin with.

I've also gotten a few of calls complaining about baseball games not being on TV even though the bottom of the screen clearly states rain delay.

Anyone have stories like this?

I keep expecting someone to tune into bonus NFL game coverage and complain that we didn't have it in our listings (and then the sports editor would ask why it wasn't listed).

 

No, ma'am, we can't honor this coupon for 30 percent off clearance toys ... it expired in July. How do I know? Because it reads, "Expires July 31, 2013."

 

That's about all you can do. You can try to set standards, either in print or verbally, early in the season and ultimately you get whatever information you get.

 

Oh yeah. I loved the calls for Sunday doubleheaders in the NFL when the early game would go into overtime, and callers would get pissy because the late game we had listed wasn't on.

It typically would go something like this:

ME: "It will be on, it's just not on yet because the first game ran long. When that ends, they will pick up the second game."
CALLER: "Well if it wasn't going to be on from the start, why did you put it in the listings?"
ME: "Are you saying I should have been able to see the future and known this game would go into overtime and run long so they couldn't show the late game from the beginning."
CALLER: "Um, yes."

That's when I thanked them for calling and hung up.