Dear dimwit on the phone

One more from the e-mail archives:

 

Seems like a reasonable request, actually, if you take out the ALL CAPS. Did you respond?

 

I don't respond to e-mails like these. I just forward them to the higher-ups. But we're talking about junior hockey here. It's low tier because... it's low tier. Why would we send five reporters across the state to cover a junior hockey team clinching the sixth or seventh seed?

 

Just to be clear, the request I thought was reasonable was for you explain your decisions on coverage. Also, I'm pretty sure the reader didn't want you to send all five reporters. They just wanted to point out you had multiple reporters that could have made it to the event.

I'm not saying you should have covered it, but you could have easily responded with something like this.

"I'm sorry you disagree with our coverage choices on (date). Our five reporters were covering (X, Y and Z) and we couldn't justify the expense (or whatever reason) of sending a reporter across the state when there were other important events closer to our coverage area that needed to be covered.

Thanks for your feedback and let me know if you have any more questions."

Done. And, maybe you build some goodwill. Imagine that.

 

He said he forwarded it to the higher-ups, and that's their job, to respond and give reasons for the coverage decisions, if they warrant an explanation. Joe Reader doesn't get to enter the discussion of who he had available and who could have done what on a particular night.

I'd wager the chances of him answering that e-mail and it resulting in goodwill being about 5 percent. There's a 95-percent chance it turns into a pissing match, the e-mailer trying to bait him into a back and forth exchange to get him in trouble, claims of "No one gives a shit about Event X, why would you cover about Event Y, and if you think Event Z deserves more coverage than Hokeytown Hockey, then you guys are all a bunch of sister-fuckers" and a long protracted headache that no one emerges from a winner.

You're never going to be able to answer an e-mail like that and have the reader be satisfied with your answer. Never. So at some point, you've got to decide it's not worth engaging them.

 

The problem with letters like this is, the writers are so focused on junior hockey, they don't understand that basketball, soccer, wrestling, ect. are going on in town at the same time that are greater priority than junior hockey. Yeah, it may degenerate into a urination competition, but I at least try to answer all emails with a "Thanks for writing. We didn't go to the dark side of the moon for the Isotopes vs. Shelbyville because ..." I like to think the "thank you" disarms them.

 

Yeah, you may be right. I just became overly wary of any kind of response because it seemed like everyone was looking for a confrontation to then forward to the bosses in an effort to get someone fired. It seems like that's how everything is going everywhere these days. The rational people are outnumbered by a ridiculous margin by the idiots.

I remember one e-mail I received that was similarly pissy in tone, and at the end, the guy said, "I DARE YOU to reply to this e-mail."

That was a quick click on the "delete" button.

 

Instead of deleting it, you should have gone with a "Thanks for reading" reply.

 

+1. Yup...a missed opportunity.

 

Given what I've heard about the higher-ups on this thread, I would refrain from passing any complaint messages along... unless you want to cover whatever was in the e-mail henceforth and forevermore. Fan mail from readers about when you did a fabulous job, THAT they need to see early and often!

 

We actually got those pretty frequently at one place I worked and I'd always forward them to our main editor.

 

Funny thing about the e-mails that routinely cc my boss and the boss of my boss:

I tend to disregard them. They weren't serious about engaging me, they wanted to stir something up.

I'm blessed to work for bosses who, generally, trust me to do that thing I do.

In a real knock down, drag out pissing match, I'll tell the e-mail straight out that they took the issue out of my hands by going above my head to start. "We probably could have worked something out, but now I have to wait for them to tell me how they'd like to proceed." That message usually gets through.