Dear dimwit on the phone

Dear dozens of job seekers,
I only wrote the article about the chain store that is coming to town. I do not work for them and do not have the ability to hire you.
I don't know when they are going to open or start taking applications.
Please stop calling and emailing daily just because my name and number were at the end of the article.

 

Ugh, I used to hate getting those.

 

Some days I wonder if putting the reporter's phone number and/or email at the end of stories is such a good idea.

 

Dear job seeker,
You're hired!

Sincerely,
MTM

 

Oh my goodness, this happens to our biz writers all the damn time.

 

At my last stop, when a school override passed, the education reporter got so many calls from people wanting to know how much their taxes would be increasing, the city editor finally told her to start referring them to the school district.

 

We had a football statistician a few years ago who credited quarterbacks with a pass attempt on handoffs.

 

We had the same softball problem several years ago at one of the little schools. "Let's see, we had one run on 32 hits and we made 3 errors."

Haven't had the pass attempts situation, but we did have another school credit running backs with yardage from the point they received the ball 4 or 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Presumably the QB got the same sort of yardage, too, on his passes.

 

Makes me wonder if that scorekeeper thought "at bat" and "plate appearance" were the same thing.

 

They should have a sports statistics class in high school. It's a valuable skill that every graduate should master.

 

There was a story years ago about a QB throwing for more than 500 yards in a game. A reporter called the coach for a follow up and was surprised he threw for that many. A look at the tape showed he was given credit for passing yards on pitchouts.

 

The center passed for 230 yards his ownself, too.