Dear dimwit on the phone

Batman,

I'm really proud of you for standing up to this A-hole. I understand your angst over how he might react. But I would agree that bringing a gun to the premises might not be the best possible idea. Just the sighting of a firearm tends to raise everyone's tensions. You've done a fabulous job of taking the high road through all of this.

 

The gun wasn't going to leave the car unless it was obvious something was badly amiss or an immediate confrontation happened (like him waiting for me in the parking lot and cutting me off from escape). I wasn't going to bring it in and put it on my desk.
The state I live in, it wouldn't surprise me if half the cars in the lot have guns in them. Hell, for the longest time there was an unloaded .22 in my glovebox that my wife had stashed in there and I'd forgotten about. I'm guilty of numerous counts of bringing it not only on company property, but school property as well.
Of course, by the time I get out of the car it should be obvious whether the coast is clear or not. So, yeah, I'll probably leave it at home.

 

I'm trying hard not to gloat, but that is another facet of this that makes me smile a bit. I'm sure he walked away from our confrontation thinking he'd intimidated me, scared the crap out of me, had gotten the best of me and was going to have the last laugh on Wednesday when he got the green light to take total control of my working life. He was on the ultimate bully's adrenaline high.

Meanwhile, I let him hang himself with the tape and then spent the rest of the morning quietly doing everything by the book to deal with the situation. By mid-afternoon his fate was pretty much sealed and he had no clue. Other than some strictly business talk about that day's paper, I didn't say another word to him on Monday and was careful not to mention the tape in anything other than closed-door meetings. At the suggestion of the HR rep, I even e-mailed the quasi-publisher from my personal account and had him call my cellphone instead of the office phone.
For as much grief as he's caused me the past month, I'd loved to have seen his reaction when the hammer came down today. Quasi-publisher said AME-1 took it well and apologized for letting them down, but I know he had to be furious inside.
It's reminding me, really, of the scene from Shawshank when the warden blows his brains out.
"I like to think the last thing that went through his head, other than the words 'you're fired,' were to wonder how in the hell Batman ever got the best of him."

 

Damn, that must have been satisfying. But it's certainly no surprise that he got himself canned. What an ass.

 

I've always liked the ones who call and say "I was on the basketball team at Podunk High in 1967 and you took my picture when we won Sectionals. Do you still have that edition around?"

After being told no, they then ask "Well, I know you have bound editions. Can I just cut it out of there?"

 

Smart moves, Batman. How stupid could that guy have been, especially since he was already warned. Hope the guy learned his lesson.

 

Hey Batman,

Just curious, but not trying to out anyone. What size of paper is this and what size of staff? Are you a one-man sports staff or is it larger than that?

 

Do you guys have any "serial letters to the editor writers" who keep writing into the paper as if a bomb will explode if they stop? We have a couple guys that keep writing in, sometimes more than once a day, no matter what the topic is. In fact, they both wrote in the other day about LeBron James and we're not even in Ohio. The editor's published them a few times, so I guess that's why they keep doing it.

Speaking of LeBron James, some guy called on deadline wanting me to explain to him why the Vegas odds moved the Cavs to the front of the class.

 

To the reader (and if I recall correctly, staffer from before my time) who felt the need to email me just to make a snide remark over my incorrect editing of the phrase 'ba(i)ted breath,' thanks for amping up the great feelings I already had about work from doing a 'goodness of my heart' coverage of a Little League district final involving the sister paper's two teams and missing extra time of the World Cup Final to go to a men's wood bat tournament in the middle of the woods whose championship game was scheduled for 4 p.m., but of course started at 5:15 because semifinal 2 went 10 innings, so I could have easily watched the end of the game.

 

I got my first template press release from a kid who was invited to a national football showcase. I really don't want to tell the kid -- an incoming freshman, I think -- he likely got invited because his mom wrote a check.

But back to Little League, is "losers' bracket" somehow different from "consolation bracket?" I got a lovely e-mail telling me it's a case of political correctness run amok and thoroughly incorrect to boot, since there is no separate bracket. Except his term "loser's bracket" (one loser, not a whole team of them) would therefore be equally wrong... and not the term used by the local host group. At least the people who were there were incredibly courteous -- and seemed thrilled the newspaper had showed up at all.

 

Actually, strictly speaking, I think there is a difference. A losers bracket (no possessive LOL) is typically found in baseball or softball tournaments with a double-elimination format, where a team that loses a game can play their way to win the overall championship. A consolation bracket is more typically found in basketball tournaments, especially holiday and early-season tournaments, where teams get a guaranteed number of games and they play other losers in a separate bracket. The consolation bracket winner would generally be your fifth-place team in an eight-team tournament.

 

I tend to refer to it as the 'elimination bracket.' Makes it clear what's at stake and avoids the use of the pejorative 'loser's.'