Dear dimwit on the phone

Our regular caller veers wildly between engrossing topics such ad "when is the 8th grade girls basketball jamboree" -- we don't cover anything below varsity and the season started last weekend so you missed it most likely -- to "did the Nets finish in third place in 1995?" -- I don't know, and I don't have time to look it up for you because we're taking scores from teams that aren't on the other side of the country.

I found a phone with a caller ID function in the supply room. I'm switching out the phone this week so we can screen him.

He called the first night we transitioned to a central copy desk in another state, which was nice and stressful, and I hung up as soon as I heard his voice. I didn't have time for his shit that night.

 

He probably has money on the game.

 

We used to have a guy that kept calling to harass us because we weren't giving the same amount of coverage to a college football team in the next state as we were our in-state colleges on the basis that they were in our "region." He'd call one number in the sports department, then when that call was done, proceed to call another number. I think he might've been the first caller I ever hung up on.

We also had some teenager calling all the time for completely random things. One time he wanted me to give him the names of all 44 starters for the Super Bowl. When I refused, he whined that it was my job to give him the answer. Then he tried to report me to the editor, but nothing came of it.

 

One of our regulars has been a busy boy. Called us about a half-dozen times over the past three weeks to complain about the Major Metro.
He called one Monday to complain about them not running the AP football poll. We didn't run it on the agate page that day either (we had some local agate that ate up a ton of space, but we did run the Top 25 schedule; it was the first Monday all season we didn't run it), and he lit into me about how that and the Vegas gambling lines were the two most important things a newspaper could run every day.
This call came at about 10 a.m. I didn't know the bars opened that early.

 

We have a mildly autistic woman that is obsessed with the local Catholic school and the local D-I football team. She called 9 times in 3 hours on Friday to ask for score updates on prep football and then ask when the college team plays and then asks about baseball and then asks about...
You get the drift.
I mean, you try to be nice, but after a while I just tell people to hang up on her.

 

We have a woman like that, only her interest is MLB, specifically the starting lineups for the Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers. It depends on the day. Sometimes she only wants one of them. Other days, two. Others, all three.

Some of the staffers are more patient than others. A couple of times, guys told her we were on deadline and they couldn't help. She remembers voices. If she gets someone who wasn't helpful once or twice, she now hangs up as soon as they say hello. But she calls back 2-3 times a night.

The one guy who always gave her what she wanted left in August. The three remaining guys? She call and hang up on us every night for the rest of the season. Was never so glad to see a MLB end for the year.

 

Luckily we have caller ID, so when she calls, most of us just let it ring. But then she will call like 3, 4 times in a row...so it gets old.

 

We have an older gentleman who we believe has mental disorder that calls multiple times a week wanting to know about Notre Dame football, Montreal Canadiens, High School Hockey scores. My boss and I are patient with him but there are some nights where we can't deal with him. I expect tonight will be one those nights since Notre Dame is playing in the evening. There's another guy on our staff who won't deal with him at all.

 

My thought process on dealing with these type of people is this: If they are being that much a pain and might not even be a subscriber....screw 'em and hang up or tell them to stop bothering you.

 

That's one good thing about smartphones, I guess. I don't remember the last time I settled a drunken bar bet. We hardly even get calls from anyone anymore.

And going against the theme of the thread, we have a guy who regularly calls who is blind and is a baseball and college football fan. He calls at least once a week for rumors/updates/times of games. Good guy, and he's become a bit friendly with most of us, because he's been calling for a while now. Funny thing is, I think he lives in the city where his favorite college football team plays, which is about 4 hours from us and we don't cover them. How he got to start calling us, I will never know.
Used to have a guy who would call every Saturday for all the Bundesliga scores. We'd always pass him to the same desk guy, who gave it his all when pronouncing the team names. We always looked forward to that one too.

 

We used to have an ungrateful guy calling all the time from the other side of the state. He'd ask a question, if we had the answer he'd just hang up on us, and if we didn't have the answer he'd swear at us before hanging up. Not sure why we were the paper he'd call, but I suspect his local paper may have gotten sick of him.

 

Wow, so that guy is calling you now? Glad we got rid of him.
Seriously, this sounds EXACTLY like a guy we had that harassed us. We finally threatened the cops on him after we got Caller ID and repeated his name and number back to him and said if he called us again we would tell the cops.
His last name was Marinelli, like the old Lions coach. He would bitch us out and tell us we are fucking terrible people (because we listed the wrong national game of the week in the TV listings or didn't have a complete list of west coast baseball scores...shit like that).
After I while, I got sick of his shit and started to talk back to him.