Dear dimwit on the phone

Things like this are why I'm glad our CMS is set up the way it is.

 

Email this time. Have you ever had someone go, "If only you had told me what your deadline is" even after you've reminded them on multiple occasions?

And now, with us cutting back to two days a week, this person actually had an extra day to turn in her results and still missed deadline. But that's somehow my fault. OK.

 

My boss took two calls today.

One lady complained because we listed a cause of death -- self-inflicted gunshot wound -- in a story on a former high school football coach who killed himself Thursday night. The cause was attributed to the county coroner. Caller thought my boss was being "insensitive" by saying what happened. Our editor read it and had no issue with it, for the record.

Other lady called upset that we didn't include one of her son's stats from a middle school football game over the weekend. Said her son, who is a twin and who she claimed had over 100 rushing yards in the game, was upset about it and distraught. Boss told her we went with the stats that were provided by the coach, who only gave us a scoring summary from the game. Didn't matter what my boss said, mom was still upset and yelling at him for a few seconds -- he had to pull the phone away at one point, and I could hear her yelling from my desk.

 

"Hey, Apeman, when you write up your story about the volleyball team after sub-state, can you include the records of the JV and freshmen teams?"

First, good sir, no, because the story won't be about them. Second, I couldn't get those coaches to send me anything all year long. I don't expect that they'll care any more about it two weeks after their seasons have concluded. Hell, I had to pull teeth to get scores from the varsity coach this season.

 

As long as I've been at my current shop, we've held firm to the rule of only running stuff from varsity games. Only exception really is with youth sports, and all they get is a photo and a cutline.

 

This is small-town America, where some parents actually think the JV should get the same coverage as the varsity. Seriously!

When the middle school here decided to go back to having interscholastic sports a few years ago, my first thought was, "They'll expect me to cover this just like the high school varsity," because this town is THAT insane. However, I've been able to scale it back considerably from that first year. I didn't go to a single game this season, so I'm back into costing-Little-Johnny-a-scholarship mode.

 

Hoo boy.
Just found out our paper is doing away with the comics page, effective Monday.
On a related note, I will not be anywhere near the office on Monday and will do my damnedest to be "on assignment" on Tuesday.

 

That's crazy. Comics and crosswords probably keep half your readers subscribing.

 

Oh, believe me, I know. We dropped Dear Abby a couple of months ago and it riled up the masses. This is going to have them at the front door with torches and pitchforks.
Apparently it's going to save us $70,000 per year. I wonder how much it's going to cost us in lost subscribers and ad dollars? And if there's enough of a backlash, if they'll reverse course?

 

Worked at a place that, at separate times, tried dropping the Sports-on-TV listings (to save space) and the horse-racing agate (to save space and money). Both times, the changes lasted about a week before being reversed. (And both times, we'd tried to tell the bosses what bad ideas they were.) The key is to make sure the higher-ups are aware of the outcry. Transfer calls to them, or give callers their name.

 

Good move. Mary Worth's gonna announce if she's getting the abortion on Monday.

 

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