Dear dimwit on the phone

I had a local college coach call in after games, and every time he would cuss about how the book was jacked up. I couldn't complain because the coach made sure he called right away so I could get the game in the paper before deadline. But he would have his red shirts do the book and every time I would hear something like "What the hell happened. Goddammit that isn't right. Hang on."

Also at softball games, I would sit next to the former high school coach who led the team to four-straight league titles. She was a much tougher scorer than I ever will be, so when ever there was a close play, I asked her because she would at least tell the objective truth. She told me stories how she would get into arguments with other coaches about stats because they wouldn't score errors if there was even a sliver of doubt at the call.

 

OK, so this isn't on the phone, but this thread is about ranting at idiots, so here goes:

Dear coach of a high school basketball team that sucks ass ...

We have nearly 60 prep basketball teams in our coverage area and I don't have to send a reporter to cover your sorry-ass two-win team. But we're near the end of the season and I've been watching your scores and you've played tough against some of the best teams in your league, so tonight I tossed you a bone. I sent a reporter to see you. First she had to deal with the stuck-on-herself high school girl you had keeping your scorebook who wouldn't cooperate when our reporter asked to get the lineup. And then after our reporter sits through a game between your sorry-ass team and another sorry-ass team -- that I'm sure set back basketball by decades -- she has to put up with you refusing to let her talk to any of your players ... even though you won.

Seriously, dude, if you think you're accomplishing anything other than making me question why we bother covering prep sports, think again.

Sincerely,

Sports editor who says, "Hey coach Dickweed, your program is dead to me until you see the right side of the .500 mark."

 

Hey be careful man. We just had a local 4-11 team not only make the playoffs, but hosted the first round game. They won a coin flip with a team that was 4-10 to get in. ... And to boot, they won the playoff game. Go figure

 

Not newspaper but was on the phone. And I'll just get to the summary to keep this post readable.

Basically, if you call our cable company's "local" phone number, you get a call center in East Texas. And you get people who wouldn't know a cable from a piece of black licorice. And they tell you to do things you can't do because they did things wrong the first time. And basically, they try to tell you you're too incompetent to work a television.

But I know one thing: If I've already told you I checked the TV and it's not on mute, the next question out of a technician's mouth had better not be, "Have you checked the mute button?"

Going through the call center gets your problem sloved in anywhere between 2 to 8 days. Going directly to the company office in your town gets your problem solved in no less than a half hour.

 

Yes, sir, we do have a couple of scores from unnamed NCAA D-2 conference. Got scores on two men's games.

No, sir, we don't have any scores from the women's games.

Because, sir, AP hasn't moved them yet.

Sir, if AP doesn't have the scores, neither do we.

Why doesn't AP have the scores? I guess you'd have to ask the jag-off sports information directors in that conference who don't understand it's part of their job to report such things to AP. Or ask their conference S.I.D., who can't get the standings right in the weekly press release - probably because she can't get the scores, either.

Sir, do you actually buy our paper?
That's what I figured.

 

Holy crap, you get people writing into you about D-2 women's games?

 

I don't know if anyone has ever had this happen to them, but I had a woman come in the other day to drop off an obituary. Normal enough.
But she asked if she could submit it in an Indesign file format. I told her I can't read it because we use Quark and if she could just e-mail me the obit in a word document.
Her response was she has word, but doesn't know how to use it. So you can use a page layout program, which requires elements of photoshop (or some other photo editing software), possibly illustrator, and a word processing program, usually word, but not Word?
We settled on her submitting the obit in a PDF, but I'm still shaking my head.

 

Guy leaves a message on voicemail, with his question and phone number. At my paper, if a caller leaves his or her phone number, you have to return the call. I'm the only one in the office at the time, so I return the call and reach him, but he's busy at the moment and puts me on hold.

After about a minute, I hang up, and call back about 10 minutes later.

I reach him again, and he informs me that he's on a business call and he would call me back, which he never did.

 

Some of my high school kids can use indesign and Quark, but struggle to use Word's features.

 

Yesterday we got a call from a guy pissed off because we didn't have anywhere in the paper that an area radio station was doing random updates throughout the day from the state high school wrestling tournament. Yelled at one of our writers for 10 minutes, then demanded to speak to me. She told him I was on the road to cover a game, and he twice demanded my cell phone number to complain to me. She didn't give it to him.

So, she called the radio station. Turns out that they aren't doing random updates this year.

 

Unfortunately, assholes like this never call back to apologize.

Meanwhile, there's nothing like starting Friday with e-mails from the softball mom from hell. Leads the pr effort for the hall of fame events, and we've been running something on the hall of fame and alumna game since mid-November. Earlier this month she asked if the listing could get into the community calendar on news side. So I fowarded them a message. Today the calendar comes out and I guess it wasn't in there, since she wrote wondering when her story was going to run. I told her I'd check with the newsies. The she asked if I needed info on the inductees. Yes, please, I wrote back ... knowing that earlier in the week I'd written asking if this was available yet and she referred me to her husband!

From past experience, this will not end well again. I'll probably get the info late next week (the event's on a Saturday), right in the midst of basketball playoffs and the runup to the state girls wrestling tournament. I'll send a shooter out to get a chass photo (or the school shooter, who does good work, will send one down), knowing full well I'll get a bitchy e-mail wondering why we didn't cover it. Hey,we're in the middle of playoffs. Our first responsibility is to the present generation. And when we get a day off, we take it! And, finally, we don't do banquets ...

And the hell of it all? In a month or so, I'll get an e-mail from the people who organize the football hall of fame dinner. They'll have pretty much the same 411 as softball does, except its football, of course. About a week or so before the event, they'll send me the list of inductees and a short bio of each one. And I'll send a shooter out to take a class photo (or the school shooter will take one for us and send it down). And you know what? They are very happy we do that!

Need another glass of red wine (siiiigh).

 

OK, I'll ask: Who the hell has a softball hall of fame, other than the one in Oklahoma City?

Is this high school softball? Rec League?