Dear dimwit on the phone

Well, it's apparent you hate swimming. Which means you hate kids. Which makes you a Nazi.

YOU BASTARD!

 

@ Apeman...
similar thing here...club swimming is all about who brings the most swimmers to the pool.

Anyway local junior college hosting the events sends me an email Friday, July 22 in the afternoon..."The Western Age Group Sectionals are being hosted by Podunk CC from July 20-23"

Glad they could get that to me on time...now let me climb into my time machine and we'll run a short preview for the event.

Needless to say we covered summer playoff baseball instead and will check the results page for swimming and put together a side item after the weekend...assuming the results get posted.

 

Thank you, Henry. Now I really *do* feel better.

 

Ya know what though, Flex?

That's a good thing.

All people can really ask (at least in my mind) is that you make the effort.

It's not like you're saying "Screw' em."

You're gonna look. If the results aren't there, such is life.

 

It's more about this local college consistently telling us about events after the fact...any PR dept. worth it's weight knows to give plenty of notice. I am constantly looking at least 2 weeks ahead, not that we can't switch things up when merited and the hours are available.

 

Understood, and you would expect them to be on the ball.

But again, some folks would not even have bothered.

 

It's one thing for a parent to make a mistake like that, but for a public relations employee to consistently do this is quite another. They are being paid to be on the ball.

 

You do come to respect the people who have an instinct for letting the media know about something in advance. Last week I got a release on a martial arts tournament coming up next month. Perfect. Because now we have time to figure out a local angle. When you juxtapose that with the people who wait until the day before or the day of an event to contact you, it's pretty frustrating.

Now, back to the dimwits ...

Dear dimwit who sent the result of a youth baseball league championship that was held three weeks ago:

Thank you for sending a report that includes the text of the team's postgame prayer and your statement that faith lifted the team to the title. I guess that information is so important that you got engrossed in it as you were writing and forgot to include the players' last names. I'm quite happy for Jimmy, Calvin, Ricky, Thomas, Gavin, Brent, Justin, Jonathan, Geoffrey, Shawn, Michael and Jose. But I'd be a lot happier for them if I knew their last names.

Sincerely,

Sports editor who figures you must not read the paper, because if you did, you surely would know that we need last names.

 

I know I mentioned this downtopic or elsewhere on this board, but while its unfair to compare swim parents to paid professionals, I get the same treatment from the folks who put on MMA events and boxing matches that Hacker describes. A press release a month before the fight, another one a couple of weeks later with a different angle. If it's a big enough fight (some sort of title or the TV folks are coming), they'll invite me to be part of a conference call with one of the fighters. And the last time they had a "Friday Night Fights" here, I had a primo seat ... not only was I right in the middle of the screed just in case my mom happened to tune in, I was right behind the ring girls!

 

It's ok, God knows who they are...and that's all that matters...

 

I remember a few years ago someone emailing a photo in. No problem, except they gave us every kids' first initial and last name only. I emailed the person asking for all of the first names so we could run it in the paper, and their response was something along the lines of the parents didn't want their children's full names in the paper because they were afraid someone would stalk them or something.

Yeah, thanks for wasting my time.

 

I hate when I used to have to cover Little League tourneys pretty regularly and, when I went to get info for cutlines or to get stats and quotes, would have to ask for a kid's first and last name only to be met with some clearly made-up answer.

Me: OK. What was that kid's last name?

Coach/parent: Uh... just don't put one.

Me: Well, I have to put one.

Coach/parent: Oh. Uh... just put.... Smith, I guess.

Me: That's not his last name, is it?

Coach/parent: We can say it is.

Me: No, I can't.