back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
Don't you just hate people who don't return phone calls? To a reporter, this is one of the worst human failings. You may not want to talk to me about an incident for one reason or another, as an entire town in North Dakota does not. I've wasted two weeks chasing down everyone in that small town about a train derailment, under the assumption that if I give you the option to call me collect even to just tell me to stuff it, you'll do so. I understand the pancake breakfast you're organizing takes precedence in the scheme of things.
Still, how long does it take to call me back and tell me you have nothing to say and/or no time to spare? And it's on my dime. Then I can tell my editor the story is a no-go, stop annoying you and quit wasting my time, valuable to myself if no one else, on a story I already think sucks.
Even worse are the editors who don't call you back. Many of them used to be reporters, so the insult is doubled because they don't bother to return phone calls to colleagues, even if they are pond scum like freelancers. I am currently trying to find out if a book review I wrote many moons ago might be published this century via an editor who has a well-deserved reputation for never replying to his messages. Rumor has it he's rather proud of that reputation. He thinks it charmingly eccentric. I think it intolerably rude.
OK, I don't always return calls. I have this creditor, a crafty little bugger who has employees leave messages that say, The Bank of Usury will shortly be taking court action against me unless I call them immediately. That company has been taking court action against me for a couple of years. If I wasn't busy annoying people in North Dakota, I might take the time to inform Sarah at extension 666 that I'll see her in court. I'll be there with bells on and whistles blowing to show His Honor how, when I lost my job, I tried to work out a compromise on satisfying the debt without accruing interest -- the interest rate goes up every month as do late payment penalties -- and was rebuffed. So now the $2,000 I owed is about $20,000 and that bank's chance of getting another penny out of me is equal to my chance of being elected Miss Congeniality at the Miss America Pageant.
Telemarketers hang up when they get the answering machine, so I don't have to worry about them. But when I'm awaiting those elusive callbacks from potential interview subjects, I prefer they not get the automated drone voice of my machine. That eerie robotic voice makes sending a fax sound fraught with danger. The first time my sister got that greeting, she left a message saying, "Who is that man?" Thought I'd taken up with R2D2.
But I digress. Anyway, sometimes when I'm waiting for the call from the police chief of Back of Beyond, N.D., I answer the phone. And way too often I get a telemarketer. Telephone service competitors usually, because I use the phone a lot and have healthy long distance bills. Sometimes I get off the phone by inventing a dying relative. The relative has to be invented, because I'm Irish and so superstitious I have rituals Druids would be proud of. (I met a Druid before Christmas and she recognized me immediately as one of her own. A witch. But that's another column.)
Or sometimes I say, "Could I call you back?" secure in the knowledge that this is not on, because telemarketers never know where they'll be on their list of victims when I'm ready to discuss my long-distance carrier. So they ask when it would be convenient for me to speak to them. I give them a day and time, and they wish me good day. Then I make a note on my calendar of interviews not to pick up the phone on that day at that time. I strongly believe that, when I leave this mortal coil, the least of God's problems with me when she's deciding whether I go north, south or return as a mollusk, will be misleading -- all right, lying to -- telemarketers.
But the rest of you, most particularly politicians, RETURN YOUR CALLS. Or have some aide call and say, "So-and-so is way too busy to respond." Fair enough. Then it's fair for me to criticize that politician without his or her side of the story and not feel the least bit guilty. And if the officious little twerp aide hasn't bothered to check with the boss before condescendingly telling me that Sen. Incredibly Important has no time for the likes of me, maybe that senator will fire that person, and I use the term loosely, who is not bright enough to pack Harlequin paperbacks for shipment, let alone screen a senator's calls.
It appears I'm seeing red. Bad enough a North Dakota town the size of a circus clown's shoe doesn't have the courtesy to call me back, I get patronized by discourteous dummies. Forget my profession, which so many find at the best irritating and at the worst deeply irritating. Common courtesy would seem to demand that, unless you're in extremis, you could call me back. I don't care if you want to curse me, my ancestors and everything I represent. I don't care if you tell me that, if I ever again foul your telephone line with my voice, you're calling the FCC to complain. I don't even mind if you tell me you'll do an interview with me when Satan is skating in hell. For the adventurous, tell me about your aged aunt dying of consumption. Just return the call.
You can call collect.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 30 2002 |