So though I had gotten blown off for a full-time job taking classified ad orders at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I still at least got a small ego lift interviewing the antique store owners once a year. My contact there said they would even forward my e-mails around to each other and chuckle away at my witticisms. One of the editors bought me a Christmas present and I sent them all Christmas cards every year, just like your dentist.
Then something funny happened. The North Georgia State Fair was around the corner and I was assigned to interview a few of the country music acts who would be playing, and anyone else I could get my hands on. The editor gave me the number of the PR representative for the fair as a starting point. I called and left a message after I got home from work saying I had been given that number and I would like to interview her, the organizers, the acts, or anyone she could point me to.
The next day I got a frantic voicemail from the editor. I called her back and she said, "The PR rep called having a fit saying you wanted to interview her!" Uh...well, you gave me her number as a starting point, so I said I'd like to set up an interview with her or anyone she could point me to. And is it unusual for a PR person to speak on behalf of the event they're representing? Not in my experience, but maybe I'm naive. The editor asked me if that was really all it was and seemed mystified, chalking it up to "personalities." I got to interview the singer from Confederate Railroad and a free ticket to see Charlie Daniels, so in the end it turned out all right.
A few months later the scene was to repeat itself, in a sense. This time there was a seminar to be held at a community college to explain to high school kids (and their parents) the processes involved in getting student loans. They wanted me to interview some high school seniors, and I don't know any, but the community college contact said maybe she could meet me with some kids at a basketball game. (Yes, I've told this story before, too.)
The game was to be on a Sunday afternoon, I thought, so I called the cell phone number she had told me to use on the weekend. I called around 8 or 9 a.m. because I figured she'd be getting ready for this game and I wanted to catch her. I caught her, all right -- she was asleep. And the game was on a Thursday, not a Sunday. Oh, shit! I apologized profusely and hoped the prosecution would strike this from the record.
Another four days rolled by with no help from this contact. I had Thursday off and this was my last chance besides Sunday to whack this thing together to turn in Monday, so any interviews had to happen that day. At last I got a reply e-mail from this bitch with the e-mails of people who would be speaking at the seminar. I jotted down some questions and e-mailed them out because this was the only way I had time to handle this. I'd been pestering her for some names and direction all this time and had gotten nothing.
Later this same evening I got an e-mail from the AJC editor to stop the assignment, send her a bill for whatever I had done and call her ASAP. Didn't sound good! Or maybe they were just cancelling the feature?
So the next morning I called on my 15 minute break hoping this would be nothing. Well, the first bone to be picked was that I called this girl at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. I explained she had told me to use her cell phone on the weekend and I mistakenly thought that's when we were meeting. The cell phone number was a "nuance" the editor said she hadn't been told about; the college contact had given the impression I had looked her up on my own like a kook. Okay, so in four fucking years I caught someone at a bad time once? Is it really that big of a deal? I said I was sorry! I didn't run over her grandpa, for God's sake!
But that was only one of the bones they had to pick. Also, my questions had been forwarded by this snot at the college, and they were "negative" and "weird," the editor said. I had the audacity to ask if they would be covering how a loan could be structured to avoid long-term debt. Crazy me! Where's Rod Serling? Cue the "Twilight Zone" music! What a crackpot I must be!
Also mentioned was an aside I had made to the one guy I got to interview on the phone: I wondered what the age limit was on a Hope Scholarship because in passing I mused maybe I'd like to take a class on one. Tom Snyder was one of my heros and he always said he had conversations, he didn't do interviews, so I was just keeping the conversational flow going. Obviously I wasn't going to include tips for 35 year olds in the article. The way this was mentioned, though, I think this specific comment may have been forwarded as "evidence" I was some sort of shithead.
Unfortunately we were 17 minutes into my 15 minute break, and I said I was sorry again if I had upset anyone but I really had to clock in! I could tell this didn't go over well. I had hoped this would be nothing, I didn't realize the editor would want to settle in for a 45 minute seminar of her own. Once I got back to my desk I even typed up a follow-up "sorry again" e-mail.
When I got home there was a e-mail saying I "just wasn't working out" and best of luck. I told her I was sorry to hear that after four years, and at least a couple of instances I was Cc'd on where she had recommended me to her peers, that I was no longer up to snuff.
Sure, I could have sent a box of chocolates and plead to get back in their good graces, but if this was going to turn into dealing with a bunch of sour biddies who were overexcited at the "power" they had running a community college seminar or the cotton candy stand at the state fair, then fuck it!
And that was really it. That was the final toss of the towel. I haven't tried to do anything with writing or broadcasting since.
My apologies for not checking in. The last couple of weeks have been really busy.
I really don't understand how after nailing the AJC's test that you came up third in a 3-horse race. Bet it was race-related. Don't want the honky showing up the rest of us.
Whoever your supervisor was during the North Georgia State Fair and student loan incidents was batshit crazy. You mistakenly called a contact given to you by your boss at 8am? Big whoop. She should have been the fuck out of bed anyway, IMO.
Because I'm blind as a bat, I've been guilty of calling a wrong number or two (thousand), especially when I don't have my glasses on when I dial. Only once can I recall someone being an asshole after I apologized and he said something like, "Whoodafuckisdis?" And if memory serves, I invited him to "eat my ass" and hung up on him.
I bet Woodward and Bernstein called a wrong number or two back in the day.
I have another friend who worked at the AJC and your experience sort of mirrors hers. The supervisors were always looking for someone to blame for everything. So be glad you don't have that chickenshit to deal with.
In an earlier story I had written, "If you've just been thinking that a penis-shaped door knocker would make the perfect Christmas gift for grandpa, grab your hat and beat it down to Little Five Points immediately." On another one I wrote, "As you drive down Flat Shoals Road towards East Atlanta Village your first instinct may be to lock your doors and gird your loins. Once inside the Village, however, you will happily unlock your doors and walk about with loins ungirded." Did anyone call me up about those? Nope, they laughed and then edited them out as I expected. Yet for a question on how to pay off student loans I'm a pile of shit. Interesting.
The state fair one was an omen, too, although a different editor was on that one. I still don't get why the PR contact would have a fit that I said, "I'd like to set up an interview with you or the organizers or whoever is speaking on behalf of this."
I'd like to live in a cave.