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Don't worry--it's not a political rant. Heck, the first part of the tale of this week doesn't even have anything to do with the elections. It's just that election years bring out the crazies in even greater abundance than normal, and they all want to tell the newspaper their 'inside scoop'.
I got called into work early on Monday morning, because cold/flu season took a major toll on staffing. So I'm already awake and working five hours before I would normally have been conscious.
First call of the day was about the magazine we distribute with our Sunday paper. It's not our magazine--we just have a contract with them to print and distribute it. They pre-print months in advance, but since it's ninety-percent fluff pieces, that's not a problem.
Except, of course, when they decide to do an interview with Benazir Bhutto, and the magazine was printed a few weeks before her assassination, with the headline, "I am the one the terrorists fear" or something to that effect. So we've got this incredible interview with an amazing woman--several weeks after her death. This is not the sort of thing you want, and the readership was irate--the small-type page 2 notice of the contractual obligations that led to this situation was ignored by most people, and really seemed a bit... feeble in comparison to the severity of the situation. Personally, I would've put an insert in with the magazine, and maybe a front-page article explaining the situation; but I'm not in charge, I just answer the phones here.
Rule of thumb on the phone desk is, if your first call of the day is a complaint, you can count on half your calls that day being about the same issue. This was, indeed, the case. Some callers were calm but irritated, others barking a stream of irate (though not quite profane) language. I let them blow off some steam, give 'em a brief explanation about pre-printing, and then send them up to our Public Editor for further explanation, and so he can log their comments.
Call 2, OTOH, was... something else.
A woman's voice on the line, a bit elderly, but quite strong:
"Hello. I am the Secret President of the United States through a special agreement with George W. Bush. And I need you to understand that I do not endorse Senator Hillary Clinton for President. Because that woman has been stealing from me. She breaks into my room, and took the notes that I've been taking down every day as I read your paper. You understand, she had to destroy the evidence. And she also took $500 and my jewelry."
There was more, but I was simply too flabbergasted to get it all down.
So, today, I get in, and discover that I'm once again needed to cover the phones in the afternoon, since the morning person was sick and the afternoon person came in early, and is thus leaving early.
First call was an elderly gentleman, speaking slowly and over-enunciating his words:
"I want you to take this question down. Can a known mentally sick man from Canada campaign to become our first woman president to the United States of America before the eyes of our world?"
He insists that he has photographic proof that Hillary Clinton is actually a Canadian man, and that he has shown these photos to almost every psychiatrist in Canada.
Then he goes on to explain, in great and painful detail, how each of the other candidates are also Canadian criminals in the U.S. under assumed names. While Hillary is supposedly a mentally ill transvestite, the rest are apparently all murderers--that's how they get into the conspiracy, they kill a family, sometimes their own, you see. Oh, wait--Obama isn't Canadian--he's just going to turn us over to the Arabs.
He furthermore informed me that it was my legal obligation to inform the U.S. of this treasonous plot.
I hope this qualifies; I mean, I'd hate to be conquered by a Canadian coup, even if it did mean we'd get a decent health-care system.
I got called into work early on Monday morning, because cold/flu season took a major toll on staffing. So I'm already awake and working five hours before I would normally have been conscious.
First call of the day was about the magazine we distribute with our Sunday paper. It's not our magazine--we just have a contract with them to print and distribute it. They pre-print months in advance, but since it's ninety-percent fluff pieces, that's not a problem.
Except, of course, when they decide to do an interview with Benazir Bhutto, and the magazine was printed a few weeks before her assassination, with the headline, "I am the one the terrorists fear" or something to that effect. So we've got this incredible interview with an amazing woman--several weeks after her death. This is not the sort of thing you want, and the readership was irate--the small-type page 2 notice of the contractual obligations that led to this situation was ignored by most people, and really seemed a bit... feeble in comparison to the severity of the situation. Personally, I would've put an insert in with the magazine, and maybe a front-page article explaining the situation; but I'm not in charge, I just answer the phones here.
Rule of thumb on the phone desk is, if your first call of the day is a complaint, you can count on half your calls that day being about the same issue. This was, indeed, the case. Some callers were calm but irritated, others barking a stream of irate (though not quite profane) language. I let them blow off some steam, give 'em a brief explanation about pre-printing, and then send them up to our Public Editor for further explanation, and so he can log their comments.
Call 2, OTOH, was... something else.
A woman's voice on the line, a bit elderly, but quite strong:
"Hello. I am the Secret President of the United States through a special agreement with George W. Bush. And I need you to understand that I do not endorse Senator Hillary Clinton for President. Because that woman has been stealing from me. She breaks into my room, and took the notes that I've been taking down every day as I read your paper. You understand, she had to destroy the evidence. And she also took $500 and my jewelry."
There was more, but I was simply too flabbergasted to get it all down.
So, today, I get in, and discover that I'm once again needed to cover the phones in the afternoon, since the morning person was sick and the afternoon person came in early, and is thus leaving early.
First call was an elderly gentleman, speaking slowly and over-enunciating his words:
"I want you to take this question down. Can a known mentally sick man from Canada campaign to become our first woman president to the United States of America before the eyes of our world?"
He insists that he has photographic proof that Hillary Clinton is actually a Canadian man, and that he has shown these photos to almost every psychiatrist in Canada.
Then he goes on to explain, in great and painful detail, how each of the other candidates are also Canadian criminals in the U.S. under assumed names. While Hillary is supposedly a mentally ill transvestite, the rest are apparently all murderers--that's how they get into the conspiracy, they kill a family, sometimes their own, you see. Oh, wait--Obama isn't Canadian--he's just going to turn us over to the Arabs.
He furthermore informed me that it was my legal obligation to inform the U.S. of this treasonous plot.
I hope this qualifies; I mean, I'd hate to be conquered by a Canadian coup, even if it did mean we'd get a decent health-care system.
I hung up on the lady (talking at 100 Mph, btw.) and forgot about it until just now.
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