From the hotel to the newspaper, SC's seem to follow me.

[Getoutofmylobby]

I miss this website. Last August, a huge mistake was made and i was hired by a suburban newspaper chain as a design editor. Basically i'm the guy that draws boxes and puts stories and pictures in them. One of the great things about this job is that all i have to do was come in to work, sit in my little corner and not talk to any customers. At all. Sometimes, I barely see daylight and i love it.

Well, that's not entirely true. The SC's at my new job don't come in the form of some random d-bag calling on the phone or walking in from off the street. Rather my SC's are the advertisers of the paper. Mostly it comes from them not understanding the newspaper business, which is understandable, and also from them being ignorant and entitled, which is sucky. Usually a disgruntled advertiser deals with an ad rep, but every once in awhile, i get calls like these.

Me: "News room."
Advertiser: "Right, I paid for an ad to go in the obituaries section of last Sunday's issue, but i didn't see it there. How do you explain that?"
Me: (grabs the issue) "Well, it looks to me like we didn't have any obits for that issue..."
Advertiser: "A man should get what he pays for! Couldn't you have printed some old ones? I paid extra for the obituaries section."

(So, if nobody dies, we should still make it look like a few did so this guy can make his $20 stretch farther?)

Me: "News room."
Advertiser: "Hi, i have a problem with how my ad looks in the paper."
Me: "Ok, what was the problem?"
Advertiser: "In some of the copies, my ad was really blurry."
Me: "Some of them? Were they ok in others?"
Advertiser: "Yeah. Why did this happen?"
Me: "I'm not sure, perhaps something went wrong at the printer."
Advertiser: "I want you to get to the bottom of this."
Me: "Well ma'am I'd like to help you but i'm on a deadline today, but i can give you the number of the print--"
Advertiser: "No, i want this done today, my phone number is X."
<click>
Fortunately, i'm pretty much my own manager so I can ignore dumb crap like this. But it did make me nostalgic for the reservation line at the hotel.

So, nothing too bad so far, but the climate is ripe for some good SC action so i'll keep my eyes open. I guess this shows that SC's can get to you even in the most insulated of jobs.

[Imogene]

Out of curiosity, were those blurry copies in cities that got heavy rain or humidity? And thus, the ink bled?
*has never worked in print, is just trying to comprehend the SC mind*

[Chanlin]

Out of curiosity, were those blurry copies in cities that got heavy rain or humidity? And thus, the ink bled?
*has never worked in print, is just trying to comprehend the SC mind*

This is actually a very plausible explanation. Could also be that the paper got stretched and or smushed during printing or any number of other strange things. I've never worked in print, but I was on my HS newspaper for all 4 years and I saw all kinds of silly things happen.

[auntiem]

Me: "News room."
Advertiser: "Right, I paid for an ad to go in the obituaries section of last Sunday's issue, but i didn't see it there. How do you explain that?"
Me: (grabs the issue) "Well, it looks to me like we didn't have any obits for that issue..."
Advertiser: "A man should get what he pays for! Couldn't you have printed some old ones? I paid extra for the obituaries section."

(So, if nobody dies, we should still make it look like a few did so this guy can make his $20 stretch farther?)

You were supposed to kill the lowliest employee at the paper so there would be at least one obit.
Seriously, congrats on the job!

[earl colby pottinger]

Well

You were supposed to kill the lowliest employee at the paper so there would be at least one obit.
Seriously, congrats on the job!

Well 'Getoutofmylobby' is the new employee, so really you mean he needs to commit sucide to make the customer happy.

[Geek King]

This is actually a very plausible explanation. Could also be that the paper got stretched and or smushed during printing or any number of other strange things. I've never worked in print, but I was on my HS newspaper for all 4 years and I saw all kinds of silly things happen.

Also, if it was four [or more] color printing, the print could have come out of register, which is [simple explanation] when you can look at the picture and see one of the colors slightly shifted off center. It happens, and can cause the picture to look "blurry" if there is a lot going on in the picture. It is considered normal to have a few of those make it out to the customer, unless the advertiser is pay big money 'perfect quality' prints.

[IHateStupidCustomers]

I work for a teeny tiny legal newspaper, and I RARELY have to deal with customers, even more rarely SC's (THANK GOD!). But I do get a few stupid ones.

The company I work for is called the Daily Court Reporter. Let me emphasize...DAILY. 75 % of the people I get ask me these questions:

SC: "So, how often does this paper come out?"
Me: "Monday thru Friday."
SC: "So...everday?"
ME: "Monday thru Friday."
SC: "OH!"

Or...

SC: "I need a copy of the Daily Court Reporter."
Me: "Okay, a copy of today's paper then?"
SC: "How often do they come out!"
Me: "Monday thru Friday."
SC: "I though it was once a week!"
Me: "No. DAILY Court Reporter. Monday Thru Friday."
SC: "So...everyday?"
Me: "....Monday thru Friday."

Okay...maybe the "daily" to some people means weekends too, so I can see a touch of confusion there, but over than that....