Previously on...

This week in a Small Town Newsroom

I got called up to the reception area to speak to someone. It doesn’t happen often that I go and talk to people, 97% of my work is at my desk, and on the phone. Usually when someone’s here, I have to talk to them about an obituary that they’ve brought it. It is never fun. This time, I get up there and there’s a little old lady waiting. She came in to tell me thank you for running her reunion notice in the paper, and that she’d appreciated all my help getting it in.

Farquad had to go to the hospital last Saturday, he was throwing up blood. (If I’ve learned anything from movies, it’s that we’ve probably all got tuberculosis now.) He was complaining on Monday, when he was back to work, that his friends on facebook didn’t agree with what the doctor was saying. Cause that’s where I get my medical advice. He’s talking about all this while holding a monster energy drink. I didn’t, but wanted to tell him I’d diagnose him for free. He drinks too much coffee, dips, doesn’t take care of himself, and his gut has turned caustic and is eating him from the inside out.

Fergus and Jane have been, well, not fighting, but they had a fight several months ago and were not speaking. After she took the job to become my counterpart, he had to work with her more. (The fight was his fault.) He’s been very friendly lately, to the confusion of us all. Yesterday, he told her that it’s a pain in the butt to have her mad at him.

A guy called the other day and yelled at me, because we published an article about him ‘a couple of years ago.’ He was mad, and said that he wasn’t ‘on the drugs’ but we’d said that he was. He did not stop to draw breath for at least two minutes, while he told me all about how we’d ruined his life. People wanted to hurt him (?) because of what we’d published, and he couldn’t get a job, and he didn’t go to jail. He finally paused for breath, and then mentioned the magic word (lawyer) and I transferred him to my editor. He was arrested in 2014. I don’t think we’re the reason for his problems. 

And finally, a pet peeve. If you are picking out an obit photo, DO NOT. DO. NOT. Use one that has been rattling around in the junk drawer for the last thirty years. Make sure the photo, if it’s a physical one, is clean. It’s ok if it’s a little discolored, or old. That’s fixable. Don’t use a low quality one if you can help it. If the photo is a frame, TAKE IT OUT OF THE FRAME, and THEN take a photo of it. Make sure your reflection isn’t visible. Y’all would not believe some of the things that people send in.

I previously wrote this on the Friday August 17 open thread on Ask a Manager.