Post by Rictras Shard on Jun 8, 2015 21:21:56 GMT -4
Here's a tale from my past.
Many moons ago, I was doing on-the-job training at a small newspaper (I won't state where, to protect the possibly guilty). About halfway through the six-weeks, I accompanied the managing editor to a town council meeting. These are usually boring affairs (at least to me), but it is necessary to cover them, because the things that are discussed and decided in them are usually of importance to the community.
This meeting was of no particular interest to me, but I decided to take notes about one townsperson's complaint of snowmobilers making noise late at night, and how there should be trails for them somewhere distant from the homes. I wrote up an article about it, filed it in the computer system, and forgot about it.
I think it was the day after the story was printed that a phone call was transferred to my little office. I picked it up and got an earful. At first, I didn't have an idea what this guy was yelling about, or who he was. All I could gather from his almost incomprehensible shouts was that he was very mad at me about something.
Eventually he yelled himself out, and began speaking in a more normal tone. He was still mad, but at least I could make him out now. I realized it was the guy who didn't like snowmobiles, and for some reason he thought I was being unfair and prejudiced against him in my article. After a while, I was able to calm him down by being apologetic, and by agreeing to go to his place sometime to get his side of the story (which I thought I had already done) so as to write another article about it.
After hanging up, I walked, shell shocked, into the main room and asked one of my co-workers if they had ever heard of the guy. Within a couple of minutes, I learned several things that lowered my morale even further.
He was considered to be a very odd and shady person. Two years prior, his wife and child had been murdered. The killer was never found (at least not to that point, maybe in the years since it has been solved). Finally, and most ominous to me, some people thought he might be the one who did it.
Oh goody! This guy, who was not very fond of me, might be so warped that he killed his family, and at some point I was going to meet with him at his house, by myself. And furthermore, I was not getting paid for this delightful little jaunt to my potential doom.
It was about this time that I started to think this career might not be for me. Well, that, and the fact that I sucked at it. But, you know, mostly that.
Epilogue to this story: he never did call me back, thankfully. Maybe he was too tired from constantly being woken up by snowmobiles to get the energy to slaughter me. Several weeks later, my ojt was over, and I got the heck out of Dodge.
Many moons ago, I was doing on-the-job training at a small newspaper (I won't state where, to protect the possibly guilty). About halfway through the six-weeks, I accompanied the managing editor to a town council meeting. These are usually boring affairs (at least to me), but it is necessary to cover them, because the things that are discussed and decided in them are usually of importance to the community.
This meeting was of no particular interest to me, but I decided to take notes about one townsperson's complaint of snowmobilers making noise late at night, and how there should be trails for them somewhere distant from the homes. I wrote up an article about it, filed it in the computer system, and forgot about it.
I think it was the day after the story was printed that a phone call was transferred to my little office. I picked it up and got an earful. At first, I didn't have an idea what this guy was yelling about, or who he was. All I could gather from his almost incomprehensible shouts was that he was very mad at me about something.
Eventually he yelled himself out, and began speaking in a more normal tone. He was still mad, but at least I could make him out now. I realized it was the guy who didn't like snowmobiles, and for some reason he thought I was being unfair and prejudiced against him in my article. After a while, I was able to calm him down by being apologetic, and by agreeing to go to his place sometime to get his side of the story (which I thought I had already done) so as to write another article about it.
After hanging up, I walked, shell shocked, into the main room and asked one of my co-workers if they had ever heard of the guy. Within a couple of minutes, I learned several things that lowered my morale even further.
He was considered to be a very odd and shady person. Two years prior, his wife and child had been murdered. The killer was never found (at least not to that point, maybe in the years since it has been solved). Finally, and most ominous to me, some people thought he might be the one who did it.
Oh goody! This guy, who was not very fond of me, might be so warped that he killed his family, and at some point I was going to meet with him at his house, by myself. And furthermore, I was not getting paid for this delightful little jaunt to my potential doom.
It was about this time that I started to think this career might not be for me. Well, that, and the fact that I sucked at it. But, you know, mostly that.
Epilogue to this story: he never did call me back, thankfully. Maybe he was too tired from constantly being woken up by snowmobiles to get the energy to slaughter me. Several weeks later, my ojt was over, and I got the heck out of Dodge.