biggest pet peeve of angry readers...

i usually dig angry e-mails from readers. i print them out and put them up on my wall for inspiration. i just really enjoy the idea that we journalists take our criticism and publish it for everyone to see (leters to the editor, etc.).

any other profession hides criticism or lashes out against it. we put it on display. and why not? we criticize. we get criticized back. i'm just glad not to be in the can-dish-it-out-but-can't-take-it category.

but there's one thing that just boils my blood. i gotta get it out.

when readers purposefully misspell my name in an e-mail.

it doesn't bother me in a written letter. it doesn't bother me mispronounced in a phone message. but e-mail kills me.

why? my fricken last name is IN my e-mail address. who's isn't? so this person just spelled my name correctly in the address box but got it wrong in the e-mail text? and it's just to dick with me. it's like really childish namecalling.

i respond to pretty much every critical e-mail by thanking the person for reading and getting in touch and by politely clarifying my position. i feel that's the way to go, and i've never had a bad experience doing that.

the one thing i'm always wishing to do is tell the person off who just pulled the good ol' name mispell and kick them in the balls.

i just want to get even so bad for that. but i can't think of any good ways how. so i bottle up all the anger, hoping that one day i'll simply turn into the incredible hulk.

i don't know. anybody got any bright ideas? anything specific really piss off anyone else?

 

Was anything else in the email misspelled?

 

take a chill pill, je cannoon. ;D ;D ;D

 

I can see how that could get under your skin, but honestly, there is so much more in this business to jade you. Don't let this be your albatross.

 

Seriously, get a life.

 

Jeez, man. Haven't you ever misspelled a kid's name in print? It happens and I would think you would understand that most of all.

 

Plus, they may copy and paste the e-mail address.
I understand the frustration, but when an e-mail is chock full of misspellings it never surprises me to see my name misspelled. Hell, half the people at my paper don't know how to spell my last name, including on my paycheck despite me constantly correcting it.

 

My middle name is wrong on my paycheck, and has been that way since 1999. I've gotten over that, so I figure I could get over my name being misspelled in an email.

 

I, too, print out my hate emails and tape them all over my cubicle, or when I was employed, I did that.

Now that I'm only a stringer, my hate email hangs all over my house. When I go to the fridge for another beer, there it is, hate email #256 from Janice E. XXXXX, who says I'm a sorry sack of shit.

When I sit on my toilet there is hate email #96 from Howard XXXX, taped to my shower curtain, who says in 379 words of vulgarity-laced prose, that not only am I the worst writer in the world, but the world's biggest prick as well.

On my visor in my car, when it's flipped down to block the sun, I see hate email #161 from Deborah XXXXX, who says if I had any talent at all, I'd own the newspaper and have a "real career" and be a "real professional who is accountable for his actions and inaction rather than just some no-talent hack following around high school kids and watching games for a living....and getting my jollies off of it."

I bask in the glow of the collective hatred directed at me. Everyday there are these little reminders of how worthless I really am, of how worthless others are and their poorly-formed opinions, and lastly, how utterly meaningless life is, including high school athletics.

Now if that's not indicative of three-years study of existential philosophy, then i don't know what is.

 

i've never misspelled anyone's name on purpose.

don't get me wrong guys. the e-mails i'm talking about don't have any other misspellings. in my area, most hate mails are pretty clean.

of course i wouldn't take offense with some e-mail from Schotty McNo-Grammar.

but jesus, you read the story. you can read the byline. you typed the e-mail address or at least looked at it.

i can take being called worst writer, sack of shit, prick, phony, worthless, whatever — although i don't get much of that — but come, on at least give me the respect of spelling my name right. it's not that hard to find.

 

Well, in my previous gig as SE at a small daily, I got a letter from a parent complaining about a lack of Little League coverage. A line in the letter said that it's about time we give these kids "their do." I think she meant "their due."

 

I hate the anonymous emails and letters and phone calls. Chickenshit cocksuckers.