Careful reaching for that Election Night pizza...

Weirdos at my old place once got Thai food. I can't stand that stuff, so I clocked out and ate at home.

 

Damnit, don't give these tools any more ideas.

 

Considering the drubbing newspaper editorials took, they are right up with the Catholic Church and Wall Street in institutions that took a big hit on Election Night. People aren't listening...

 

Sounds like another Craig Stanke story.

 

Our city editor actually went over and invited Sports first.

We had plenty of pizza anyway.

Again, our ME was a sports guy and understands.

 

First election night under the new regime -- content working the elections, Publication Hub laying it out and the prep call center which has a few people to take and post real-time results from reporters in the field.
First wave of pie comes in at 6:30... 12 pizzas that the content and PubHub rip through in minutes.
12 more pies in at 8 p.m./... gone at 8:15...

Under the previous regime, I'm,sitting at my desk one afternoon when the editor of the paper walks over to start a conversation -- something he's never done in my seven years as correspondent or employee.
He starts talking... mumble, mumble, mumble... I'm not mean... mumble... never asked this before... not sure how to ask it...

Look, what are you asking me?
"I want to buy pizza for the editorial department Friday night before I retire (and don't move along with the new company). I want to be sure they get it and I want to know if you'd be sure that your people (in the prep crew) know that it's not for them."

Is that it? Don't worry about it.
That night, several editors came up and told me that there was pizza. To every one, I explained that the editor told me that the prep staff was not welcome to have his pizza, per his specific request. I thought it petty bullshit, but three pizzas went left over...

 

I would have keyed his car.

 

I would have said, "Aren't we part of the editorial department? No? Then why am I listening to you if you're not my boss?"

 

***you have a pretty good idea what all of them are going to say,
No, no you don't. A Friday night prep game has a greater possibility of forcing you to remake the section front and one or two inside pages. No exit polls at prep games to telegraph how the outcome will swing.

***you have a pretty good idea what all of them are going to say,
See my point above, and if you still hold onto that idea, you need to get reporters who can report and write an interesting story.

***you have a pretty good idea when all of them will be submitted
Yes, prep reporters have deadlines ... deadlines which are sometimes affected by triple overtime, delays in action for injuries and homecomings, postgame coin flips to determine playoff seeding, power outages, getting kicked out of a press box while writing a story and having to find another place to work. And for the games that aren't staffed but must be fielded via phone calls, you have absolutely NO idea when you will get the information you need.

I'm not necessarily complaining about the conditions, because overcoming them successfully added to the satisfaction. And time certainly flies when you have relentless deadline pressure. Still, I will respectfully disagree completely with your post.

 

That post was from four years ago. Calm down, homie.

 

Figured I'd share my election night story. So I ask the new boss to pony up for pizzas for the newsroom. She says sure and offers to pay $40 for four large pizza for the room of about nine people. I think that's a little low but, hey, it's election night.

So I order the pizzas. It comes to $63 before tax and tip. I tell the boss via text message because we're in different buildings and she says "Well, my offer still stands. "

Yeah, all told, I had to spend $30 of my own cash just to make sure people had enough to eat.

The best part though is now that I don't have a reporter OR photographer, I was out all day taking photos. I had to drive 25 minutes from the polling place to get back to the office to pay for the pizza only to drive another 25 minutes back to a polling place immediately after.

I saved some slices for myself when I got back. Wound up eating them after our deadline Wednesday afternoon.

Elections are fun.