Desire to seek apology from player's parents

I'd like to demand an apology from Drip for years and years of banality.

 

I'd like to demand an apology from you for years of trolling but I know I won't get it. Instead, I'll get a stupid one liner about a back door or shit in a box or some other juvenile remark that isn't original. I guess I should feel honored that I'm on your mind enough to troll.

 

This is my favorite thread, ever.

 

Don't forget the cherry on top.

 

Back Door Drip strikes again.

Fap-fap-fap-fap-fap ...

 

Good God, man. I was sure you were going to say that you were going to ask your publisher for permission to write the parents/kids directly to apologize to them.

What do they owe you an apology for?

You fucked up. They are right. You should have gotten the facts right.

And, of course, you shouldn't be cutting and pasting. You should be reporting and writing off of your own notes. But, you didn't go to the game, and that's a whole other argument. (Hi Baron!)

 

I was also certain he was going to apologize.

I'm going to be lazy and cut and paste, fuck up a name and then get butt hurt and demand an apology when the parents get mad and call me on my mistake. - Mr. X

 

Although it's been said, many times, many ways, run a correction and let it go ... and, if the story's online, make the correction there as well. That way Mr. Board President has something to put in the family scrapbook as well, and you don't look like an ass for taking out a grudge on the kid.

Had a situation a couple of years ago where one of our writers forgot to list someone on the all-league team. A couple of readers pointed it out to me, as did the coach, and they were happy with the correction/online fix solution. Not so players' dad. I'd gotten wind he was demanding the whole story be rerun in print, so when he stormed into the office, I was ready. First he wanted a private meeting. My first thought was "no way, especially if he's packing ... and if he does anything, I want witnesses." So I spent about 10 minutes behind the counter answering his questions, but mostly sticking to my ground (of all days for the ME and the city editor to be out simultaneously) as he got louder.

Finally, the promotions manager, whose father coached football at a school in the same league and also played DI softball on scholarship, came out from her office - 20 feet away - to see what the ruckus was about, then took over my role as I went back to work. She had about as much luck as I did over the next 10 minutes before he left.

Incidents like this make me think some fathers are less than blessed in a certain area of the male anatomy and spend the rest of their lives making up for this. And aside from newsroom bull sessions, the only other place I've told this story is ... here.

 

I am responding to this because on the mainpage, it shows up first and it intrigued me.

Let's consider something man.
Let's put you in a restaurant where the waiter screws up your meal, perhaps overcharging you on top of it. You get home and you see it, and combined with the entire experience you had at the eatery, decide to rip into the manager and owner. Later, you get a written apology from the waiter who blasts you for your harsh criticism.

Sound like something you think would be fair?

If so, I wouldn't get too comfortable in your profession.

 

In a fairly similar situation, there was a paper I was at that did a weekly athlete of the week feature/profile. We'd include a bunch of honorable mentions at the end with a loose style of their name, sport, school to lead into a quick paragraph about what he or she did that week. Usually to help each other out, someone would do the feature and then the others based on what they've seen would compile the honorable mentions. That often meant that loose style was all over the place. One time I wrote the feature and was cleaning up the honorable mentions. One of those was a track athlete. Didn't say boys or girls track so I added it. Let's just say I added the wrong gender.

I found out about it from his mother first thing the day it ran. I was mortified and proceeded to apologize to anyone who had ever heard of the kid. In the mom's huffy (which she had a right to) she got his dad to also call. He thought it was hilarious. The kid actually thought it was kind of funny too. We of course ran a correction. Still didn't stop me from being mortified, but I think taking responsibility for it as well as being very upfront with the parents helped. The mother eventually told me she appreciated the reaction. Remains one of my worst mistakes ever and I still cringe about it but I think if you show respect and take responsibility these things smooth over pretty quickly.

 

Why the fuck would you rip into people? It was a god damn mistake. People make them all the time. It happens. We're all human. If you really tear into a waiter (having been a waiter) or a sports editor (which I am now) for what is a minor -- and very correctable -- error, then fuck you and I hope you choke on your next meal and fucking die.

People can climb onto their high horses a little too easily these days. Take a deep breath and try to talk the situation out. What message does it send when, if you don't get your way, to go guns-a-blazin' into someone? That's bullshit. Explain the issue, come up with a solution.

 

Gator, it doesn't matter what a customer does outside of a physical assault, if they complain, you take care of the complaint if it was your screw-up.