Part-timer horror stories

What's the worst/dumbest/most ignorant/laziest thing your part-timers have ever done? Our two guys mostly just answer phones and type up schedules and the like and they still find new ways to screw things up all the time. I'd say they're retarded, but that would be an insult to people with Down syndrome.

This isn't the worst thing, just the most recent. One of the two decided on his own he was going to cover a golf tournament at a really fancy course. Then of course the only person he talked to was the club pro, who just so happened to offer free rounds of golf that cost everyone else $70 a pop. Naturally, the part-timer accepted the offer because he has absolutely no concept of journalistic ethics. Makes me wish I was editor so I could fire him.

 

Oooh boy ... part-timer stories, huh?

We used to have a fella working for us who claimed he could drive from City A to City B in 30 minutes. Too bad they are almost 200 miles apart.

Have another guy who once took a call from a guy who wanted to know the girls basketball score from a school called Southwestern Heights. Part timer asks all of us, "Hey, what are the heights of the Southwestern girls?" (There is a nearby college called Southwestern). One of our other part timers rattles off a few random heights, and the one guy repeats those numbers to the caller. Then the part timer says, "Man, he just hung up."

And don't get me started on the one dude we used to have work for us who came to work ... and promptly took a smoke break.

 

The old SE at my rag hired a guy as a stringer and sent him to a football game. Right before the guy left to go cover the game, he looked through the preview section and the roster. His question as he walks out the door: "What's an FB?" We responded with "a fullback".

His next response: "Is a fullback on offense or defense?"

Good guy, bad writer. Needless to say 95 percent of his stories from football or basketball had to be re-written. :

 

We had stories turned in with "#18" written instead of the player's name.

 

Or just the player's last name on first reference.

 

We had one part-time who was so stupid she occasionally would call people and get the name of our newspaper wrong.

 

Yeah, I had one of those do that, too. All the players who scored were just numbers. And if that wasn't bad enough, he had members of one team "cutting through the defense like butter."

 

is it a complicated and hard to pronounce name?

 

No there were two newspapers in the town, one that began with the name of the state and one that began with the name of the city:

Podunk Press (our paper)
Statewide Daily Examiner (the competition)

She used every conceivable combination: Podunk Daily Press, Podunk Examiner, Podunk Daily Examiner, Statewide Press, Daily Press Examiner - you name it, she tried it.

She was so stupid that her nickname in the office was "Toonsis."

As in, "Uh, oh, I don't think we should let Toonsis write on deadline this issue. You remember what happened the last time we let Toonsis write on deadline!"

 

Had one guy who got really nervous and inquisitive one night when he found out someone had found a drug pipe in the men's restroom. Then he would disappear for about a half-hour at a time every night he worked. He was eventually fired _ then, not surprisingly, arrested for meth possession a few weeks later. Then arrested again a year later. Then arrested for possessing meth-making chemicals after that.

 

How long have you lived in West Virginia?

 

I thought this thread was about the horrors inflicted upon part-time reporters by asshole bosses and/or full-time colleagues.