Part-timer horror stories

[Clever username]

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.

 

[kingcreole]

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.

 

[AndTheCrowdGoesBoo]

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. :

 

[Shaggy]

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

 

[kingcreole]

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

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

 

[lono]

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

 

[AndTheCrowdGoesBoo]

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

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."

 

[leo1]

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

is it a complicated and hard to pronounce name?

 

[lono]

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

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!"

 

[JBHawkEye]

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.

 

[Armchair_QB]

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?

 

[Double J]

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

 

[Gutter]

About six years ago on a prep football friday, stringer comes back into the office to write his story. He's at a desk far off in the corner, so no one is really paying any attention to him. My editor happens to walk by that area ... stringer has fallen asleep at his chair!

Editor wakes him ... thankfully we had a late deadline so we weren't really rushing at the time. Stringer comes over about 20 minutes later and says he's done with his story ... it's four grafs long with one four-word quote.

Yeah, he had to go sit down and start over.

 

[JBHawkEye]

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?

The hilarious part is, every time since then we've had a PT opening, he's told one of my writers he wants to come back to work. Yeah, that'll happen.

Oh, and I left out this part _ in the days before I fired him for his insubordination and disappearing acts, he was arrested for beating his friend's dog in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart.

 

[tyler durden 71351]

Had one guy who got all excited, because Publisher's Clearing House brought an envelope to his front door. "No, you don't understand. I'm gonna win! They hand delivered it to my house. That means I'm gonna win!" One smart-ass suggested that with that logic, Tyra Banks or Heidi Klum was gonna show up at his apartment soon, since a Victoria's Secret catalog was recently hand-delivered. This same stringer guy also managed to get himself interviewed by the Worldwide Leader during a pretty big event....

 

[Ace]

Had one guy who got all excited, because Publisher's Clearing House brought an envelope to his front door. "No, you don't understand. I'm gonna win! They hand delivered it to my house. That means I'm gonna win!" One smart-ass suggested that with that logic, Tyra Banks or Heidi Klum was gonna show up at his apartment soon, since a Victoria's Secret catalog was recently hand-delivered. This same stringer guy also managed to get himself interviewed by the Worldwide Leader during a pretty big event....

Was his first name Heywood?

 

[sportschick]

Many moons ago, when I was a part-timer, there was another part-timer on staff who, um, had a bit of a smoking problem, as in he took a 15-minute smoke break every 15 minutes, or more often if he was "stressed out." One prep football Friday, I took about 30 calls, while he took five, due to his frequent smoke breaks. Yet another part-timer and I brought in candy cigs the next day for our "smoke breaks." She and I, however, were unable to bring ourselves to take "smoke breaks" while the phone was ringing, basically negating the point we were trying to make.

Same smoking part-timer was also sent out to cover a college softball game one afternoon, was told to write about 12-15 inches and to have the story in in time for an early page. He was incapable of doing this, turning in a 45-inch gamer at about 11 p.m. (there was an 11:30 deadline for first run). He was really pissed after the lead copy editor and I cut the story down to 8 inches and buried it on a wire page because it was so late.

 

[Claws for Concern]

One PT guy I remember would always butcher the names of his fellow employees, including the sports editors. Also, when he'd call someone to do a story and leave a message, whenever the person called back, they'd always be asking for the name of this guy. The funny thing was that they always butchered his name because they couldn't understand the name of the person on the message who had called them!

 

[JBHawkEye]

Another PTer wanted to go full-time so he could get benefits. I told him we couldn't do that, but I'd try to give him a few more hours each week.

So he called in sick for two days (fortunately, basketball season was over). Then, when I was at the Big Ten Tournament, called the managing editor and left a voicemail saying he was quitting.

The PTer we hired to replace him is currently on our staff with our other one we've had for a few years. Best two we've ever had.

 

[Irishcheesehead]

One of our latest editions to the PT staff was taking a baseball boxscore around spring tourney time. There are four or five taking calls with the prep editor in as well. The PT-er gets off the phone and screams, "What the hell does FB mean?" At this point, anything would get the prep guy rattled so he jumps out of the chair and runs over to the desk. I hear him say, that should be 1b for first base. I had to get up and walk away I had tears in my eyes.

Another guy was great at telling stories. The best one: He was kissing Sheryl Crow at a Neil Young concert in Vegas. Dude actually said it was true.