Answering phones was the best and worst job I ever had

My first full-time job in journalism was ever-so-very unglamorous. (To be fair, one might note that most jobs in journalism aren't very glamorous, particularly in newspaper journalism, where I spent most of my career. But I digress.)I was what was known in those days as a "clerk-reporter" at The Miami Herald, though later the job became known as an "Editorial Specialist 3". What did I do? I answered phones, sorted mail, ordered supplies and called 30+ police departments, 20+ fire departments and I forget how many funeral homes, but probably about 40, every single day. From those calls I wrote items for publication that ranged from a couple of paragraphs ("briefs") to stories that ran anywhere from 10-15 inches of column space. I also compiled the free obituaries and got the funeral homes to tell me when there was someone interesting to write an actual story about instead of just the funeral information.I got all the parts of my job that were the clerk part down to a well-oiled routine. We never ran out of supplies, I harangued reporters when they left the fax machine and printer (yes, I'm old) areas a mess, and everyone got their mail. I was quite good at all of that. The one part I couldn't just set and forget was answering phones.To answer phones in a newsroom is much like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: You never knew what you were going to get.We had public officials calling to yell at reporters. We had off-the-record sources who wouldn't give their names. We had PR folks calling to pitch their clients. We had readers calling to yell at - well, at anyone, really.The vast majority of calls were from regular people. Our readers. People who actually paid to receive our publication. And when they called us, it usually wasn't because they wanted to tell us what a good job we were doing.I answered a lot of calls from people who hadn't received their paper. Who hadn't received the comics with the Sunday paper. Who got the wrong edition of the TV book we published (we published different editions based on which cable provider your city had). The problem is, if they were calling me instead of the 800 number, they'd already gotten nowhere. For me to just switch them over to circulation seemed unproductive and unkind.And besides, they'd probably just call back again and yell at me again.So, I'd dutifully take down their information. Address, phone number, specifics of the problem. The circulation department was on the second floor of our Fort Lauderdale building. I'd walk upstairs and the receptionist for the department probably got sick of seeing me walk down the short hallway to her desk. But she was always kind in taking the information from me and I think the problems always got addressed.One time, however, was different.A woman called, distraught. We had delivered the wrong TV book with her Sunday paper just one too many times. Her husband was ready to cancel the subscription. Please, she beseeched me. Could we just get it right? She wanted to keep subscribing, but her husband was super-pissed.I did my usual thing and trekked upstairs with the information. I explained the woman's predicament (don't judge her, this was more than two decades ago, and she was older, from another generation). Please, I asked, could we special-deliver the correct TV book now and make sure we got her the right one next Sunday?As things happen, I soon forgot about the woman and her TV book as I got caught up in the news of the week.The next Monday, in the midst of the usual flurry of beginning of the week calls, I got one that was actually for me. It was that woman. "I know you probably don't get many calls there thanking you," she started. Ha. Indeed, we didn't. But she wanted to call and thank me personally. She'd gotten the right TV book that week in the Sunday paper. It seemed such a small thing, but for her, it was huge.I hated answering the phones. People were so mean. Often they just wanted to yell at someone. Sometimes they were mentally disturbed. I was just a disembodied voice on the other end of the line, not a person bearing their wrath.But it also was the best job I ever had, because it helped me grow a thick skin. It helped me figure out how to solve problems of many kinds. It helped me learn to work with people throughout the company. It helped me help people. It prepared me better for just about everything I would have to do in my career, in a newsroom or elsewhere.I really didn't want the clerk-reporter job, but I graduated into a recession and I was one of a small group of fellow journalism graduates who were fully employed within six months of graduation. To top it off, I was at a larger newspaper than most of my fellow grads. I was in no position to turn down any job.Who knew I'd be grateful for having to deal with all those angry readers all these years later?Photo by lensletter via Flickr Creative Commons.