Friday, March 19, 2010

A whole week shot to hell

I put out calls and emails starting on Monday for this story I’m supposed to write and, so far, I’ve only talked with one person who is no longer on the board of the organization about which I’m writing.

The president is a woman who is notorious for not returning calls. I left a voicemail on her office phone on Monday, followed up on Tuesday and sent her an email (which I know she saw because a source told me she always checks her email on her Blackberry).

I left a message on the organization’s voicemail on Monday, but have since learned the organization ran out of money months ago and terminated its administrative assistant, so there is no one to listen to or respond to that message.

I should have guess that when I noticed their web site hasn’t been updated since June 9, 2008.

I now have a call out to a Realtor in hopes that she can say something useful to the story.

Because nobody answers their phone anymore, I have wasted an entire week waiting for people – mainly the organization president – to call me back.

I like to be helpful, but this is just not something I ever want to do again. Increasing difficulty in reaching sources is one of the things that made early retirement from The Indianapolis Star attractive. Well, that and the fact that Gannett practices Management By Fear and I was too old and too professional to put up with that crap.

So this will be the last of these pieces I agree to take on. My time is worth more to me than the modest compensation this work will bring.

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