Still a hostage

This is me being held hostage by rude, inconsiderate people who don’t appreciate that I’m trying to do something that will benefit their business.

I have lots of things I'd rather be doing, but I’m stuck here at my desk waiting for people to return calls or emails.

I’m supposed to be writing pieces about live entertainment in the recently revitalized downtown area and a profile on a local bank.

People at two of the downtown venues promised on Monday to email schedules of performers at their restaurants. It is now Wednesday morning and my story is due and I don’t have the schedules and they’re not going to be reachable until late today.

I called the bank on Monday and asked to speak with someone in public relations. I was told there were two such people, but one was off and the other was at lunch. Fine, I said, ask the lunching guy to call me when he returns.

He didn’t call.

I called again yesterday and was told the PR guy was off until Thursday (the day the story is supposed to print), so the woman said she would ask the bank president to call me.

He didn’t call yesterday and I haven’t heard from him today. Maybe he’s hiding out because Bankrate.com, a web site that shows comparative data on U.S. banks and credit unions, reported a steady decline – 9.3 percent - in his bank’s assets over the past three years, and a 20 percent decline in deposits over the same period.

This is not rocket science. It’s just communication and common courtesy, both of which seem to be in extremely short supply these days.

And, yes, I’m very cranky because this same lack of cooperation from sources has kept me tethered to my desk for the better part of three weeks. And because circumstances have conspired to make it impossible for me to ride to Daytona Beach Bike Week again this year – a year when the forecast is for near-perfect weather.