One aspect of being a news reporter that I liked the least when I worked for newspapers was waiting on phone calls to be returned. There were times when it seemed the entire universe was involved in a conspiracy to prohibit timely return phone calls from coming your way and thus greatly stressing you out and pissing you off.
Well, that hasn’t changed as a freelancer. I have spent the morning waiting on phone calls then waiting some more. I started making calls about 9 a.m. and the first person to return my call did so when I was eating lunch about 11:45 a.m. Then, I decided to go grocery shopping and what’d ya know? I get another call right there in Kroger between the produce and the bottled water and have to do note taking in one of my least favorite environments.
There are times when the returned phone calls all fall into place or even you actually get to talk to someone when you call them. The latter is rare, however. Some of my friends (not mentioning any names!) often don’t even answer my calls.
So I am back from grocery shopping waiting once again. I can’t carry on with the rest of my afternoon until I hear back from this one particular person. Then, perhaps I will have enough information to send the editor of a publication I sometimes work for in order for him to determine if I should proceed with the story. I just got an e-mail a bit ago from a sports editor with whom I went to journalism school and later worked with at a newspaper. He wished me luck on freelancing. He said it scared him to think of having to do that. His words were something like: “I would have to get a mower and start mowing lawns.”
Maybe I am insane. If not, sitting here stressing out about phone calls certainly dosn’t help my sanity any.