Please bring my neighbor their paper! I stole it! (whisperingly)

As many of you are aware, I used to do customer service for a local newspaper. For those of us in customer service, we all have our "favorite" customers and our doosie stories. One of my favorite stories came from speaking to a lady about her neighbors paper.
Yes, I said the neighbors' paper. This particular lady (I call her this because I believe her to be one of our great elderly wisers) had occasion to call because her own paper had been missed or stolen and she wanted her paper with her morning coffee as per her custom. However, she was full on aware that her neighbors were late risers and she took it upon herself to take their paper. She called quite early, around 7ish I suppose and it was hilarious because she was whispering into the phone.
Now, imagine some little old lady about four foot nothin' standing on her porch whispering into her cordless phone with her little hand cupped over the speaker on the phone. Imagine it quite early and in the summer so she is in her nightie and slippers and she is looking over to the neighbors yard. Below was our conversation:
(Remember, she is whispering the ENTIRE time!)
Me: Thank you for calling the News! My name is Michele, how may I help you?
Lady: I am calling about my neighbors paper.
Me: Ok, what is going on with your neighbors paper?
Lady: Well, I need you to bring one out in a hurry so they don't miss it. You see, I didn't get mine today for some reason and I know they sleep late over there. Can you bring them one so they don't see that it is gone? I took their paper and I don't want to get in trouble with the neighbors for taking their paper!
Me: So, you missed your paper and you took theirs? O.o
Lady: Yes, I know they never get up before 9:30 every day. If you hurry, you can get one out here before they wake up and nobody will know! Can you do that for me? I really wanted to read my Sunday paper and it was just laying there. Please bring one out so nobody knows what happened. You can do that right? This will be a secret between you and me.
Me: Aw, certainly Ms. Lady. I can do that for you. Oh, and don't worry, it will be our little secret, ok?
Lady: OK, thank you! I am going now because I don't want them to see or hear me lest they find out what happened!
Me: Ok, is there anything else I can help you with today Ms. Lady?
Lady: No, you just have a good day and thank you for getting me out of trouble! :)
I hung up the phone and had a little chuckle about that. I don't know if she was in her nightie and slippers or not. I do know that she was outside because I heard traffic but it made me smile to know that our elderly population gets up to rambunctious goings on early in the morning!
Thought I would share this little smile for today. Though I am certain that if she knew, she would be quite upset that I shared her secret! :) Na, it will be alright.....

www.wefailed.dam

Two Sundays ago was my last day at work before I took my "vacation." The reason for the parenthesis is that it is not a vacation but it is not really a break in service either. My company is going through some major changes. Hell, the whole country is going through the same changes and it begins with their pockets. All during this year alone, I have watched business that have thrived in the same place for years close their doors. Some very abruptly. As I drive around, I imagine America becoming a ghost town. Yea, imagine something like that the next time you see your power company with a sign on the door saying "Closed, thanks for your business, you must now mail in your payment or go to http://www.wefailed.dam/. That sucks to see that.

I have fought tooth and nail to keep what you can call a job just so that I do not have to stand in the unemployment line and become a statistic like so many of my fellow Americans and coworkers. It makes me feel down to see my coworkers go away one at a time, some happy while others are anxoius about what their future holds. Still others are still arriving at the time clock every day until that fateful May 4, 2009. That is the day that the WARN Act will let nearly 60 or more of my co workers go. Many of whom are long time employees of a quarter of a century or more. I could not help but thinking as I left for the last Sunday that I would be working in a while, that things would be fundamentally different upon my return to work in May. In itself, the newspaper office will be a ghost town.

Just the other day, I checked my email from work so that I can stay up to date on any other major changes going on and they said goodbye to another forty sum people. Fundamentally, I will be returning to a ghost town. Everyone will be overworked and stressed. Big fun there. But on the bright side, I do have a job to go to. A lot of these people are going to be looking for months with nothing to show for it. Resume after resume sent off, application after application filled out to sit and watch the phone and pick it up every now and then to see if it is still working. Oh, it works, just nobody is calling. Very sad.

I was sitting in a circus tent tonight listening to a conversation going on behind me. This woman was talking about her ex-husband the millionaire and how she now has to work 2-3 jobs just to get by. What a pity. I am sorry she spent most of her time at home married to him worrying about what color her toenails were going to be and now she has an outdated college degree and has to work sixty hours a week at $8.50 an hour just to make ends meet! tsk. tsk. I say. She should live within her means and it would not be like that. Hurumph! The way I look at it, this economic downturn is only going to really hurt the rich people. All because they now have to live like us more simple folk and learn to make it from check to check. OOps! No more $10 lattes from starbucks or some fru fru shop!

As I sip my imported coffee from Canada: Yes dahlin!!!! Tim Hortons for me! My import only cost me what I do for a living and will happily return to in three weeks! A nicety on the telephone! Customers are great! Dont forget to read the Sun News!!!!!

And don't forget national Newspaper day 04-20!!!

From afar, I see one of my favorite newspapers fly away in the wind.....(tears and ANGER!)

Far removed from my part of the world is the home to one of the best newspapers in the country. Another thing that made it unique was that it is printed magazine style. At least until today. Today, I received word that the beloved Rocky Mountain News of Colorado will have printed its last issue and close its doors for eternity. This comes days away from its 150th anniversary. Please read the eulogy below that came from its front page. Very touching. Coming from a newspaper that is struggling as well, it is sad to see such a solid soldier laid to rest when it could have been some other nobody paper. (Well, not all newspapers are nobody papers but Scripps could have chosen another paper besides RMN!!!!

"...with great sadness that we say goodbye to you today. Our time chronicling the life of Denver and Colorado, the nation and the world, is over. Thousands of men and women have worked at this newspaper since William Byers produced its first edition on the banks of Cherry Creek on April 23, 1859. We speak, we believe, for all of them, when we say that it has been an honor to serve you. To have reached this day, the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, just 55 days shy of its 150th birthday is painful. We will scatter. And all that will be left are the stories we have told, captured on microfilm or in digital archives, devices unimaginable in those first days. But what was present in the paper then and has remained to this day is a belief in this community and the people who make it what it has become and what it will be. We part in sorrow because we know so much lies ahead that will be worth telling, and we will not be there to do so. We have celebrated life in Colorado, praising its ways, but we have warned, too, against steps we thought were mistaken. We have always been a part of this special place, striving to reflect it accurately and with compassion. We hope Coloradans will remember this newspaper fondly from generation to generation, a reminder of Denver’s history – the ambitions, foibles and virtues of its settlers and those who followed. We are confident that you will build on their dreams and find new ways to tell your story. Farewell – and thank you for so many memorable years together."
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