Once again people, write out your own fucking ad. I'm not your babysitter. Don't waste precious hours of my day writing things out for you. Don't read me a speech over the phone and ask me "Does that sound OK to you?" I don't know, does it? Just how does one spruce up an ad for quilting supplies? I have ZERO knowledge of quilts and I don't plan on building on my knowledge base of such. If it were me I'd say "fucking kick ass quilts for sale" but that would make the members of your koffee klatch™ have a seizure. And I'd be canned for the profanity.

Another glorious time saver and advantage of having your shit prepared already is that you don't waste my time (or yours as you knit FiFi's new booties) later on calling me up again, again......and once again.....with more changes because of your damn indecisiveness. Although, if you're going to be THAT indecisive, I fail to see how some choice keywords is going to help. You'll just stew on them all day and call me up 5 minutes before deadline with.........more changes. Knock that shit off.

What's that? you want to add free knitting needles now? Save me.

Don't call me to talk about your husbands halibut he caught last weekend. You bitch maybe I wanted to go fishing too but noOOOOoooo......I'm here on my ass Pimping your stuff for the masses. Just gimme your ad and let me go to my happy place.

Something is deeply disturbing me tho: there is this segment of the population that just cannot grasp the concept of a daily paper vs a weekly paper. ALL papers are daily right? They're at my door 5am everyday. How can you print just once a week? Are you guys lazy? How do you stay in business. My garage sale was on Saturday, I don't want my ad to run on Tuesday, you MUST remove it!

Tough shit lady. The ad stays in all week. That's how it works with weeklies. Think of it this day, for only a doller a day you can run your ad with us. Pitch that shit with the dailies and see how far you get. I get this type of call nearly everyday. Knock that shit off. Just HOW you people get through the day is beyond me. Daily=printed everyday. Weekly=printed once a week. It's just that simple to understand. Must be a pretty thick box they've been in all their lives.

I was on another thought today about hearing on the radio about another illegal something-profiling by cops against x-minority group. Damn people you are dense. Newsies have you profiled down to your shoes and how many hours you're signed on to the internet. We just use a better name: DEMOGRAPHICS. We pay thou$and$ each year for things like Arbitrons, Cumes, MediaAudits, and the like. Hell just today I put together media kits aimed at furniture stores targeting young couples, with kids, looking for appliances/furniture with incomes between 25k and 40k a year. With 2 or more cars, planning to buy a home in 2 years and have purchased movie tickets 3 or more times in the last 12 months.

I can be much more specific than that but I'd be putting up names and addresses if I go that route. You think the CIA knows what you're up to? Hell we haven't even knocked on your door yet.

Have a new saleswoman in the office. Attractive, yet quirky. In the burbs it always helps to have good looking people on your sales staff. Or if not attractive, does have a killer can't-say-NO-personality. Screw your all your PC bullshit people, good looking people sell just by showing up. Want me to pull the demographics on that too? Although she mentioned my penmanship: I write like a girl. Said don't get bent about it, was just a compliment. I'm not sure yet how to address that one. Maybe I'm gay afterall. The wife will be proud.....

I think that about sums up my sales day.

Thank you Mr Fucking Judge. You just made my day sooooooo much shinier. May I lick your boots now asshole while people are at dinner, washing their car, toking up, or anything else? ONE judge gets to say 50 million people's opinions matter less than the "thousands" of jobs in telemarketing. Let's be frank people, no one willingly chooses telemarketing as a living. It only pays for employers drug habits and hobbies. Least of all me. I'm just doing it to keep my benefits until I can get that crown done on my tooth and the root canal on the other. Like I said, I chose a my Purgatory. If I actually enjoyed it I'd use another term.

So.......we get the house voting 422-8 and a wipeout by the Senate, and now a SECOND judge says it violates free speech? Judge....YOU'RE A DICK. Pray I don't find your phone number asshole, I will be less than civil in my "opinion".

That said..........today dragged like a dead dog on a rope. Nothing moved or happened. Imagine that...delivery day and not a single person came into bitch about their ad being missssspelled. I'm probably jumping the gun, but oh well. I'll keep it short again tonite but here's a tip for you people about this DO NOT CALL list: if you call up a paper, ANY paper and create a new account, even though you're on the DNC list, by doing such gives us the legal standing to call you once every 30 days about your "ad" even if you sold your broken fish tank and dead fish 3 months ago. And if you renew an ad, you abide by the small print that says we can call your ass. I won't, which is largely why I'm not going to last long here, I really don't want to fucking bug people. How one gets up at the crack of 4am for a day of selling to the invisible with a smile is beyond me. All this and people do it for 6 bucks an hour. People doing piecework picking in orchards have it easy-they at least get to hang out with family all day and talk about the weather changing over their heads even if they hate what they're doing, or if thats why. They get to bitch, I don't.

This is selling garbage. Yet..............gotta pay the bills........

I'm going to make this short and sweet tonight. Once again People.....you DON't get to stop the presses just for your fucking 2 bit ad. 6 bucks and your 10 Cent attidude doesn't justify stopping the presses. You son of a bitch. I know who you are, you did this last week with your "motorhome". You just called it in this time you chickenshit.

Ok. 'nuff said. Newbie office people. Nice & friendly, although BigGuy (dist. MGR) laid into a sales"person" about a harmless "young pretty thing" comment. This was a gal nearing 60 with a sharp wit and a heart of gold. And you fucking people get all PC on her ass about "potential" harrassment issues. She's 60, female, commenting about an attractive new salesWOMYN. Stop being such victims people or expecting everyone is. Let it go Prozac Prince. The precautionary principle is going to ruin us all here. God, G-d, Allah or the Sunni sooner I can get the hell out of here the better.

That said. No more blog. I had an expierience with a lil someone tonite that was larger than my employer could ever provide. A BIG one, and I've yet to let it sink in let alone know what a trainwreck I just became.

More later. go ahead people........the first thing that came to your mind after putting your ad in and reading this was sex? You people suck.

I'm done.

Well so far so good. Today pretty much whipped by. New salespeople starting today. It's always so fun to watch how stiff and reserved people are on their first day. HR director was in discussing something with the managers that took nearly 3 hours. Must have been a silent auction for somebody in there.

No Gypsy Chicks for a week. Who are the Gypsy Chicks? Anyone remember Madelyne Toogood? Y'know that Irish Traveller type that beat the crap out of her kid in a shopping mall parking lot and got taped? Imagine not just one, but a whole clan of these people, and thus you get the Gypsy Chicks. These people are a trip. I see them each week, sometimes twice, to place ads for any number of cars, motorhomes, jewelry, watches and whatever else they keep parked all over their front yard.

It's not enough that these creatures of obscene gaudiness take an hour to place a 20 word ad, they ALWAYS use assumed names (as if I forgot which one they used last week, it's all in the database). C'mon people, you're from fucking ROMANIA, I'm not buying the Nancy and Don Johns (I'm serious) as your names. Do not mock my intelligence. What's worse is none of them apparently can read or write English, or so it seems, their own that they speak quite fluently.

Still worse.......the ironies of my life just astound me sometimes. Not only are these crazy kids customers, about half of their clan (about 10 from what I know) used to live a block from my house. They had more shit parked in their yard for sale than I care to ever see again. These people wear more gold than Mr T, and dress straight out of 1983. Now I didn't mind them much other than a curiosity until they circled their house with motorhomes like a fucking wagon train one day. That crap worried me a bit. I think someone beat me to the punch making that call to TheCityPeople™ (city code enforcers). They, and their chuckwagons were gone in a week. Nobodys lived there since. I dunno.

Still going here, I really didn't mind them much outside that they make my life more interesting as a people watcher. And I really don't care what scam they're pulling over Uncle Sam (or the rest of us). However, when you come into MY paper and place an ad, don't nickle and dime me over 5 bucks when you have a wad of hundreds. Pay up you pansy, and not with a hundred dollar bill either. I'm running the cash register, not an ATM.

More later......

Today.........was a waste of time. I might have not gone to work at all. Sales reports came out and I'm bringing in less than they pay my salary for, so that means ONE thing.....I'm not going to be here long.

It's the numbers game. Bring in thou$ands in sales, yet your sales look smaller than what they pay you? You're getting canned. And I almost don't care. Sold my soul? Broke my back? Heart's not into it today? Yep. I told you people that already.

SO........what happened today? Not a damn lot. I'm a creative person, yet I failed to find shit to do after 1 pm today. I couldn't invent fun with coffee pots and burritos in it if I tried...

Ugh. Delivery day. Time for everyone to come into the office, late for something and franticallly search for their 15 word ad out of a hundred pages. Then you have the audacity to look up and sneer at me. I was lucky the following conversation was on the phone. Much easier to give someone the finger and not get sued for it while on the job.

"I don't see my ad. Tell me where it is"
OK what's your phone number?
"don't you have it already?"
Maybe, but I need it to do a search on our servers for it
"I was just there last week, you don't remember? You took my ad, look it up"

OK. this is where my irritation starts. YES, if I scrape my brain with a tornado I just might remember seeing you last week. And a hundred other people. Go ahead lady, just push the phone buttons on my forehead and I'll print out your account info on a ticker tape you can pull out of my mouth. Will that make you happy? Just give me your damn phone number and all will find peace on Earth sooner than all that time you took to argue with me whether I have your damn phone number or not.

"Did you find it.? "
Yes. Which one did you have a question about?
"(now she's a little pissed) When I came in. I know you remember me I had the......."
OK OK. hold on. Got it. You put in 4 ads when you came in. Is there an error?
"YES There is! you mispelled it"
Mispelled what?
"MY AD. why are you people so hard to deal with?"
Ma'am? Which one, you have 4. Please identify which ad and I'll pull it up for you.
"The one for the furniture"
They're all for furniture
"Who is your manager?"
He's not here.
"I want to speak with him"
He's not here.
"He fixed my ad before, let me speak with him"
Ma'am I can understand errors in ads, but if you would please help me out and tell me which one of the 4 is in error, I can fix it for you, but you have to work with me.

"you people are always so difficult. My ad came out on Saturday and ITS WRONG!"
Ma'am. Our papers come out on Thursday. Once a week.
"I picked it up on Saturday"
Yes but they came out on Thursday.
"How is that? you deliver everyday?"
Ohhhhhhhhh I know. You put in an ad with _____________ too this week?
"Isn't that who I called?"
No. This is ______________ paper, did you put your ad in other papers this week? I'm showing you put in 4 with us this week.
"Oh my god, I'm sorry, but is yours wrong too?"
I don't know. Is it?
"Don't get smart"
I'm not, but I don't know if your ad is wrong unless you can tell me if it is. AND what the error is. I'll be glad to help you out.
"Nevermind, I found it in your paper it's fine. Thanks. Bye."


OK People, when you sell 4 of anything in multiple outlets it would help if you have some fucking sense as to whom you're calling when trying to get a free ad because of a missssssspelling in it. As if the cover designs of our local papers weren't enough of a clue, now you have to invade my lunch hour accusing me of invisible errors that I didn't have anything to do with, even though you probably put your damn furniture ad in 10 papers. I wonder if I was #5 on your list on who screwed up your shit before you managed to read the full color headers. Exceptional customer service skills are wasted on people like you.

Thanks for making our working days so much fun for the next caller you bitch.

Reading is fundamental.......

Fucking people. What's with you when placing an ad? You want to have a philosophical debate on what constitutes a word? Yes idiot, phone numbers ARE counted as words. I don't care whether your 17 degrees of Literary Masterings from France in the fine art of new ways to say "FUCK YOU", phone numbers are counted as words in our world. What REALLY defines a "word" you say? Stuff your degrees and Websters up your ass and here's why: ANYTHING that contains characters, yes that's right characters, be they AND, of, 555-1212, w/ , AT, PS, ok, @#$#BB whatever, ANYTHING that creates a space between a series characters, hard carriage returns or some other shit makes a new "word". Phone numbers are considered words. Pay your 8 bucks and take this arguement up with the university profs on your own time. Freak. And you wanted to sell your 78 Honda w/ 278k mi. Either you suck as a professor or the University has been milking your brain at the next generations expense. Maybe both.

Rather uneventful today other than I was "bribed", I think, to stop the presses-literally to get some idiots ad in a FULL DAY after deadline-not afterhours deadline. The presses are done and cleaned already you fool. And this came from a guy that converted a Handicap Access bus into a motorhome with a couch and a table on the pretense that "I couldn't afford a motorhome so "look what I made" Your a piece of work. All that and SSI too. Enjoy your trip to Arizona you scam artist. I'll wait for your next ad you place in March.

I also cleaned house, and supposedly we have a new janitorial contract for this. I fail to see what they did beyond take out the trash. When you sit all day doing graphics, you tend to ignore what else is going on in the office. All in the name of making your ass fit to print. In fact, you try to. Now I get to clean out the ghosts of salespeople past in the office. You fucking people are sloppy. There are more crumbs in your damn keyboards. Got porkrinds for lunch and nail polish? Stop eating at your keyboards when you're putting in phony ads that your customers didn't authorize dammit! I have new access to corporate systems that you didn't think about. Amazing.........some of you losers have placed ads to sell stuff after you got fired.

And here I thought that manditory drug testing pre-hires would weed out the imbeciles. They might as well been stoned anyway.

Great. District manager in today. How can we help you sell today? How is your transition? (in a slow melodic voice, but I think he's much keener than the Office Dick from the movie Office Space)I feel like a sex change, but I'll cut him slack that he's newer to the company than I am by over a year (he's been here 2 weeks). Did they brief you on what position I sold myself into today chief? I seriously hope you're not patronizing me into thinking that "telemarketing" is the job du jour with that "hey it's a great company" bullshit. I guess I shouldn't bitch much since Boeing workers in Seattle are working temp jobs nowadays.

Fuck that. I'll bitch anyway.

At least I can do my shit in full color without a disability that needs special ergonomics just to get me through the day before I commute. Fuck. Work from home people. that said:

Notes to people that want to Place A Better Classified Ad:

1). Don't smashallyourwordstogetherthinkingyoullsaveadollarbymakingitlookas ONE word. Pay the fucking 75 cents extra. It won't help you and YES I have the power to pull out your little fib. And don't expect me to suck up your story about your congestive heart failure into thinking that I'll just wing it for you. Either you pay it or it comes out of my check. Charity doesn't begin at 10 bucks an hour lady. Your pensions pay more. At least I have Dental for the teeth I have left.

2). Back with the Smashing Of Words thing....placing ads online won't help you here morons. What? corporate systems don't have automatic spell checks for things like "nazi" and "asshole" how did you think supercalifragilisticexpialidocious was going to fly into next week's ad? Oh yeah, I must have forgot: Online ads get manually checked, printed, proofed, and financially adjusted as per who puts your shit back in. Yes, you're getting a bill for the extra 30 words you tried to sucker us for. Don't bitch you liar.

3). Little boxes in those forms to fill in are hard to fill in for those that require a parking lot to fill in their ads with chalk. We know this. We're reasonable, we'll type them in for you assuming we can read through the Alzhiemers. Beyond that, leave a recording, in English. And don't bitch.

4). Newspapers are big biz. Get "Debbies" extension if you have an issue. "Debbie" doesn't help you much if there's 5 of them. In any department. Then you'll begin to understand why you people piss us off so much trying to find out which person contacted us. It'll help your blood pressure, trust me. That said, get names people. It's that easy. Newspaper telekids don't get off so easy, calls ACTUALLY DO get recorded. Not all, but there's a record.

5). Newspapers are a buzy biz. If I have to put your ass on hold 5 times in a ten minute call, stop with the bullshit that YOUR call is the THE one to make my day. The 5 others have the same issue. The less you're an asshole and more patient, the more I'm inclined to work with you. The other 4 have the same problem. This isn't like a grocery line, at least they can hide from the incoming.

6) Classified advertising is a crapshoot. Don't expect 4 lines of text out of 20 thousand per edition to make your shit look special. We'll help you out, but you're not going to find God at a newspaper to sell your 3 legged neutered pygmy goat.

6a) when selling a 3 legged pygmy goat, wording is the key. Leave off the 3 or the neutered. Maybe both. You might get more calls.

6b) Sell a fucking couch instead. People buy this stuff even if it's been pee'd on.

7) If no one calls, don't expect a free ad. You do your own whoring for your junk, not us. We can do that at home with out you.

8) Pay for your shit. 8 bucks for an ad to possibly make $4000?. Don't make us bill you. Our collections are your worst nightmare, we're pals with the Postal Service like a religion. We know people that know people. And yes, I've taken calls from legit PI's that I know are. Hide or sell your shit better.

I hope this helps. I have an even better story later when I'm done thinking how even more crazy people can be described. Might be you tomorrow. Don't fuck up. Enjoy!

I nearly sold my soul a couple weeks ago. In some minds I probably did, and surely I might have in mine. I work for a major newspaper. Major=over 100k circulation. I "was" a graphic artist. Now I'm in fucking Advertising Sales (inside). What happened you ask? I chose my own hell. Our production was moved to the corporate office from having satellite offices and their own art teams take care of the ads every hour/day/week. Corporate shut it all off and centralized the production miles upon miles away from me. Some of the reasons came about of my own bitching about how production could more/better/faster. Apparently it came back to bite me in the ass now. I got the InviteOfTheFew to work from the head office. I was pretty damn happy to hear that. But then I was informed that since "your skills are so needed with this company and you're so friendly and flexible with everyone" somebody found it easy that I would just suck up the 3 hour commute each way to fire up Photoshop and make you people look good all day. Before I get on the ensuing rant, and lest my ass get busted for this blog some day I'll say it here first: I like the company. I worked for another as an Ad Manager that was a longtime advertiser with it. I knew people inside long before I ever worked for you. The least thing you fucking people could do is make it worth my time. The commissions you pay to sales people would more than enough pay my base, my commish, and my commute. And then ask yourselves: what good is salespeople vs. graphic artists? Which is better? Salespeople that run up phony advertising and expect MY ass to make you look good when the monthly reports to come out?

This particular rant is the first. Don't get to excited if it isn't structured or of perfect grammar for you idiots. I chose my Purgatory, and It wasn't easy. I feel like I sold my my soul to be a salesperson in the name of keeping a job, the benefits, and bragging rights for working for a huge paper that can't pay for my commute. What's in the name of good advertising eh? Graphic Designers have power you sales people don't know. You trust us. We trust you. Don't abuse the priviledge.

SO........

Since I've sold my soul now. I suppose that I should bring out some skeletons for the masses of what really goes on at a paper. I see their shit. I see the editorials. I know what ink they used today on the press (and what color, and why magenta at 12am isn't the same looking magenta at 3pm). I know what salesperson came in with a hangover and couldn't sell new ads for some unguided reason, yet MY ass is going to take the heat for fucking up their ads, even though I'm not designing their picture perfect full page double truck this week.

Fear not my creative brethren, I'll be back. After a glorious corporate review of my killer skills, I was told by our Creative Dept Manager "......if you change your mind". Nice. I like that. I liked doing what I....did. Nice to know that you're appreciated by people that should be willing to pay you more than inside sales people. I'd pay heavily to see some flashy saleperson sell at Burningman sometime and keep a straight face in a suit that's a flashy blue. Shit, maybe that could be next years flashMob. I see what they get paid. I get it now. After all Graphic artists are the last ones to see peoples ads before they go print. But that's my bitch. I don't work for free. Want killer thoughts on paper? Sure. You got it. Make it worth my time..

I trained last week for my new job in hell. I'll say, the faster everyone can get on their local "DO NOT CALL" lists the better. This shit is telemarketing. I'm not fucking calling you. Nor do you want me to. I trained with a top saleswoman this week. She knows her shit. This woman makes $80k a year selling herself from a chair and a headseat. She has blankets on the back of her chair, balloons, baby pictures, all that crap. This is corporate porn.

I first sold my soul on this pretense. $80k a year. OK. I don't make $80k. How hard could it be calling people I don't know at all at dinner? Man, I didn't think that through, and forgive me GA's, I'm just trying to pay the rent. I adapt. I'll take on a whole lot of garbage to get by. But.... She loves her job and that's fine. I fail to see how she spends the rest of her day and I'm not going to ask.

First thing I noted while doing the classifieds was this: She quoted moral issues with making an ad for a house, 3Bdr and not 3 Bedroom. Websters was her Bible and so was a Sales Manager that was born about the time of Jesus it seems. Me? I don't give a shit really but if somebody pictches a bitch about saving 50 cents? I don't care. I'll help them save that 50 cents if its THAT BIG of an issue, other wise you pay for it people, don't whine. Her issues? she just couldn't help put in an ad for someone without selling them into XX other areas.

The SmashingOfWords (later posts will define this term)
made her feel that she "kept people straight" while "helping the company grow". FINE. Keep costs down. Yay for you. But what the fuck? Are you the fucking dogcatcher? Moral issues with smashing words but no problem with upselling people that don't want their ads in all fucking XX issues?

Lest I keep bitching. And I will. Get used to it kids. I'll tell you how it is in front of the monitors. Angry? Nope. Just telling......Stay tuned.