Condescension in the ranks
In my line of work, I receive demeaning and condescending e-mails with about the same amount of frequency that I receive a woefully small paycheck. I keep the majority of them in a folder in my Inbox. Some are nasty, some are non-sensical, some are funny and some or them are truly special. (Interesting note: In this particular folder which consists of 7 years worth of angry e-mails, exactly 1 e-mail is from an actual high schooler, which is who I write about. Every other e-mail is from a parent.)
The other day I received an e-mail that instantly shot up near the top of the list of notes I will remember long after I escape my current job. First, let's provide a little background. Every season I write up previews on each team for each sport for all three high schools that I cover. The spring is brutal. With baseball, softball, track, tennis, golf and lacrosse, that makes 30 stories to write and find room for in a 3-week period that overlaps Spring Break (a week in which no one is ever in town.) Two weeks ago I ran three of four tennis previews in one of the papers. I wanted to run all four but never heard back from that team's new coach and was forced to hold the story until the following week.
When that issue came out, I got a rather vicious e-mail from a parent that was, quite frankly, fairly generic. It featured the standard assertion that our paper is biased against one of the high schools, questioned my ability to do my job and mentioned how disappointed her family was even though I'm sure if her son (the actual athlete) knew that she had sent the e-mail he would have been mortified. In terms of mean e-mails this one was pretty run of the mill. So I calmly wrote back and explained the situation and the article ran the next week. She wrote back and said she understood. Then, early this week, out of nowhere, I receive this absolute gem: (Names have been changed to protect the douche bag.)
I simply wanted to keep you posted that the Rich High School Boys Tennis Team is undefeated.
They beat Rival Rich High School last week, and Slightly Less Rich High School yesterday. Whether or not Forehand McClaycourt, the coach, returns your calls the fact remains that this is newsworthy and warrants attention....with photos.Thank you and I'm looking forward to a spectacular article.
An e-mail this perfect comes around once in a decade. Someone who be THAT condescending in less than 100 words needs to be studied. This message has everything. It completely got under my skin to the extent that I couldn't think about anything else for the next 48 hours. It's been a few years since an e-mail has effected me that much. First, let's break it down a bit.
There are so many things I love about it. The unnecessary capitalization, the improper plural form to start the second sentence... those are just sprinkles on top of this cupcake of condescension. Let's start with the smily face which, in the past five years, has somehow become an acceptable symbol to include in e-mails to 30-year-old men. In this instance, it is used as a jab at me because I wrote earlier that the Rival Rich High School tennis team was the team to beat in the league this year. Why did I write this? Because every other coach I talked to in the league believed it to be the case.
Now let's skip to the third sentence. I love how she includes the parenthetical phrase 'the coach' following the coach's name. Keep in mind that a story about this boys tennis team, written by me and featuring quotes from the coach, ran in the paper a week earlier. If I did not know who the coach was by this point I am both A. Making quotes up. And B. Extraordinarily lucky to have actually guessed the correct name of the coach who I don't know.
Later in the same sentence the writer tells me that the event is newsworthy which, in essence, is telling me how to do my job. It is also of note that, by definition, a high school tennis match is not actually newsworthy. Does is belong in a local weekly newspaper's Sports section? Sure. But newsworthy? I don't think anything I have covered in 7 years would actually fit that description. Now if, say, a parent or a tennis player at this match were to spontaneously combust due to astronomically high levels of smugness and entitlement THAT would be newsworthy.
And, as if this person hadn't already made it clear that he or she could do my job much better than I can, the addendum "with photos" is added. This struck me when I first read the e-mail. I get requests for photos to be taken at events all the time. However, it is rare that I can actually send our photographer back in time. And, if I did have that power, I would probably have him go back with winning lottery numbers to make us both a fortune as opposed to taking pictures at a high school tennis match.
Now here's the fun part. Not only was I aware that this parents' son's tennis team had won the two matches mentioned in the e-mail. I was actually in attendance at the match against the rival school. And so was our photographer. Somehow we both ended up there despite help from a third party non-journalist with time on his or her hands and access to a computer who is also the parent of what is likely a very unhappy high school tennis player.
So, unbeknownst to the writer, I had actually done everything that was requested of me even before the Manifesto of Belittlement was even written. Actually that's not true. The article was decidedly unspectacular. Because, seriously, it's high school tennis.
The above was found on one of my favorite websites passiveaggressivenotes.com.
It was written by a young girl who had just gotten in trouble and it was
slipped under her parents' door. I think she might be a relative of the
above e-mail sender.
Please turn me loose on these people!!!!! I am still your mother and absolutely incensed that these idiots are out there! May I write a letter to the editor and tear into these morons? Dad had these same issues with parents and usually parents of the least talented kid on the team who saw "Johnny" as the next All-American when in reality he could barely walk straight and chew gum! Now I am furious at this smug little SOB who cluttered up your in box with this drivel! So many jerks - so little justice!
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Oh, Lord, I hope it wasn't my aunt who wrote that.
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Comedy gold. What isn't clear from the story is whether one person sent all the emails in question. Was the last email from a third party? Also, it struck me as the sort of thing that D. Scandiffio would have written to you and thought hilarious.
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Who will win the Champions League??
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