Metaphor Monday

So upon occasion I have been a bit of a dog with a bone. I have found myself in another one of those situations. In fact, when I was telling my tale of woe and angst to my friend PR, she told me "We can't all be Germanic." I told her I'm not German. Apparently that wasn't the point.

Soooo, the new journalism staffs are always chosen in the spring. They are always posted the Friday before spring break (Many would say because of tradition. I tell you it is because we are chicken and want the kids to have a solid week away before we have to face any sad or mad faces because they didn't get the position they want. More specifically, we want a good reason why we refused to answer the phone and/or call their mothers back.)

Back to the story, last spring the newspaper adviser (Red) told me that the Bagpipe kids felt they could handle the website and didn't really need "double" leadership. They had it, no need for yearbook kids to do it. Ok, I said, no problem. One less thing for me to worry about. HA.

I went about my merry business (Yes, you smart asses often my business is merry, I just keep it inside so others aren't jealous.)  Long about the end of September I finally got around to looking at the website. Holy crap I said to myself. It looks terrible. It hadn't been updated since LAST SPRING. There had basically been no tweets. (The 2 football games had been tweeted, but the young man in charge both times failed to tweet the end score. Seriously??) The Facebook page? Only update was to read the Bagpipe. The only thing being updated was the calendar, which thank you very much, was being done by one of my kids.)

I said something to Red. She gave me some answer about oh dear, and her editor had trouble working the website, gee could someone help. Within a couple of days I had Mr. Magic out (guy who works for procomputing. He helped us fix the website from what the idiot we hired originally did, and he is a great teacher. Super nice. Always happy to answer questions, etc.) He sat at my desk, as I took more notes, we printed examples of how to do things yada yada.) Because the editor wasn't sure of how to work the top slider bar (Feel free to go to HPHSmedia.com to see (requires password, so you have to direct msg me to get the password, sorry.), he needed a photo to show her. Since we would be updating everything immediately, he grabbed a picture from my computer.. a photo of my dog Gracie to be exact. He then just typed in fake text to show her the bits and pieces.

Great, she says. I can do it, she says. ...fast forward two weeks later. I get on HPHSmedia to see... NO UPDATES. That news slider? STILL AN EFFIN PICTURE OF MY DOG.  I almost lost my ever loving mind. So I sent an email to Red. We have to talk I say. Have you seen the website? Her answer "I'm aware." huh. really? You are aware???? She agrees to meet with me Monday.

At this point steam is coming out of my ears. I am pissed. Beyond pissed. Going off the rails unhappy. I gather my editors and say I know it's not fair and you weren't expecting this, but I need y'alls help. The website, it can't look this crappy. So my kids start working on stories.

By the end of the day Friday, there are at least 3 new stories on the website. The dog? She's still there all weekend, which is probably good because when I sat down with Red, it was nice to go to that first and ask Are you kidding me?????

I had already talked to one of my managing editors about being in charge of the website, and to a couple of others about doing things too. It was some time over the weekend as I was going off about my kids would never pull this crap of just not doing anything and thinking it was ok that my friend told me we can't all be Germanic. Germanic my ass. It's about having standards. It's about knowing how much money was spent on this website and the iphone app. It's about knowing my name is all over the stupid website and I'm not interested in being embarrassed. It's about knowing that any kids that want to go into journalism have to understand convergent media and how it all works.

Oh, and in one week, my kids have done more for the website etc than her kids have in 8 weeks. Not kidding.

ANNNNDDDD Friday the newspaper came out, so I spent the whole day listening to those kids laugh and have a great ole time cause their work was done, while I worked all day with my kids on stories etc that we need for the website. What's wrong with this picture????