Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A little less information

Comment is free, but facts are sacred, said CP Scott. That said, some facts are so sacred that journalists would rather not know them, as I discovered just now when I phoned a contact to arrange an interview.

“Hello, could I speak to Khun ******, please?”

“Sorry, Khun ******, he is in toilet.”

“OK, shall I call back in five minutes?”


[Pause.]

“Perhaps ten minutes, yes?”

8 comments:

Billy said...

At least you've got your first question sorted: Have you considered eating more fibre?

Steerforth said...

I managed a bookshop in Crawley and inherited a member of staff who knew nothing about books (or anything else, for that matter).

When people phoned me, she'd often tell them that 'Ee's on the toilet.'

In the toilet is bad enough, but ON!

Marsha Klein said...

Billy: Or maybe less fibre...?

I usually resort to "He's away from his desk at the moment" or "I'm afraid he's not answering his phone. Can I take a message?"

I used to have a colleague who would take some reading material with him if he was anticipating a particularly long haul, which forewarned me to get my euphemisms lined up (so to speak).

Annie said...

hahaaaa

Geoff said...

I'd give it 15.

Boz said...

At least it wasn't a face-to-face. Or face-to-faeces.

FirstNations said...

every time I travel i run into the same thing... some broad sitting on the throne in the rest stop ladies room, yammering away on her cell phone while simultaneously performing 'enthusiastic' vital bodily functions. by which i mean to say it coulda been worse, dude.

Tim F said...

Maybe we should measure such events by the difficulty of Sudoku we choose to accompany them: easy; moderate; hard; fiendish...