Thursday, May. 07, 2009

People ask the weirdest questions

In case you missed it, IT Day 2009 has come and gone. Hundreds of people passed through the Three Rivers Convention Center, snatching up as much free swag as their complimentary IT Day bags could carry.

For the past three years I've helped man the Tri-City Herald booth at IT day, but this year I was to man it alone. That meant dealing with angry customers or trying to explain to pessimists that the newspaper is still thriving by myself. Highlights from this year's IT Day are plenty. Some made me laugh, some made me angry and some made me downright uncomfortable.

We had a bunch of free papers to give away that morning, but when I offered it to one fellow, instead of politely refusing, he shouted that he didn't know how to read. When I just looked at him, he then said "There's nothing but bad news in the paper..." and slowly walked away.

One older man came up to me and asked "Do you have the swine flu?" Confused, I pointed to myself and asked "....me?" He shook his head, annoyed, and asked if we had any stories covering the swine flu in today's paper. I see that as an easy mistake.

Not surprisingly, I had a couple people come up and ask if I was BethZilla. One kid walked right up to me and began doing some Beavis & Butthead type of metal song, then yelled "BETHZILLA!!" at the end. I think he just made my theme music.

Following in his nerdiness, one gentleman geeked out on me, saying I looked like Boomer from Battlestar Galactica. One old man came up and said he could have sworn I worked for one of the TV stations. I assured him that I did not and that he got his Asian reporters mixed up. An ignorant, but easy mistake. I refrained from asking "What, do we all look alike?"

One man with a fishing vest on kept stopping by and chatting with me. I must admit, I couldn't hear half of the stuff he was talking about, but just nodded in agreement. Towards the end of the event, he strolled by once more, broke out his camera and snapped a picture of me. Instinctively I smiled for the picture, then I immediately realized that him taking a picture of me for no reason was really creepy. Another instance where I need to learn to say NO.

There were a couple flashbacks this year. Last year this lady came up and told us why she didn't need the paper and how we were obsolete and our website was dated. She came up to me again this year, giving me the same schpeel. Lady, you are a broken record...

Another ghost from IT Day past was this elderly Chinese woman who asked if I was Chinese... I remember having the EXACT same conversation with her last year.

One thing that I'll never get over is how people think that we can't hear them when they walk by. Younger people will be walking through and comment on each booth. "No, that's lame. They don't have cool stuff. Don't talk to them." On the inside I'm thinking "We can hear you, you jobless dumbass," but on the outside I just smile and nod.

The worst visitor at my booth was an older man with a dark purple and bumpy nose. He looked pissed before he even approached the booth, which is never a good sign. He picked up my business card, covered one of the words on it and said we shouldn't call ourselves the Voice of the Mid-Columbia, since we didn't report on his event. He then walked off, muttering some stuff. A group of college kids were standing by my booth at the time and asked if that happened a lot. I told them no, because believe it or not, people do like us.

I've discovered that working at the paper is like living in Korea. There's this instinctual "We, us" Vs "I, me" kind of thing going on. If someone insults Korea, you automatically take offense because in a sense, you are part of it. It's the same with the paper - when people applaud the paper's accomplishments, it makes you feel good. When people say petty things about the paper, you feel protective over it and want to break a bottle over the counter and ask them to step outside.

The most frequent question I was asked at IT Day was "Why are you here?" People don't understand what the newspaper has to do with technology. Well, for the three of you who read this blog (excluding my family), that is reason enough. We're online, we're mobile, we shoot/edit our own video, we have the latest gadgets... It's not that difficult to understand why. If you still don't get it, come to our booth at next year's IT Day and we'll gladly clear it up.