Are you serious?

SF and I work in PR. That's all anyone really has to know at this point.

Now there are many misconceptions about PR people and I've read many a scathing blog entry or email from reporters about how awful we are. Most of the time I agree with these people- some of the things my fellow PR folks say or do make me cringe too. But hey, we're all people and we all make mistakes.

But you gotta give us some credit here. We're not (all) flacks, hacks or idiots. Most of the time we only do what we're told, no matter how much it goes against our thinking.

We wince when you wince, believe me.

I wonder though, why PR folks seem to get all the hate nowadays. Uh, people being people and all- reporters aren't exactly white as sheep.

Case in point: Recently, a reporter told me that he had lost a document that he needed for an article he was working on. I told him I was more than happy to track it down for him. However...

• He didn't know who sent it to him or where he got it from.
• He forgot when he got the document ("Sometime in the last three months? Maybe in Fall?")
• He forgot what the document was about.

Now I know it's not polite to say this but a part of me thought, "You're shitting me, right?" He wanted me to track down this mysterious document ("It might be a PDF, powerpoint...or Word doc.") and send it to him ASAP.

It was like playing 20 questions over the phone. And as everyone knows, 20 questions is not fun. It's what people do on long car drives to keep from murdering each other.

Another time, when I called a reporter to offer him a briefing, he asked me to repeat my name, which did. And then he asked if I was the young woman who came over to his place last night. I told him I wasn't. He said, "Well, whatever it is you're offering, I'll take it."

*Blink*

Not all reporters are like this. Most of the ones I work with are fantastic but you know, there's a couple out there that make me wonder if I should go back to school and do something else.

-Signing off from Seattle