WHY WON'T ANYONE TALK TO ME?!

When this is on my desk, it's a
sure sign I'm gonna have a bad day.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again every time it makes me angry enough to post about it: the part I dislike the most about this job is when I CAN'T DO IT because people won't talk to me. I need information to do what I'm paid to do.

Usually, I can get it from phone calls, and when someone is hard to track down, that just means I need to bother the people around them until I'm being more of a hassle and more annoying than it would be to get the person I'm after to call me, or to give me their cell number. But days like today... grr.

For some reason, every time they give me a video camera, I'm rendered useless. No one will speak to me. I walk around for half an hour, asking everyone I see if they'd be willing to speak about a local issue. Last time, I was straightforward, and no one would talk to me. Then, my boss went out and got comments from EVERY SINGLE PERSON HE SPOKE TO. (Way to make me look like a slacker, people of Darke County! Thanks a ton!)

Today, I took their advice, and tried to be more sly about it: instead of "HEY talk about THIS" and shoving a camera in their face (an exaggeration of my approach last time), I was all like "Would you mind speaking about a few local issues?" I was like a ninja. Or, as much like a ninja as a 6'3" guy of expansive girth can be. (I'm as stealthy as a continent. I should try that, actually: just standing there until people forget I'm there, then surprising them. Like an earthquake, I guess.)

Nothing. They'll talk, just not on camera. GRAAAH. Or they're not from around here. Double-GRAAAH.

I'm gonna go be useless now.