Continuing the game of phone tag from yesterday, I called David Brown again. This time he called back after the first message I left on his cell phone, and we finished our one-minute-43-second conversation. He was with his wife at the emergency room, and referred me to the Attorney General's office, since David's bureau (Dairy Products Control) deals only with dairy sales and nothing else.
It's kind of ironic that the Attorney General's office transferred me to the Department of Ag only a few weeks ago, but this is a bureaucracy, after all.
I feel better now that business is concluded with Mr Brown instead of hanging unfinished.
Then I called the Attorney General's office and left voicemail for Dave Sheridan, Director of the Environmental Law Division, at 12:41 pm. No calls in return yet. I'll probably try again on Monday.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Phone tag #1 done, #2 begun
Friday, August 12, 2011
Bad luck on a beautiful day?
When I am unlucky enough to miss someone's call, I like them to have a little entertainment before they leave me a message ~ that's why I craft outgoing messages with some thought for my listeners. And they usually like them.
Poor David Brown thought my last one, the "send me to sizzle" was, in his words, "really weird." That was the message he left when he returned my call. So maybe we got off on the wrong foot.
David Brown is the bureau chief for Dairy Products Control, one of the many bureaus in the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. The Dairy Products Control Bureau is charged with ruling on details about dairy products in Iowa. And I had a question about dairy products, specifically, raw milk. As the publicist for Milkers Get It, I want to make sure that the information I send out is as accurate as possible, so I do a lot of fact-checking, and I don't just make stuff up. I go to the source.
As I was explaining to David about milking lessons and introducing people to raw milk, our connection dropped out. Thinking that maybe a cell tower went haywire, I called right back. And the call dropped again. Hmmm. Such bad luck on a beautiful day in Iowa. This is how the calls went ~~~
afternoon of Wednesday, August 10, 2011 ~ I left a message at David Brown's office in Des Moines
Thursday, August 11 :
11:35 am ~ I left a message at David's office in Des Moines
between 11:52 am and 12:36 pm ~ David left a message on my voicemail (commenting it was "really weird")
12:46 pm ~ I got his voicemail and assured him that he got the right number
12:49 pm ~ He called and we talked live for 00:01:15. That's 75 seconds.
12:50 pm ~ I called right back thinking a cell tower had dropped him. He answered and we spoke for 3 seconds before another disconnect.
between 12:50 and 12:52 pm, I texted him about the connection problems
12:52 pm ~ I called; the phone rang; went to voicemail; I left a message
2:06 pm ~ I called; phone rang; voicemail; I left message
It could all be just very bad luck on a beautiful Iowa day.
