Everyone's Time is Precious

While trying to complete five interviews for our feature article assignment I have run into many people who claim they do not have time to talk to me. Today I called a young lady at the DNC named Patrice who was actually supposed to call me last week after she "looked into" what I was asking about. When I reminded her today that we had spoken last week she jumped into an apology and told me all about the meetings that were taking up everyone's time. I said I understood, but all I needed was five minutes, maybe ten at the most. She asked again what I wanted to know about and she put me on hold. She came back with no information and asked again if she could call me back. By this time I figured she didn't want to say she had no idea what it was I was talking about and most likely was going to do nothing to find out about it. That is fine, but she could just tell me that. If she did have information about what I was asking, she could have given it to me in much less time than our two "exploratory" conversations had taken already. None the less, she said she'd call back. I told her I was on deadline and then she realized I was writing an article. I did tell her this during our first conversation but I assume she didn't hear me. Actually I assume she wasn't listening. Then "the phone girl" (that it was call people when they are rude) said she couldn't talk to me at all and I would have to call the press line. That was fine, but she also wouldn't give me her last name or her title. She got very short and very rude. Her answer to everything became "call the press line." Well long story short, I called the press line, no one talked to me there either, but they gave me her full name and her title. Can you believe it was "Phone Girl?"