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Almost the phone directory we wanted

Brief by Central Staff

Communications – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine

Sometimes we think of this magazine as an experiment in applied cultural geography — that is, we want more and more people to think that there’s a part of this world that can be defined as “Central Colorado.”

So we’re always pleased to see Central Colorado appear in business names or on regional facilities (such as the airport in Buena Vista).

We’ve never had much luck with the telephone company (Mountain Bell that became US West that became Qwest) — our local directory stops at the Continental Divide, and doesn’t include any of the Gunnison Country, which we think of as an important part of Central Colorado.

But the new McCleod directory includes just about all of Central Colorado: think of a diamond bounded by Leadville, Cotopaxi, Saguache, and Gunnison. If it had just included Westcliffe and Alamosa, we’d seldom need to consult another directory.

We have a beef, though — although we’re listed in its white pages, we’re not listed under “Magazine Publishers” in its yellow pages, as we are in the Qwest directory.

Although that helps bring in some business, it’s not always a blessing. At least once a month, we get a call from someone asking whether we carry an esoteric magazine about needlepoint or model railroads.

We try to explain that we’re a magazine publisher, not a distributor or retailer, but on occasion, the callers will argue and insist that we must carry the given magazine, and that we’re just being obstinate. Is it possible that there’s a little too much “assertiveness training” these days?