Last night I went along on a paper delivery route

[Quantess]

My friend had to learn a paper route, starting that night. She has delivered newspapers before. The station manager was going to take us along his route.

I came along to see whether I wanted to take on a paper route for some extra cash. It pays about $1000 - $1200 per month, at this station. However, you are an I-9 “Independent Contractor”, so you have no employee rights, and you pay for your own gas for your own vehicle, including the wear and tear on your vehicle. You are expected to work 365 nights a year. You are expected to deliver a dry newspaper to every subscriber, either daily or just Sunday, depending on the subscription, before 5 am, every single time. Sounds easy?

We got to the distribution center at 1:30 am. We started by putting a grocery store “insert” into every newspaper, then rolling and bagging them. That part was easy! Most of the 450 papers went in the front passenger seat, but 60 dailies went into a knapsack.

The paper delivery man had us ride in the back of his mini-van as he took us on a fairly white-knuckle ride, for the purpose of teaching my friend her new route. He routinely drove on the opposite side of the street, made U-turns, drove inches close to obstacles, went in reverse at high speeds, into tiny, crooked alleys at high speeds, all with amazing accuracy. My friend said he drove like a NASCAR driver. I say he drove like a crazy bike messenger in a class C motor vehicle.

He knew which addresses had daily papers shoved into tubes, who had a Sunday paper tossed on the porch, and who was a disabled person who needed their paper placed just so. Some people complain when their paper lands at the wrong place. I was impressed that 450 papers manage to get to the proper places every single night with such few errors.

I thought I knew that part of town… as it turns out, I only really knew the major roads. I had no idea there were little shacks behind strip malls, tiny homes hidden behind garage mechanics, and weird hut-type residences clustered in between older farmhouses on dead-end streets. They all had addresses, but good luck if the addresses were posted or visible! There were narrow, crazy, little streets that zigged and zagged, up and down hills, close to sewage treatment plants, under railroad bridges, but we always seemed to be going in circles.

For the last part of the route, we followed the carrier on foot, as he put on the heavy knapsack and delivered papers to a huge retirement community of rows of apartments that all looked the same. We could barely keep up with him. Somehow, he was able to tell the rows of residences apart. Which to me, all looked the same.

Just one shift at this job makes me realize that this job is not for me. Oh, I have job skills, believe me, but learning the intricacies of a paper route, with speed and accuracy, is not something I could do quickly enough before people started getting mad at me. Not to mention the abuse to the vehicle.

We finished the route at 5:30 am. As he drove us back to the station, he made a wake up call to his wife. “Honey, it’s time to wake up. Love you”. Then he took us back to my friend’s car, and he went on his way to work, maybe a little late to his next job.

My friend told me that he and his wife both have done paper routes for years, for extra income to support their family. They have two children, one who has medical problems, and yet they have no health insurance.

This family is the Working Poor. Hard working poor. The paper delivery is their extra income, so that they can support their family. This is an extremely hard working man, and I don’t know if he, or his wife, ever sleeps!

If you subscribe to a newspaper, you may want to consider how hard these people work to get the paper to your door. I am thinking the same could be said about mail carriers.

[Brickbat]

1. I did a ride-along a couple years ago as part of my job at the newspaper.

It was very humbling.

[Saphire]

2. I delivered newspapers for 3 years....7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

it was a hard job, but some aspects of it I loved.

[Mimosa]

3. I helped a lady do that job when I was a kid

Just like picking up medical lab samples every day (which I did later), that route work is hell on a person's car and there are no job benefits and FDIC isn't withheld. So it pays next to nothing.

Mail carriers are unionised federal employees who make good money and have decent benefits.

[elocs]

4. I've done this for a year and a half. Tomorrow morning will be my last day as a private contractor

for USA Today. Mine is a motor route on the south side of my town mostly delivering to stores with some home deliveries. What has been nice about delivering the USA Today is that it is only a M-F paper, no weekends. I start at around 3 a.m. and am done usually by 5:30.

About a month ago I was informed that USA Today was contracting in my area with the St. Paul Pioneer Press to deliver their papers, so I am out of a job. It has sometimes been tough with the police often preying upon those of us who are out every night just trying to squeeze out a buck. Winter weather here in Wisconsin is tough as well.

I'm going to take a little time off after having no vacation for a year and a half and get used to getting some regular sleep again.

[Brickbat]

9. Mr. Brickbat works a lot of nighttime hours and has gotten to know the local police as well.

However, it's a small town, so once they learned his car, they left him alone.

[elocs]

11. Just the other night a cop pulled up behind me at a closed Citgo station where I fill a rack.

He wanted to know what I was doing in spite of the fact I stopped there at the same time nearly every night for a year and a half, driving a 2006 Scion xA RS 3.0 of which there were only 2100 made. It's hard to believe that they are really that clueless.

[gaspee]

13. I find it hard

Not to be a smart ass to them. The regulars know me and my car, but when one who works a different shift or different area fills in and, after watching me, stupidly asks me what I'm doing, I answer, with a completely straight face... littering.

[gaspee]

5. That's my job and it sucks

No vacation, no sick days, the pay sucks and customers don't tip. It's my only income, too.

Oh and because the newspaper industry is in such dire straits (losing customers as they die and younger people don't typically subscribe) the emphasis has been shifted to "service levels" meaning there is a lot of pressure from higher ups (who make A LOT of money) that delivery be *perfect* every single day. The acceptable complaint rate is one complaint for every 2000 papers delivered.

People tip the pizza delivery person, but not the newspaper carrier. Even if you tip 100 bucks at christmas (which is what some of mine tip) it's still only 2.00 a week. I have a few customers who tip me five a week and I adore them and make sure their paper is wrinkle free, at their door and dry every day.

I think the worst thing is the lack of sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation changes your personality.

All that being said, it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than working retail or some other minimum wage customer service job. So much better. It's all about freedom. Which is why I do it. When I factor in gas and car repair though, I don't make very much money. Less than 8000 a year net.

[elocs]

15. It's my only job as well. My AGI last year was under $7000, but it pays the bills.

In a year and a half I have never had a tip. Not one, but then I don't have many home deliveries and really no contact at all with the customers. Although in December of last year we had a huge snowfall and the streets were hardly plowed, but all of my home delivery customers got their USA Today that morning even when they did not get the local paper.

Yes, it's the freedom that I've liked about the job. The sleep situation is hard and it is tough on my car, but after tomorrow morning I am done. I sure won't miss delivering papers in the dead of winter.

[donco6]

6. I always tip them generously at Christmas.

But I should probably do more. It is a hard, hard job.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

30. Couldn't agree more

I'm going to be more generous at Christmas this year with my carrier. Excellent service.

:toast:

[CrispyQ]

7. I delivered papers years ago for almost two years.

It's amazing how different things look in the dark! I drove my first route in the afternoon, recording the landmarks to note early the next morning. So many "disappeared" my tape was practically worthless. Two days later I drove the route again, but made note of good night time landmarks - like lights, trees, that type of thing.

Learning the route was the hardest part. After about two weeks, though, you probably know most of it. Yeah, you learn ALOT about neighborhoods when you deliver papers. The biggest problem for me - unless you have a partner, you never get a day off. I didn't get many tips, either.

I tip my trash collector every quarter. ;)

[glowing]

8. I often wonder if most people still assume the kid on his bike delivers the news/

I work overnight.. so, I see the papers delivered to my business... The lady does both the USA Today and the local rag.

[gaspee]

12. I deliver a lot of different papes

ProJo
NYT
WSJ
BOS Globe
USA TOday
Financial Times
IDB
Barron's
BOS Herald

Used to have only the projo but they are doing delivery of all papers now to make money - they only pay us 10 cents a paper yet collect 25-30 from the other papers. We have no choice about it. Two years ago, we started delivering all the other papers when before we only delivered the projo

[elocs]

19. The guy who delivers the St. Paul Pioneer Press will now deliver my USA Today route

and he is not really keen on the idea because he has a full time day job and my old route will probably add an hour or more of time to his present route.

I enjoyed my USA Today route because I could finish it in less than 2 1/2 hours and there never was a rush since I did not work another job in the morning. In another 10 hours from now I will be finished with the delivery end of the job with only some collecting to do on the weekend.

[Quantess]

23. Most people never see their newspaper being delivered to them,

so it does take a small extra cognitive step to remember that a living person brought it to you, and not the newspaper fairy. I'm being a little facetious, but I think most people take their newspaper delivery for granted, most of the time.

With postal carriers it's different, because you can see them delivering mail in their specially marked vehicles, in daytime.

[Greyhound]

10. There are no easy jobs.

The quicker we acknowledge this fact, the sooner we can move toward reforming our communities.

Each of us has one life and devaluing what other do with theirs is a major component to our advancing decline. To say that the person that knows how to write an iron-clad contract has an intrinsically higher value to society than the person that cleans up (s)he's gone home shows just how insulated most of us are from the realities of a functioning society.

[Sherman A1]

14. Agreed & Well Said

:toast:

[Hello_Kitty]

20. Beautifully said. eom

[Quantess]

16. Why does this family not have health care?

That is what really bugs me. These people work so hard, and they still have no health coverage for the childrens' expensive medical bills.

[elocs]

18. I have healthcare because my AGI is so low I qualify for BadgerCare Plus here in WI

for adults without children.

[Quantess]

28. I love Wisconsin. I lived in Milwaukee, WI

January through May, in 1996, when I attended college at Marquette.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had affordable health care in the USA? Other countries can do it, so why can't we?

[NNN0LHI]

17. My cousin did it for decades

She worked her ass off too. I went with her once for the ride. That was enough or me. My nerves couldn't take it again.

Rough job.

Don

[Raine]

21. My brother and I delivered the Los Angeles Times when I was in college

it was the hardest work I've ever done because after I finished I had to go to class. I couldn't do it more than two months than I had to quit cause it was just killing me. :-(

[Raine]

22. Self-deleted duplicate nt

[csziggy]

24. In the mid 70s I did a rural paper route for a few months.

What a scam the newspaper played on the carriers and the customers! My route had not had a regular carrier for months - the previous one literally died on the job after doing it for forty years. The supervisor that showed me the route had no clue and what he showed me was wrong. When I went to collect, a good 30% of the customers had receipts or canceled checks showing that they had paid, but it was never paid to the newspaper.

I was never credited with payments made before I started, never given a break on the customers that had paid but whose payments disappeared, and had to create my own correct route list, even though my contract said I would be given a route list, previous credits would be applied to my account and that I was not responsible for delivering to people whose payments had disappeared.

If I made a mistake, I was docked 50 cents each, on a route that paid me less than a dollar a week per customer. I spent every weekend out hunting for hidden customers - paper box at the end of a dirt road and no one on that road would admit to being the customer. But if I did not leave a paper in that box, I got a complaint and another 50 cent charge.

By the time I quit, I had wrecked the tendons in my left arm from doing the deliveries, I had a completed route list, and the customer payment list was up to date. All the deadbeat customers had finally been cut off. When I went to turn over the route, my supervisor gave me a bill for several hundred dollars for the payments that had been stolen BEFORE I started the route. I told him, fine, but if I had to pay that, they could just whistle for the route list and I would not train the replacement on the route.

He started to bluster about breaking the contract and I told him that the newspaper had broken it the day I started, that I would be turning over the route in better shape than I got it even if I did not give them the route list. I showed him my notes on the number of charges made against me for the incorrect training I had received when I started.

By the time I left the office, I had a notarized statement that I owed nothing to the newspaper, had a fifty dollar cash "bonus" for straightening out the route, and have never subscribed to that piece of crap paper since.

[truedelphi]

25. I am impresssed with your toughness and your fairness to yourself.

Thank you for your story.

[csziggy]

26. Thanks - I flat out did not have the money to pay them what they asked

So I had to fight them. And the half year of "business law" I had taken in high school as a filler class paid for itself with that one incident - I've used that knowledge many times in my life.

I actually enjoyed the delivery part of the job and loved driving around the countryside at night.

[Maru Kitteh]

27. Hell. I'm just impressed you remember all that shit from the 70's!

It sounds very like the crap I put up with from 79 to 82.

[txaslftist]

29. I played that game for 3 years.

When you have a kid and a mortgage you do what you have to do.

Period.

[jbnow]

31. I filled in for my son one weekend when he was away.

It was a walking route, he wasn't old enough to drive then. I gained great respect for the work (and also gained bruised shoulders from the heavy bag) I did not do a very good job either, hard as I tried.

The responsibility he showed impressed me. I was more impressed when he left the route, He gave everyone a letter letting them know he was leaving, saying goodbye. The letters he got back showed me a side of him that warmed the heart. They thanked him for the special things he did for many of them... things he never told me about. There were some who left the trash on the porch for him and he'd carry it to the dumpster because it was hard for them to do. There were some he checked on when the papers piled up a few days. Little things like that which meant a lot to them. Some letters just thanked him for his dependable service or his smile and kind words...
(But boy did they send money with those letters! I'm not sure what kind of tips he got, maybe I have just forgotten as it was years ago, but he got some checks for $100 and many $20 bills)

Anyway that experience sure made me appreciate my paper person and remember to tip. It is hard work in all weather, mostly in the dark.

There are rules about what we can do for our mail carrier (they can only take non-cash gifts valued at $20 or less). I had one for years that was so wonderful I ignored it though and left a big tip at Christmas...