Around here there are no more newsboys. All routes are done by professionals from their cars. They may deliver the local paper, the Times, USA Today, or others, either singly or in a bundle. It’s a business for professionals.
And yes, they do pull their cars into the driveway, usually in reverse. Because if the paper is not sitting squarely on my front stoop when I go out to get it, I call in and complain. As does everybody else. Paper delivery is for my convenience, a convenience I pay for. Hunting the paper in the snow at 6 am is not what I’m paying for. It’s a job, and kurstin knows it and is doing it right.
Is there now some sort of state licensing for paper delivery people? Does this occupation now require a degree? Hardly qualifies as a “professional” occupation.
The reason kids got run out, is that adults were willing to do the job for the same wage. Adults are generally more reliable than kids, so they get hired over kids.
The worst thing for your auto trans is overheating it. Slow speeds and frequent changing from D to R may foster that, I don’t know for sure. Watch your trans fluid for signs of overheating - color change and smell - and change it more frequently if you keep the job.
Continuing the hijack - do they wrap these papers in plastic, or what? Leaving papers on people’s doorsteps would have got me sacked very rapidly, when customers discovered a block of papier-mâché outside! Newspapers had to go through the letterbox, section by section if they were too fat to fit in one go.
Around here, they are indeed wrapped in plastic. Most houses I know don’t have a letterbox (I’m assuming you’re talking about a slot in the door, aka what I know as a “mail slot,” since you say “through”) and, even if they did, it would be nigh impossible to fit many newspapers through there (even though they have gotten somewhat smaller over the years.) Sunday papers would be particularly irksome for the paperboy, and he’d never finish his route if he had to put those through a mail slot section by section.
Yes, stop pulling into every driveway if you can help it. If not see what your recommended interval for transmission service is and at least double it.
Professional as opposed to amateur, you know, the way the word is used every single day. As in professional baseball player. No degree required.
With smaller percentages of the population subscribing to papers and suburbs stretched out over huge areas, kids can’t do the job properly at all. Adults in cars are needed. Do you really have newsboy delivery where you are? Adults have been doing this for decades.
They use special long, skinny plastic bags all winter long and any summer day that might see rain. As a former mail carrier I can tell you that letterboxes are in a tiny fraction of houses. They were never intended to be used for newspapers.
A common definition of professional: A professional is a member of a vocation founded upon specialized educational training. The word professional traditionally means a person who has obtained a degree in a professional field.
I’ve never heard of amateur paper delivery people…just paper delivery people.
Another common definition of a professional: A person who does something as a means of livelihood or for gain. The word professional traditionally means a person who does a specified activity for a living.
And here’s the fun part: YOU don’t get to pick which of these perfectly acceptable and appropriate definitions Exapno Mapcase had in mind, and you have no authority to insist that he must use only the one that you prefer. So give it a rest.
Ahem. Professional paper delivery person here. If you do something 3-4 hours a day, seven days a week for, say, 10 years, I think you probably should be allowed to consider it your profession, especially if it comprises your primary income. I didn’t have to take a test or earn a degree, but rest assured that the district managers know the difference between a professional and an amatuer. (The amatuers last 3 months.)
At any rate, kursten, not knowing more about your route, it’s difficult to say how you can/should deliver. But I deliver 225 papers a day in residential neighborhoods (another 115 to a retirement building), and I pitch nearly every paper out the window. BOTH windows, actually–I roll them both down and pitch out both windows at once. If I have to porch a paper, 9 times out of 10 I can pull into the drive and hit the porch from the car. I only get out of my car maybe 6 times, when the porch isn’t reachable from the road. (I probably porch 25 papers, except for one community where I can hit the porches from the car.)
I don’t know how long you’ve been doing the route, but you might give it a try, one street at a time. If you can perfect a good pitch, it could save you a ton of time, as well as the wear and tear on your car. It sounds like you’re being careful in your driving, but the job does inevitably cause more wear and tear than a typical job.
It’s nice to see another paper person here.
Best,
karol
Click and Clack answered a similar question awhile back (guy putting car into Park at lights). Their take was that it’s probably OK, but that it does increase wear on the CV joints, since they are being loaded / unloaded more often than normal. They said basically the same thing as Rick - it’s probably not going to wreck the car, but it’s not helping anything.
Also, I think the main reason kids don’t do the routes around here anymore is that the delivery deadline is 6 a.m. They also involve rather large neighborhoods. If you live in Mayberry, you might be able to deliver that paper twice a week after school, riding on your bike. But in a town where you have routes that encompass large areas, papers 7 days a week, and an early deadline…well, you do the math. I have seen some good high school carriers though.
As an aside, I’ve done my route many, many times driving a stickshift. It took some adjusting, but with a little practice it can be done.
The demeanor of my posts doesn’t change the fact that most people would not distinguish between “professional” paper carriers and “amateurs”. That’s about the same as saying there are professional fast food cashiers and amateur ones.
I wish one of the paper delivery professionals (:)) in this thread were delivering MY paper. It’s usually at the end of my driveway or in the street by the mailbox.
But this is the free local paper so I can’t really complain.
I use plastic bags and strategic rolling up and down of the windows. Around here I can wait a few minutes and the worst of the rain will usually pass. (Usually I repeat the process several times.)
Other times I just resign myself to wringing out my clothes when I get home.
It’s a great part-time job and if I could do it just another hour or so a day I wouldn’t need a second job at all. A lot of people consider paper delivery to be sort of a loser, end-of-the-road, couldn’t-find-a-real-job gig, but you know…it pays pretty damn well.
You may not, and that is of course your right.
However, if your paper is ever delivered by an amateur, my guess is you might notice a difference. Just as you might notice a difference between the cashier who is a newby or just doesn’t care about her job, and one who considers cashiering (yes, even a cashier might dare consider herself thus) her profession.
My degree is in another field. So perhaps I’m a professional who is moonlighting as a paper carrier.
