When I delivered paper we got paid by the paper, usually .10 per paper (more for the Sunday paper). Some people had routes where they would deliver bundles to some customers and they’d still get paid by the paper. Twenty papers in the bundle would be $2 for that drop.
There were drivers who delivered ‘single copy’ which was going to stores, paper boxes, etc. I never knew why they were called single copy when they were delivering bundles. I don’t know what they made and there was more involved as they had to keep track of how many were delivered, how many were sold and had to pick up the left over papers when they delivered the new ones.
In some ways it’s not a bad job, as long as you get done on time and don’t have any complaints you are on your own. You can wear what you want, people would come into the warehouse in pajamas.
Start getting complaints and each complaint cost you $2 and get too many the agent would ride your ass.
You have to use your own , pay for your own gas, etc. There is no sick leave, vacation or holidays off. It is 365 days a year unless you don’t have a Sunday paper.
We did the BS, WSJ, NYT, KT, Barrons, USA Today, Washington Times, FT, so no Sundays off for us.
We also had to do a free paper on Thursday that paid .05, delivered to people who were NOT subscribers. That had people coming out screaming at us, throwing the paper back as us and sometimes getting in their cars and chasing us down the road to cuss at us. I’d throw mine in the middle of the night so people wouldn’t see me and since most of my route had a Thursday trash day I’d pitch most of them right into the recycle bins.
Depending on the agent (and they were constantly being fired and replaced) you had to get your own coverage if you were sick or wanted time off, other agents had managers who would cover down routes.
It’s very, very hard on your vehicle. Especially the tires and brakes, and the suspension system. A Sunday paper could weigh 3-4 pounds and I was delivering 450 of them. Thanksgiving ‘Turkey’ papers were usually over 5 pounds, I’d lose money on those because I’d have to make 2 trips to the warehouse.
At one time I was making over $700/week and spending about $100 on gas. BY the time I quit, having had pay cuts and gas going up I was making under $500 and spending $200 on gas.
The paper I worked for is one of the worst, we never got paid if the truck was late and we had to sit and wait, and they still penalized us for late papers. When we had the big blizzard a few years ago they expected us to go out and deliver even though the governor was telling people to stay off the roads, and if we got stuck we were on our own. We had one guy who would come pull us out for $20. Customers couldn’t understand, if I am delivering 3 papers on your street I make .30, if the street looks bad I am not going to go down it and risk losing $20.
One guy expected me to come down his narrow unpaved road, he said it was fine to come down but there was no place to turn around at the end. Uh, I am just supposed to sit there until the spring thaw?
The worst part was the paper/agent kept our tips.
With 450 customers I should have easily been making an additional $4,500 a year. Not all customers tip, but a lot tip more than $10, especially at Christmas.
Nothing pisses you off more than to have a customer ask you if you got the $50 tip they sent in with the bill, and you know the agent kept it.
