I concur. Whether it bethe UK or the US, there are just too many sickos out there.
When I was 13, a newspaper boy in Oceanside (less than 2 miles from my route) was viciously raped and murdered in an alley way. It was just the incentive I needed to unbolt the milk crate from my handlebars and start a lawn mowing business.
NinjaChick
Yup, we just put with getting the paper later in the day. Usually the kid comes around late in the morning or the early afternoon. I know when I helped deliver papers that’s when we did it.
Also, I’m not exactly sure on this, but I don’t think the kid is paid the subscription fee by the customer; rather, he’s paid a delivery fee. In other words, the customer pays the subscription to the paper company, and basically “tips” the paperboy once a week. Our paper always had an ad in it saying something along the lines of “Your paper delivery person is providing a valuable service! Please ensure you show you’re gratitude on collection day”
For a while after college, I worked at a newspaper in the pressroom. It was an afternoon paper, so every day at about 1:00 the papers would be bundled and adults would drive around (myself included) and leave bundles for the carriers to pick up, separate and deliver. That may have been what the OP was seeing.
Saturday’s paper was a morning edition, so we had to do it twice on Friday, once in the afternoon and once at around 11 P.M. or later depending on the damn sports writers. Often my friday night shift would end around 3 or 4 a.m.
The pay wasn’t great but the job did get my foot in the door and eventually led to the job I have now, which does pay well. (Also, I’ll admit, it was pretty easy to pad out the time clock, since I was basically alone and could drive slowly and occasionally even went home and watched a little TV mid-trip. Not right, I know, but I did it.)
Late in the day? Never. My brother (and me, when I subbed) always had every paper by 7:00 AM. 100 houses in two hours on bike is not unreasonable, and half of them were almost on foot, since they lived on top of steep, long driveways that are easier to walk up. Bad weather usually didn’t delay it, because he just got up an hour earlier, unless it was really bad snow that causes school delays or closings, then the paper might be late.
I take two papers, the L.A. Times, which comes in the morning (I’m up at 5:00, and it’s almost always there when I get up), and the small town local paper (Lompoc Record) that comes in the afternoon.
I think that the Times is delivered by an adult driving a car. I never see the delivery guy. I know it’s a guy, because I got a Christmas card enclosed in a paper this year. But for that card, the thing could have been delivered by fairies for all I know… It’s always on the sidewalk leading up to my house under the overhang, so if it’s raining, I don’t have to hoof it out to the end of the driveway to retrieve it.
The local paper is still delivered the old fashioned way, by a kid on a scooter (I’ve seen her, I’d guess she’s about 12-13). She does OK, I never miss a paper. She’s more likely to drop the paper at the end of the driveway, which is OK, because I usually get it on the way into the house when I get home from work. It’s kind of a pain if it’s raining on Sunday morning (it’s a morning paper on Sundays), but that’s kind of rare in this part of the world anyway.
They both do good work, I never miss papers, and I never have to go hunting for them. They both got $20 tips this Christmas.
I get the NY Times delivered—later and later every morning—by a middle-aged lady in an SUV. She drives by and flings the paper in the general direction of my house, barely slowing down and never once getting it anywhere near the door or front steps.
The paper used to come by 7:00, but now half the time it’s not arrived by the time I leave for work, which means I have to buy a copy when I get to the city. She sends me a card and a SASE for a tip. I sincerely hope she is not holding her breath.
When I was about 13 (many, many years ago), my parents got divorced, and since my mother hadn’t worked outside the house during her marriage, she got the bright idea of getting a PAPER ROUTE for additional income. Sooo…my mom, brother and I get up at some ungodly hour on a Saturday morning to deliver what seemed like a billion newspapers (oh, did they forget to mention that we had to RUBBER BAND EVERY SINGLE NEWSPAPER?), and then deliver them, in the dark, to houses–half of which either didn’t have house numbers, or were too dark to see.
About 10 am or so, we finally finished, only to come home and find the newspaper route manager (or whatever his title happened to be) had called our house over and over wanting to know what the hell happened to all the newspapers…seems we were a little behind.
That, needless to say, was the end of our careers as Newspaper People.
Something else to consider is more developments with large lots, and less people getting the paper. Back in the 50’s, you had small suburbs with tiny half-acre lots and everyone getting the paper. So the effort for a given number of papers was relatively small. Now in many parts of the country you have houses on acre lots or larger that can barely see each other, and only every 3rd house gets a paper. That makes a big difference to a kid in a bike.
I was a paper girl from age 10 until I graduated from high school.
For most of that time, I needed to be in class by 7:20 - so yes, the papers were at the people’s front door by 6am. I was dead reliable (maybe 2 complaints a year - and that was a bad year.) Really bad snow would delay the paper - but if it was bad snow, no one in Seattle was going anywhere, anyway. So they might as well wait for their paper, which I’d still get out as early as possible.
Basically, at 4-something, every morning, they would deliver the papers and ads to my house. I’d have to stuff the ads in the papers (and on Sundays put all the sections together. There were usually 3 or 4 sections. It took forever, because I was/am anal enough to need to put things exactly in order.) and then deliver them, dry and readable, to the customers’ front doors (or the occasional paper box). My route was basically unbikeable, so I walked it and delivered to the door of the 30-something people on my route. I’d be home by 6 so I could get ready for school and then do it again the next day. (Technically Sundays, my dad drove me. Way too big a paper for me to carry).
Technically, I was an independent contractor, not an employee. So, once a month, the newspaper would send me a bill for the papers they’d left on my doorstep, plus delivery charges, plus extras (I had to buy the rubber bands, plastic bags, etc.), minus a small amount for every ad I’d stuffed. I’d then go to all my customers, and they’d pay me for their paper. The first however many dollars went to the paper company, I kept whatever was left over (about 100-120/month). Yes, it was a lot of money, but I guess they felt if I was responsible enough to get my butt out of bed every morning, I was responsible enough to handle a few hundred dollars.
The money was pretty good (especially when I was in middle school) and my afternoons were free (except when I had to collect), so I could do other activities. It was way better (for me)than fast food or retail, and I got exercise every day, no matter what (even when I was being driven, I still had to walk to their front doors to make sure the paper stayed dry). I did get the occasional vacation (the kid across the street delivered the other morning paper, so if one family was gone for a while, the other could take it.) It was weird in that I lasted so long - most carriers burned out in a few months.
About a year or two after I’d graduated, they consolidated a bunch of the routes into one mega-route and it is now done by a person in a car.
Just now, I got a call from the NY Times, asking me if my paper delivery was satisfactory. “Does it arrive by 6:30, as it’s supposed to?”
6:30! I had no idea . . . It’s rarely here by 7:30. “We will have that situation attended to,” they said in such a Dark Manner that I fear for my delivery person’s welfare . . .
With what sounds like a possible position opening up, perhaps Jason Blair will go back to work for Times Corp.
I think the death of the evening paper did a lot to kill the paperboy job.
I did know a kid at church who was up in the dark morning folding them, though. I think his dad drove him around as he threw them, before going to school and work. Learned him some responsibility and dedication, he did.
My 17 year old is talking quite seriously about taking over one of my routes when he gets a car. I think he’s realized, finally, that working for an hour or so before school might be preferable to working for a few hours after school–he’ll have to get up a bit earlier, but his afternoons will be free for music and chick-related activities. Plus he’ll make about $350-400 a month–not an easy feat at the local McD’s.
I see a lot of references in this thread and elsewhere to papers being tossed towards the house from the street. Is this a normal delivery method in the US?
If my paper wasn’t placed in the mailbox by the front door every day (mailbox has a couple of curved metal strips on the bottom for this purpose), I would have been on the phone to the delivery office to complain. This has been the delivery method I have experienced in 3 cities and over 40 years. Maybe it’s different in Canada?
Yep. My paper delivery lady drives by, slows down a tad, and flings the paper in the general direction of my house. Never once has gotten it by the door or even on the steps: it always lands on the lawn or the driveway (invariably right in whatever rain puddle or snowdrift may be handy).
Honey, I think everything’s diferent in Canada.
I drive by and toss a lot of my papers, although I make sure they never land in puddles, hedges, or under cars. (Sometimes it gets tricky when driveways are slick–many a morning has found me on my hands and knees, cursing and fishing a paper from beneath someone’s Volvo.)
If anyone wants their paper porched, they just have to call and let the office know, and I get a message to that effect. I can hit a lot of porches or steps from my car; others I have to stop and get out. I kept track once…I stop at approximately 85 houses, driveby/fling at about that many, and deliver right to the door most of the rest (those are in a retirement home).
I believe that there are a lot of carriers who don’t porch papers at all, though. When I see couples who deliver 500 papers and they don’t start their routes until 4:00 a.m., they’re obviously not killing themselve on customer service.
In the late 70’s in a large metro US area, I had a part-time job “stuffing” the various sub-sections of the paper and inserts of the dominant Metro Daily.
“Motor Routes” then were the order of the day–traditional paperboys delivering this pub then were pretty rare.
At the tender age of ten-fourteen (when I got my first job that paid hourly) I had a paper route. I did both for about three months in case the hourly gig didn’t work out.
In my estimation, the paperboy business was a horrible deal just about all around.
Atrociously inefficient payment and collection system, astronomical turnover, insufferable working hours and conditions, a workforce of ten year olds who resisted motivation and it didn’t
seem like anyone made much money.
Lamentably, quitting just wasn’t in the vocabulary at my folks home.