Writer's Block: Clock Punching

[seawasp]

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I was a paperboy. The real kind, with the canvas sack you carried the papers in, who learned how to properly fold a paper so you could throw it up to someone's porch and have it land there safely.

Nowadays I see adults delivering papers, or sometimes kids who have their bloody PARENTS driving them around the route. What's WRONG with the world that you can't even have a regular paper route with a paperboy/girl riding a bike or walking along tossing the papers up on the porch (and sometimes missing and forcing you to go grab it from the rosebushes.)?

Comments

[noctyrnus.livejournal.com]

A lot of people are becoming LAZY , that's all it is.

I used to do the paper route thing as well , sack and all , carried it over my shoulder on my bike , or walked around on the route with our 3 dogs.

The good ol' days :P

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

I had a rack on the front of my bike. The Wednesday and Sunday papers had to be done in two trips. The Tuesday edition was so skinny that I had to worry about my papers bouncing out.

But yeah, I remember the routine well. Grab a paper off my stack, fold it, put a rubber band around it, and put it in the basket. Ride out to where my route started, and flip the papers as close to the porch as I could get them.

I think you don't see kids on bikes doing the job anymore because of liability issues. Some kid got hurt, and the parents sued the paper, and the decision came down. Pity, because that was a great first job.

[guy-jin.livejournal.com]

that 'rash' consisted of exactly 2 people.

isn't it nice how the media blows everything out of proportion.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

No, at least not as it was explained to me when I was given notice here in a suburb of Toronto. (Also at the mid-80s.)

I was told that it was a cost-cutting measure; cut the pay-out per paper and then making routes bigger saved the paper money both in direct delivery costs and in overhead for handling all the different, tiny, accounts. Risk didn't factor in up here.

-- Steve notes with a certain wryness that everything old is new again, given the cost-cutting binge in US papers right now.

[kengr]

Yeah, I have a friend who used to deliver papers. The routes are now big enough that you *have* to use a car.

[mhacdebhandia.livejournal.com]

My first job, technically, was cleaning at my parents' company on Friday afternoons, in order to save money for a school trip to Peru.

My first real job was stocking the shelves of the dairy and freezer section at the Coles supermarket near my university.

[guy-jin.livejournal.com]

a classmate of mine did this very thing almost 20 years ago - technically he was the paperboy, but his grandma often did it. the kid was a total dick.

nowadays, I'm sure it's worse, since parents seem to be deathly afraid of their children being unsupervised for more than 90 seconds.

[ancientone.livejournal.com]

Yes, I also have an adult delivering newspapers. Thats sad. our newspaper made the route, a Motor route????. Stupid! You have to be 18 and have a car.
I do miss seeing the paper boy or girl yelling "Hello" and stopping to chat about the local baseball team.
Progress...sometimes it can suck...

[wyjoe.livejournal.com]

I've never seen anybody walking or biking around my old neighborhood to deliver the paper. They've always drove. I think the earliest age was sixteen.

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

I worked as a convenience store cashier at my first job, in 1990. The paper delivery was by an adult in a van, even then.

[seawasp]

Listen you young punk! (wheeze wheeze) 1990? That's yesterday. My paper route was 1976-78!

[msboku.livejournal.com]

Ah the days of yesteryear... these days you have 2-400 papers (more on Sundays and about 5 lbs each) It ain't meant for the kids anymore. Major bummer though. And these days you need a car because of the distance and the route and the amount of papers.
On Sundays my car is completely filled sometimes (Usually X-mas and thanksgiving)inches from the roof.
The good thing about it is you spend a couple of hours doing it in the morning and you get tips and it's easy money.
The bad thing is you can't call in sick or take a day off unless you get a sub and you have to pay them for doing your work. (which is fair).
You don't wk u don't get paid. No sick days.
Even after I had my accident, I dropped the dog off home and someone drove me to do my route. I didn't toss any because I was in pain.
Point is, it's not like it used to be.