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Hey, all. My first post here will not be about sucky customers from my current job, but sucky customers from a previous job. Long-winded post ahead!
I would also like to say in advance that yes, I know I was not cut out to be a newsie. Some of this may have been my fault for being incompetent. But please, if you get a new delivery person, and it is the dead of fucking winter, and you live in a place with a load of hills, and IT IS THE FUCKING DEAD OF FUCKING WINTER...be nice?
Currently I work in the men's department of a clothing store. All of you working retail know that hours get a little spotty after the holiday rush, when all the returns come in and payroll doesn't have enough money to give everybody the hours they are used to. This year was particularly hard Not being able to, you know, pay bills and buy groceries and put gas in my car when my biweekly paycheck is short about a hundred bucks, I figured I would find a second job.
So I became a newspaper delivery man.
The way it worked was like this: Monday through Friday you had to get the papers out by six, Saturday you had until seven, and Sunday you had until eight. The earliest the papers would get to the depot was about two AM. You got there, took about a half hour to bag your stuff, and got the hell out onto the road. I actually didn't mind all of this. I liked the hours, since it gave me some time to relax before I had to get out to my other job.
You got paid an average of sixteen cents a paper, which when you figure about two hundred papers a route isn't bad. But you also get docked two bucks a complaint. No matter what the complaint is. See where I am going with this?
I was a delivery man for about a month and a half, beginning in January. Now, I live in upstate NY, which if you didn't know is kind of where God tosses all of his excess snow when he has nowhere else to keep it. And God has a LOT of that stuff lying around.
Holy. Shit. First you had the people who would Sharpie their house numbers onto the side of their mailboxes, on the wrong side, and then use flourescent glow-in-the-dark stickers with their names on. Look, the papers get delivered at night, and the mail gets delivered during the day. I'm sure your mailman cares very much about what your last name is, but I sure as hell don't. My route sheet has house numbers and street names. I do not care what your last name is, nor does anybody else driving in the middle of the night. Either make your house number visible or stop complaining when I need to shine my flashlight by your front door to see what your fucking address is.
Speaking of mail, we are NOT allowed to put your paper into your mailbox. We could get a fine for that, because it turns out newspapers take up a lot of space, space your mailman needs for your mail. I will put a paper in a mail tube, that is no problem. I will place it on the ground next to the mailbox. I will even pierce a hole in the bag and hang it from the mailbox hook. But no delivery person will EVER put a paper into a mailbox because it is ILLEGAL.
If you do not shovel your driveway, I am leaving your paper on the edge of it, even if my route sheet has you down as "Leave By Garage." If you can't be bothered to shovel a walkway for me, or have a neighbor do it, I can't be bothered to force my way through waist-deep snow just so you can read Doonesbury with your morning coffee.
You have a house built into a hill? Fine. You want me to walk up the Rocky-esque stairs to your stoop and leave the paper there? Also fine. I really have no problem with that. But wait, your stairs are covered with snow and ice and I have fallen twice already on them. Starting today until the snow melts or you salt your walk I guess I'll just leave it by the easily-accessed garage so you can get it on your way to wor--OH COME ON, YOU ARE COMPLAINING TO OUR REPS BECAUSE OF THAT?! YOU LAZY RAT BASTARD, I AM OUT HERE BUSTING MY ASS, CRACKING MY HEAD ON YOUR FUCKING RAILING-LESS ICE-CRUSTED SNOW-COVERED CEMENT DEATH STAIRS AND YOU GET PISSY AT ME FOR WANTING TO LEAVE YOUR PAPER BY THE GARAGE? FUCK. YOU. That happened with a few houses, but one guy actually got up early to catch me in the act of leaving it by the garage, in his robe, and chewed me out at three AM because he called the HQ so many times over my poor service and whine whine whiiiiiine. It's called road salt. You can buy it at WalMart. Jesus.
One day there had been a terrible blizzard the night before and none of my route roads were plowed. I did about four houses, tried to drive up a hill and literally could not go on. My car slid backwards despite me gunning the engine. It was still snowing like crazy. So I gave up and turned around and actually lost control of my car on the highway home. Closest I have ever come to death, but I digress. The roads were so bad they closed my day job store like six hours early. But all those people who didn't get their papers? Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Called in and complained. Two hundred houses a route, two bucks a complaint. You do the math. Yeah, I didn't even get paid my last two weeks because of that fucking day.
I think the customer that made me lose it was this one old guy. See, at the depot you have to fold in the inserts, too, and also you get a stack of TV Guides and other periodicals along with a list of which customer gets them on which day. I was normally pretty good with these. But I missed this guy's one Sunday. So it's about nine thirty AM, a nice Sunday morning, and I am getting ready for my day job. My doorbell rings.
It's this angry old man demanding his TV Guide. He drove two exits--two Goddamn exits--to my home, just for his TV Guide. Okay, one, did you really have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than drive two exits on a slushy highway for a fucking TV Guide? And two, the newspaper depot gives out delivery person addresses? What the hell? I can understand phone numbers, really, but...our addresses? What if this guy had a gun? What if he was a complete psycho? He wasn't, thank God, but you just give out employee addresses to anybody who asks? Um. No. No, no, no. Not cool.
Combined with the above TV Guide incident and not getting paid, it was time to quit. Seriously, what little money I was making from this route was going directly back to gas for the route. Combined with driving to and from my day job I was burning half a tank a day. I stayed another week so they would have a chance to find a replacement (they didn't) and that was that. I still get paranoid about these people showing up on my porch, though.
Moral of the story: The weather sucks, customers suck, and gas prices suck. Thank God it's over.
I would also like to say in advance that yes, I know I was not cut out to be a newsie. Some of this may have been my fault for being incompetent. But please, if you get a new delivery person, and it is the dead of fucking winter, and you live in a place with a load of hills, and IT IS THE FUCKING DEAD OF FUCKING WINTER...be nice?
Currently I work in the men's department of a clothing store. All of you working retail know that hours get a little spotty after the holiday rush, when all the returns come in and payroll doesn't have enough money to give everybody the hours they are used to. This year was particularly hard Not being able to, you know, pay bills and buy groceries and put gas in my car when my biweekly paycheck is short about a hundred bucks, I figured I would find a second job.
So I became a newspaper delivery man.
The way it worked was like this: Monday through Friday you had to get the papers out by six, Saturday you had until seven, and Sunday you had until eight. The earliest the papers would get to the depot was about two AM. You got there, took about a half hour to bag your stuff, and got the hell out onto the road. I actually didn't mind all of this. I liked the hours, since it gave me some time to relax before I had to get out to my other job.
You got paid an average of sixteen cents a paper, which when you figure about two hundred papers a route isn't bad. But you also get docked two bucks a complaint. No matter what the complaint is. See where I am going with this?
I was a delivery man for about a month and a half, beginning in January. Now, I live in upstate NY, which if you didn't know is kind of where God tosses all of his excess snow when he has nowhere else to keep it. And God has a LOT of that stuff lying around.
Holy. Shit. First you had the people who would Sharpie their house numbers onto the side of their mailboxes, on the wrong side, and then use flourescent glow-in-the-dark stickers with their names on. Look, the papers get delivered at night, and the mail gets delivered during the day. I'm sure your mailman cares very much about what your last name is, but I sure as hell don't. My route sheet has house numbers and street names. I do not care what your last name is, nor does anybody else driving in the middle of the night. Either make your house number visible or stop complaining when I need to shine my flashlight by your front door to see what your fucking address is.
Speaking of mail, we are NOT allowed to put your paper into your mailbox. We could get a fine for that, because it turns out newspapers take up a lot of space, space your mailman needs for your mail. I will put a paper in a mail tube, that is no problem. I will place it on the ground next to the mailbox. I will even pierce a hole in the bag and hang it from the mailbox hook. But no delivery person will EVER put a paper into a mailbox because it is ILLEGAL.
If you do not shovel your driveway, I am leaving your paper on the edge of it, even if my route sheet has you down as "Leave By Garage." If you can't be bothered to shovel a walkway for me, or have a neighbor do it, I can't be bothered to force my way through waist-deep snow just so you can read Doonesbury with your morning coffee.
You have a house built into a hill? Fine. You want me to walk up the Rocky-esque stairs to your stoop and leave the paper there? Also fine. I really have no problem with that. But wait, your stairs are covered with snow and ice and I have fallen twice already on them. Starting today until the snow melts or you salt your walk I guess I'll just leave it by the easily-accessed garage so you can get it on your way to wor--OH COME ON, YOU ARE COMPLAINING TO OUR REPS BECAUSE OF THAT?! YOU LAZY RAT BASTARD, I AM OUT HERE BUSTING MY ASS, CRACKING MY HEAD ON YOUR FUCKING RAILING-LESS ICE-CRUSTED SNOW-COVERED CEMENT DEATH STAIRS AND YOU GET PISSY AT ME FOR WANTING TO LEAVE YOUR PAPER BY THE GARAGE? FUCK. YOU. That happened with a few houses, but one guy actually got up early to catch me in the act of leaving it by the garage, in his robe, and chewed me out at three AM because he called the HQ so many times over my poor service and whine whine whiiiiiine. It's called road salt. You can buy it at WalMart. Jesus.
One day there had been a terrible blizzard the night before and none of my route roads were plowed. I did about four houses, tried to drive up a hill and literally could not go on. My car slid backwards despite me gunning the engine. It was still snowing like crazy. So I gave up and turned around and actually lost control of my car on the highway home. Closest I have ever come to death, but I digress. The roads were so bad they closed my day job store like six hours early. But all those people who didn't get their papers? Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Called in and complained. Two hundred houses a route, two bucks a complaint. You do the math. Yeah, I didn't even get paid my last two weeks because of that fucking day.
I think the customer that made me lose it was this one old guy. See, at the depot you have to fold in the inserts, too, and also you get a stack of TV Guides and other periodicals along with a list of which customer gets them on which day. I was normally pretty good with these. But I missed this guy's one Sunday. So it's about nine thirty AM, a nice Sunday morning, and I am getting ready for my day job. My doorbell rings.
It's this angry old man demanding his TV Guide. He drove two exits--two Goddamn exits--to my home, just for his TV Guide. Okay, one, did you really have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than drive two exits on a slushy highway for a fucking TV Guide? And two, the newspaper depot gives out delivery person addresses? What the hell? I can understand phone numbers, really, but...our addresses? What if this guy had a gun? What if he was a complete psycho? He wasn't, thank God, but you just give out employee addresses to anybody who asks? Um. No. No, no, no. Not cool.
Combined with the above TV Guide incident and not getting paid, it was time to quit. Seriously, what little money I was making from this route was going directly back to gas for the route. Combined with driving to and from my day job I was burning half a tank a day. I stayed another week so they would have a chance to find a replacement (they didn't) and that was that. I still get paranoid about these people showing up on my porch, though.
Moral of the story: The weather sucks, customers suck, and gas prices suck. Thank God it's over.
Papers were dropped, I fitted crude tire chains to one of the Radio-Flyer's wheels, and off I went. Instead of doing my street first, I chose to head to the furthest street (about a mile away--roughly a 2-mile round trip on foot) and work my way back.
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