This article is classified "Real"
Paper couriers are the people, usually teenagers, who deliver the newspaper
to your door every day, rain or shine, in sleet or snow, tornado and
earthquake. We're more devoted to the cause than postal workers, being
generally earlier and working all seven days a week. However, we have two
peeves we'd like to bring up front:
a) We are not 'paper carriers'. We don't carry the paper, we go
door to door to bring your news; and
b) We are not 'paper boys'. A good percentage of our staff are
not even male, and some who are have become too old to be
called 'boys'.
Pay, Hours, And Respect
=======================
If you're looking to become a paper courier, chances are it's because you
can't get anything else. The pay is incredibly low, with an average of
seven cents a paper [1]. Any other job in the USA has a minimum wage of
$5.15 an hour, even making hamburgers.
We have set hours. My personal hours are deliver by 5:00 PM on weekdays (I
get home from school at 4:00) and 7:30 AM on weekends, even though most
people don't get up til past 9:00. Assuming you have no life, these hours
are fine, but most of us do have a life. Even those who don't are late
occasionally because the man who drops off the bundles is late.
Finally, we get no lenience or respect from the people we deliver to. If a
paper is late, we get harassed for it, even though it's rarely ever the
courier's fault. If the paper gets wet, we also get blamed. Is it our
fault they have us put the papers in such stupid places?
Mailboxes, Lawns, And Advertising
=================================
One of the biggest conflicts involves mailboxes. The people will tell you
to put the paper in their mailbox, so we do. Then what happens? A few
days later either the postal workers will yell at us because it's illegal
to put non-mail in a mailbox, or the route people complain to us that
they aren't getting mail [2].
Walking through lawns is a nice benefit, because most people don't care if
you do it. I have found that if you were to cut through forty yards, you
can save up to ten minutes route time. Unfortunately, not everyone likes
you doing this, and not everyone is on your route.
The final legal benefit is free advertising. If you double as a babysitter
or are trying to sell something, you can print out a letter to everyone and
just insert it in the paper. I have never done so, but can see where this
would come in handy.
Scams And Illegal Benefits
==========================
Route people, beware! Unlawful couriers may try the two following:
1) Overcharging. The average person does not know the weekly or
monthly cost of getting a paper, so when collecting from them,
Mr. Bad Courier will tell them an amount over the right one.
So, know the price!
2) Grand Theft Vacation. Yes, some couriers are in connection to
the mob, or at least local gangs. When you go on vacation,
the courier always knows, and often knows how to enter your
home, too. Lock your doors, and don't tell them too much.
Tips
====
On Christmas, most routers will give the courier a tip anywhere from one
dollar to ten dollars; ten being rare, but it happens. If you make the
people aware of your birthday, you can often get a tip then, too. The
third way I've gotten tips is just for miscellaneous reasons: people just
happy with your service, or people moving giving you a monetary goodbye.
Tips are nice legal ways to get extra money.
Equipment
=========
You will need a paper sack (either a single shoulder sack or double sack
for both shoulders), and possibly pads for your route. Pads are for your
shoulders, because younger couriers tend to have bony shoulders that will
otherwise ache under the strain of forty pounds (it happens).
Bonus (i.e. optional) equipment would be plastic bags to place the papers
in, or rubber bands to wrap them up in. Both are for convenience, allowing
the courier to simply throw the paper at the house. Some routers may not
want this, and it may actually take longer to do the route this way.
Hazards And Annoyances
======================
Motorized vehicles tend to be a common problem with being a courier of any
sort. You're in constant danger around automobiles, because you never know
when they'll swerve on to the lawn and run you over. Or maybe they're just
backing out of their driveways at excessive speeds. Sometimes a child
imitates this behavior while driving a PowerWheel (tm). And of course we
cannot forget the mobile domestic rocket launchers: lawnmowers and snow
blowers. A hit from them is an unpleasant and smelly experience.
Most routes have one customer who is never happy. One minute late, and
they call the cops on you. Or they say you don't collect often enough, but
if you collect more often, they never have the money ready. Or they're
never home to collect from. Worst of all was a man who would, everyday,
complain he didn't get a paper the night before, and he wasn't even a
subscriber!
Another hazard: Dogs. [ed.: enough said here, I think, as long as you can
imagine an enthusiastic canine playing toyfully with a semi-pulped mess
of paper.]
Sprinkler systems don't tend to be a problem, but if you don't hurry
through them, the papers will get exceedingly wet. The same goes for rain,
of course. Personally, I don't care. It's raining, your paper is wet. To
have it be dry would go against the natural flow of nature and Chaos
Theory.
Along with rain comes another precipitation: ice and snow. When you have
to deliver fifty papers in twenty minutes you either have to be late or run
on the ice and risk spinal relocation. I think you see where I'm going
with this.
On Sundays, not only are the papers delivered in the morning, but they are
up to four times normal size due to the hundreds of ads from Best Buy,
Target, ShopKo, and other half-assed department stores. There is no way a
kid of my stature, or less, can haul a hundred pounds for an hour. Even if
they could, it wouldn't fit in any sized paper sack, so you're forced to
make several journeys with a wagon or have your parents drive you around
[3].
The biggest pain in the backside is the complete score or so of hecklers
that insult you for being "a stupid paper boy". Sadly, I agree with them,
but what most couriers don't realize is this: the hecklers are nine times
out of ten the people who don't have any job. So in fact, you can laugh
off just about any comment they send your way.
A problem that has recently showed up, is that a paper company will
constantly update its computer, and the printouts that come with it. This
means that just when you finally figure out what "DS-49-Sch" means, they
completely change it to "DD-22-27-MSc" so you need another year to get it
right.
I hope this enlightened all the would-be couriers and routers out there.
Respect your delivery person, and I even encourage you to tip them. The
job they do is treacherous, poorly benefited, and under appreciated. Help
make a difference in a young person's life.
[1] For a forty-paper route, that's a measly $2.80 a day in United States
currency.
[2] The US postal service will not deliver to a full mailbox.
[3] Usually by the time you can drive yourself around, you're smart
enough to realize you can work at a grocery store or restaurant for ten
times the salary and without any of these hassles.