Saying Good Bye

Sunday June 22nd will be my last delivery day on my own routes.  I am working on sharing a route with another carrier in the future -- but am really looking forward to taking a break.

At the beginning of my blog I asked the question: "Why would anyone sign up for this?" and I guess I'm still questioning myself on this point.  There are several factors that have lead to my decision to let go of my routes.

1.  This "part-time" job kind of takes over your life -- and your family's life.  It is a crazy schedule that is highly disruptive to family life -- I suppose that's true to any job that contends with a grave yard shift...I just think most of those jobs are full time or if part time they also involve days off of the schedule to normalize family life for a few days.  That's not the case with this job -- there are NO days off.  Which leads to reason #2.

2.  There are NO days off.  It's 7 days a week...365 days a year!  No weekends, no holidays, no bad weather days...nothing!  Yes, you can have someone sub your route but it's expensive and leads to unhappy customers so you wonder if it's worth it.  In the 10 months I've been delivering the paper I have had one weekend off -- two delivery nights -- that's it -- and it wasn't to go on vacation -- it was to attend a funeral out-of-state.  I am amazed and in awe of the carriers who have done this for years and years and years!  I suppose you adapt, but my family is begging me to give this up.

3.  Vehicle operating costs are only increasing!  The price of gas is nearly $4 a gallon.  I drive 65 miles a day to do my routes.  My van gets 15 miles to the gallon (lots of low rpm running...and idling).  So it costs me $16 a day to run my route.  I deliver 240 papers @ 12 cents a paper... That's $28.80 gross, $12.80 net and if I have to bag the papers it's  another $3 expense for the day. Not much for 4-5 hrs work. Sundays I make more, but that's one day in 7 to make a decent wage. 

You go through brakes pretty quickly too and my poor little van has experienced many other little problems in this last 10 months due the route -- like my driver's side door lock no longer works properly, my window doesn't run smoothly in the track any longer, these are overuse problems!  Thank heavens for a mechanic husband!

4.  I actually put in my two week's notice once before -- and then withdrew it.  I think this is a flawed production and delivery system.  Pretty cheeky for a relative newcomer to comment on.  But I wrote two letters to Cox media -- see the links below.  To be fair -- after the 2nd letter the delivery times improved and have been pretty consistent the last few weeks (I wasn't the only upset carrier and a couple walked off the job or put in their notices - long time carriers!)...but I think we're all just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

1st Letter Written 3/7
2nd Letter Written 4/22

I'll miss a lot of my customers -- so many were kind and encouraging. Just like in any large group there were a few who were less than pleasant too but on the whole I've felt very fortunate. My family has been very supportive -- they've walked the walking route with me, they've helped every Sunday in one way or another and my wonderful husband has been actually delivering part of my route on Sunday for the last couple of months.  This experience has been tremendous in regards to teamwork and I truly could not of survived without their help.  I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Sarah Bailey who introduced me to this wild and crazy world of being a newspaper carrier -- she and her family are amazing -- in the dictionary their family picture is right there as the illustration under the definition of Teamwork! 

Kathleen

Letter to Cox Media written April 22nd

I wanted to first let you know how disappointed I was that neither of you deigned to respond to my previous email.  As a colleague I thought I would at least get a limited response that you were in receipt of my correspondence and was naively hopeful that you would acknowledge or validate my concerns.  This is another example of the disdain I perceive all carriers are dealt with.  I am not worthy of reply?  Great leaders lead by example and this is surely a poor one.

As I stated in my last email, the late trucks are the single most demoralizing aspect of this job because there is nothing on our end that we can do about it.  They effect us financially unlike any other single group in this newspaper pipeline and they directly effect our safety as the morning wears on and the drivers take to the roads.  With that in mind I have to tell you that Sunday morning 4/20 was an absolute disgrace.  I was at the distribution center for five and half hours before the papers were there.  No I didn't come in at 9 p.m. to prep papers -- I came in at 12:30 a.m. in hopes that the previous night's 4 a.m. truck arrival would NOT be repeated or maybe even rectified with an early truck for Easter Sunday.  Of course we know how that went!  I cannot for the life of me comprehend how you as the managers of this part of  production can allow this to happen time and time again.  You cannot tell me you are so obtuse as to not realize that again we are dealing with people who are paid overtime and holiday time and that this is a repeat of the same performance given at Christmas.  Take away the financial reward for this behavior and you would have a different outcome, penalize them instead of rewarding them.

I kept hearing rumors about a truck driver shortage...are you kidding?  In this economy you cannot expect me to believe you can't find drivers.  Where's the fleet manager?  I want heads to roll. Why isn't he or she running papers to Springfield, Tipp City wherever else you have to go?!!  I heard that the previous Sunday it was so late because the truck made a delivery to Tipp City and then back to Franklin and then back to Springfield.  That's so asinine it can't possibly be true.  Why not send the truck that goes to Middletown to Springfield first and then to Middletown, right in Franklin's backyard -- why the two furthest points??  I mean come on, you shouldn't need a PhD in logistics to figure out these common sense issues??  Again these were the rumors that I heard, I pray to God you all can't possibly be this inept.  I have also heard from carriers with friends in Beavercreek that they have no such problems with late trucks.  Why are we, the Springfield distribution center, singled out for this abuse?!  Is there some agenda against us as a group or have you targeted an individual?  How very professional!

The truck departure times are no longer even inputted in the computer.  It's probably been over a month since they were.  Is that so you have no record of your terrible performance?  Monday morning the truck arrived at 1:30 a.m. I guess there was no holiday pay or overtime on the line!  And then this morning, Tuesday, you send a new driver to our center and he can't make a phone call, work a gps or look across the parking lot to the building that still bears the name "News Sun" big as day on it...3 a.m. delivery time on Tuesday...incredible.  I'm starting to wonder if all of you are sharing one single brain cell down there and have to take turns using it.

After I got home Sunday morning, I got a call from a customer.  I told him what had happened with the truck being late -- he was very nice to me on the phone.  After we said good bye and he went to hang up the phone, he said to either someone in the room or under his breath..."I don't even believe this crap anymore."  So you see just as I told you in my last email... you have caused me to lose all credibility with my customers...who believe it or not, I do care about and I care about what they think of me.  You have used me to cover your gross ineptitude too many times.  I can no longer believe you myself  and I won't cover for you ever again.  If the five and half hour wait didn't already have me walking out the door -- well that phone call was the last nail in the coffin -- it sealed the deal.

I gave John Patton my resignation on Monday.  I nearly walked off the job on Sunday morning but since that doesn't really hurt anyone but John I decided to do the right thing and give him two weeks notice.  As I told John, it wasn't the cold or the snow that ended this job for me.  It was the complete incompetence and absolute indifference of the you folks at Franklin and Dayton.  I want to be compensated for the time I put in on this job.  Not just the hours I'm on the road delivering.  When I spend hours prepping Sunday papers I want to be compensated, when I spend hours rolling 500+ tri-county shoppers I want to be compensated.  And don't try to tell me that I am in the rate I'm paid.  I put in over 40 hrs in a week doing this job -- and after paying for my gas and supplies I make less than $5 an hour and that's before any penalties are levied on my pay.  But there is no amount of money that brings back my Easter Sunday, not for me or any of the other carriers who waited hours that morning for the guys getting paid time and half, double time or triple time to do their damn jobs.  You see you didn't just cheat me out of those five and half hours, you stole my entire day.  While your families sat down to a holiday celebration compete with a grand meal and other activities, my family was lucky enough to be dining on roasted hot dogs.  The only celebration we managed to get out of the holiday was a trip to the local park.  Why?  Because I had to sleep after being up all night.  There was no Sunday service for me, no egg hunts, no Easter ham with all the fixings.  Your crew took all that away from my family this year.  But you won't have the opportunity again because I'm done.

Everything points to the death of the traditional newspaper.  But you guys are doing a pretty good job of hastening its demise.  One carrier told me their customer called the call center to find she was speaking to someone in Honduras.  Atlanta was bad enough -- but Honduras?!  Have you not read your own stories about how consumers hate that?!  I really can't decide if the executives at Cox are just plain stupid are unbelievably ignorant... or maybe they want to see the business fail.  Keep up the good work...you'll all be unemployed soon!

I would end this correspondence by saying I look forward to hearing from you soon...but since your track record of professional courtesy has already been established I won't hold my breath.  I just wonder if you were raised to be discourteous and cowardly or did the corporate culture at Cox corrupt your good upbringing.



Sincerely,

K. Kathleen Baber

1st Letter Written March 7th

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Kathleen Baber.  I have been a newspaper carrier at the Springfield Distribution Center since late August 2013.  I am writing to express my frustration and concern regarding the delivery times we are experiencing at our distribution center.  I actually composed a letter back in December to address these concerns but just as I was about to send it out the situation seemed to rectify itself.  Delivery times became more consistent and quite a bit earlier.  Because I didn’t want to risk retribution I kept my thoughts to myself.  This “better, more consistent” delivery scenario continued through much of January even during the worst of the bitter cold weather.  But then something changed in February and we were back to the same old, same old as we’d experienced in October and November.

Here’s what I’ve observed:  I can count on early delivery on Monday and Tuesday.  I set my alarm earlier, arrive and depart earlier with decent looking papers in hand.  Wednesday is often slightly later but still within a respectable timeframe.  But then Thursday arrives and all bets are off for the remainder of the week.  I understand there are more papers that must be printed and multiple ads that must be inserted therefore production time must increase.  What I don’t understand is the lack of coordinating logistical planning.  If you know production takes an extra hour or more, why isn’t press time moved up to compensate for that?  If I had a problem with my vehicle every Thursday and Sunday morning…you’d tell me to fix my car or lose my job… that our customers deserve consistent delivery times…I’m telling you to fix your car or lose your business… our customers deserve consistent delivery times.

Generally speaking, I wake at midnight, leave my home by 12:30 and arrive at the distribution center by 12:45.  I have a very low complaint rate; feel free to verify this with John Patton.  This morning, March 6th I allowed myself an extra half hour of sleep, I arrived at the Sun New building at 1:30 a.m. and was told the truck had left the Franklin plant at 1:10 a.m. about ten minutes later the time was removed from the computer screen and we were left to wonder when the truck would arrive.  Over two hours later it pulled in.  If this were an isolated incident this letter would be pointless.  If this were merely an annoyance this would again be pointless but the consequences of a late truck are many and I think as an organization Cox Media has decided to categorically disregard them because they happen to carriers.  Carrier problems are beneath consideration…at least that is the feeling within the distribution center.  Please allow me to elaborate.

As business people I assume you want your business to succeed.  I assume you care about your subscribers and advertisers.  They are your external customers, the source of your revenue.  But as an organization you have internal customers that need and deserve your consideration as well.  They are your hourly and salaried employees and that should also include your contractors, such as the carriers and distributors.  We are your newspaper and as the carriers we are the face of your newspaper to your ever-shrinking subscriber base.  How you treat me is reflected in how I can in turn treat our subscriber.  If the paper is late to me, it’s late to our subscriber.  If the paper comes torn, crumpled and in general disarray, that’s how it is presented to our subscriber.  If the paper is incomplete with missing sections or ads…that’s how it’s presented to our subscriber.  These are the biggest issues we face in terms of production … but they are production issues…yet as a carrier I am hit with the complaint.  I have no control over production but I take the hit when the subscriber either 1) complains or 2) cancels their subscription.  Both of these consequences affect my paycheck far more directly than they do the press operator or truck driver.

Let’s take a look at the pay set up and tell me just how fair it is.  When the presses run late or the truck runs late…they’re compensated for their time.  In fact, they’re rewarded.  Don’t think that fact was lost on any of the carriers when we sat for hours on Christmas morning waiting for the promised “early” delivery.  Those employees were probably paid “holiday” pay while we didn’t even get a Sunday rate for the larger than normal Wednesday delivery.  Do press operators or truck drivers work 7 days a week, 365 days a year?  No? Carriers do.  Do truck drivers have to maintain their own rigs, carry their own insurance or purchase the fuel for their trucks?  Probably not, but carriers do.  Are the press operators charged for the baling supplies used to bundle the papers, charged for the damaged papers or any other supplies associated with their jobs?  No, but carriers must purchase everything from rubber bands to plastic sleeves and if a paper is wet or damaged we pay a punitive fee three to five times the retail cost of the paper.  So tell me again how this is a fair and equitable partnership between all parties involved when those with the most control over the product and its delivery time suffer the least consequence for their failures and those of us assuming the most cost and risk are treated like naughty school children who must be punished when a customer is unhappy.

I could go further into the economic feasibility of being a carrier but I’ll save that for another letter.  Let me just say that it has taken me six months to finally be in a position with my route that it makes some money.  I was truly working for pennies and it was barely a break even proposition up until three weeks ago.  But I have yet to have a successful Sunday delivery that didn’t take until 10 a.m. or later, directly contributable to late truck deliveries, awful weather or both.  My grievance is truly about being compensated for my time.  If you had to pay me hourly from 1 a.m. until I could leave and start my deliveries each day, don’t you think I’d have my papers on time?  How would it be if Cox Media had to pay me and all the other carriers to sit on our rears for 2+ hours a night?  I think the company would be sure that I had the paper in hand, on time so our customers had their papers in hand, on time.   If the press operators and truck drivers weren’t paid hourly do you think production time would increase or decrease?  I believe they’d be on time, every time if not for the financial reward of overtime, a benefit I am not afforded.   The reality is my pay is set, it doesn’t go up whether I show up at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. it can only go down with punitive complaint penalties.   And you wonder why you can’t find and keep reliable carriers?  It’s a lose/lose proposition for us.  If you want to cultivate a better customer service culture then start with how you treat the carriers –  stop looking at complaint fees as an alternative source of revenue.  If you take care of your people they’ll take care of you – it’s still true!  Come down to the distribution center, talk to the carriers, better yet, walk a downed route especially in -25 degree wind chills like so many of us did this winter…where’s our thank you, our pat on the back?  WHIO did plenty of stories about garbage truck guys out in the cold, but none about newspaper carriers.  I wonder if Cox Media was a little afraid of what the carriers would say on camera.

At the end of the day all I really want is to be treated fairly.  I’m not a hobo you’ve rescued from skid row by giving me a thankless, poor paying job.  I think we’ve been lumped together as a group of uneducated, unskilled, unthinking people.  We are mothers, fathers, students, retirees, vets, educators, some of us have degrees, most of us have other jobs we go to after this part-time gig and others work as couples to get their routes large enough to actually scrape a living. The point is we're not a homogeneous group, our backgrounds, education levels and reasons for running a route are varied but we are your internal customer.  We deserve to be treated with as much consideration as your hourly and salaried employees, maybe even more since we assume more cost and risk than they do. You put us in peril every hour that truck is late as our safety factor decreases exponentially particularly for those on motor routes.  I have to contend with a busy highway and a High School, both are huge safety risks and just one hour makes an enormous difference to me.  It takes me four hours to run my route.  When the papers aren’t even in the building until 3:40 a.m. and I have to still assemble Dayton Daily News sections that means I don’t start until 4 a.m. and won’t be finished until 8 a.m.  How does that work for Guaranteed Delivery Time?  I shudder to think what my galley will look like tomorrow.  And not one bit of that is within my control to change as I sit for two hours waiting on the truck.  How is that for a fair and equitable partnership?  Happens every week like clockwork.  Fix your problems…our customers deserve better!

One last thought:  John Patton is doing a great job.  He is level headed even when he takes the brunt of our frustrations, and also suffers considerable financial consequences for the late deliveries, not to mention the shorted deliveries and the mad scramble to provide papers to all the carriers.  He does all he can to mitigate the punitive aspects of the current situation. He and his family have shown time and again that they care about the carriers.  If not for that, I would probably have already resigned.  We have not seen much in consideration from Cox.  Even with this past weekend’s bad weather the promised early delivery for Sunday was merely on time.  I couldn’t exceed 25 miles per hour for my entire 65+ mile route due to the road conditions, that extra hour would have meant a lot.  It's time that a spirit of cooperation was engendered and fostered.  This a partnership between all parties but it sure doesn't feel like one when one group penalizes the other for their own failure to provide the resources that will let the partnership succeed.

Sincerely,

K. Kathleen Baber

Is there anything more frustrating than trying to photograph lightening?

I mean come on... What an incredible sky during this morning's delivery... And this is the only shot I could get!  And the only reason I have it was thinking "maybe try taking a video" ... Wish I'd tried a few more times with that method and had a better selection to grab a frame from. This is when I long for a DSLR camera, tripod and unlimited time and energy to devote to a hobby. 

Anyway it was amazing and I'm so thankful I could witness it. I am also thankful that it didn't storm while I was out in it. I know my Heavenly Father loves me (even when I do get wet).

.

Winter Woes and Spring has finally Sprung!

I joked all winter that we had the worst winter in 30 years all because I took up a newspaper route.  Sad but true I'm afraid to say!

We even had snow as late as April this year.  I didn't think it would ever end. -- Yep this was the first day of Spring Break!!  Didn't last long thank goodness!!

In February I started a second route.  I was really excited about getting this other route.  It was directly "behind" my current route and put me almost right on my doorstep when I finished -- PERFECT!!  It is about double the size of my original driving route.  Happy happy happy finally making some money!  But boy oh boy....Life just got a whole lot more challenging and of course the winter wasn't nearly over and these are country roads so it was definitely one of those situations where it could only get better!!

Now Spring is truly finally actually amazingly here (knock on wood!)  It's been really rainy this week -- and the week before last.  It slows things down in the morning -- from later truck arrivals to slower going on the road.  Then there's the need to bag the papers which is a real bummer.  It costs money and takes more time than just placing the papers in tubes.  I really hope we have some dry nights soon!!

Since I deliver during the night I don't always see the evidences of spring in the neighborhoods I deliver in the typical way.   When the temperatures started to warm and the rains started to fall -- there was this odor in the air -- it was hard to describe -- not floral like hyacinths, this was kind of "earthy".  It was dozens and hundreds of earth worms!!  I no longer do a walking route, otherwise I think I'd rename myself the "worm murderess"!  The other major evidence -- all the critters!!  I've always seen plenty of deer even during the dead of winter but wow when you have customers on "Possum Rd" you can just imagine who I've been seeing!!  And TONS of bunnies and raccoon!!  I had NO idea there were so many raccoon around here! Sadly where you see live critters you're sure to see dead critters too.  I've been dreading the day I hit one -- and then it happened -- I didn't cry but there was a deep deep groan that escaped my lips.  Poor raccoon!  :-(

One last Spring observation -- I love Red Bud Trees!!  I've lived in a lot of different places and this is the only place (at least as far as I remember) that has Red Bud Trees!!  They are so delicate and not truly red -- more fuchsia.  They are a pop of intense color when everything is greening up -- there's so many white blossoms this time of year -- like apple blossoms, pear trees and even dogwoods and then this lovely little blossom shows up and it just makes me smile.  I think they're amazing because the blossom is tiny but like an impressionist painting these tiny dots have such a big impact.  (I took these picture on my weekly Enon Eagle paper route - one I can deliver to during the day -- and observe the joys of SPRING!!)

Happy Spring!

First day blues

So after six months I finally have the opportunity to make some real money doing this paper route.. My definition of real money and someone else's may vary.. But up till now, after the cost of gas and supplies it hasn't been a great money maker although the Christmas tips were a nice boost.

Now I have two routes, both motor routes and they link up perfectly. So why am I blue? Because starting a new route no matter how advantageous is hard! I looked at the maps for a week, drove it during the day, identifying mailboxes beforehand... But until you're out there bumbling around in the dark, you really haven't learned the route. I'm at that terrible "is this ever going to get any easier? " point. I know after two weeks it will start to improve a lot.... But two more weeks of feeling like an idiot, finishing at 830 and let's not even discuss the nightmare that Sunday will be!

I've always hated being "new" to a job. When you are clueless... Lucky to know where the bathroom is and little else. Ugh! 

One tiny positive... I've seen a very cool moonset... It was a pink then a deep red... Couldn't photograph it... And yesterday was also a cold cold sparkly day, if I hadn't been so exhausted it would have been an awesome day to run around taking gorgeous pictures!   Here's the few I did take with my phone.