Delivering papers again......
Apr. 13th, 2006 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1In high school, I delievered newspapers door-to-door as my first job. Now it appears that thigns have come full circle.
Today I started a part-time job delivering Tradin' Posts and other Trader publications to stores in the Springfield area. It's only one day a week, but the pay is decent. Essentially, it's food and gas money.
Today, I picked up the papers at 6:30am, loaded the car, and set off in the direction of Springfield. It was a gorgeous morning and beautiful sunrise.
The task is relatively simple: drop off the papers at various vendor/customer locations (most of them are gas stations), pick up what didn't sell the previous week, and collect payment from the vendors/customers. Unlike the days of old where I had to rely on memory and route cards, I use a Palm-based PDA with customized software to act as my "brain". It knows the stops, how many papers of each I should drop off, scans the unsold papers, and calculates how much I should collect.
Some highlights:
Hearing the Flaming Lips on NPR Morning Edition.
I arrived at stop #2 somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00. Next to it is a golf course, and people were already out on the course. Morning is the time to play, before it gets too warm.
Encountering a severe crash on my way to stop #6. (The crash was at E. Leffel and Burnett.) Thankfully, I had a good street map and found a detour.
Enjoying a late morning lunch of hot dogs and diet Coke in South Vienna, watching the traffic on I-70. (Speedway is my choice for cheap eats.)
Seeing a young mother and her weeks-ond baby at stop #11 in South Charleston. This is why I work -- to provide for my little one.
Surviving stop #17: a "Convenience Mart" with bars on the doors and windows, and a couple of people selling CDs in front of the store. I had to go into "native mode" and act as if I belonged there. No one bothered me. (Whew!) I had to pay the store because I took away more papers than what I dropped off.
I arrived back at the distribution location at around 3:00pm and made many trips to the recycling dumpster.
Next week I get paid for my efforts. And I get to do this all over again.
Today I started a part-time job delivering Tradin' Posts and other Trader publications to stores in the Springfield area. It's only one day a week, but the pay is decent. Essentially, it's food and gas money.
Today, I picked up the papers at 6:30am, loaded the car, and set off in the direction of Springfield. It was a gorgeous morning and beautiful sunrise.
The task is relatively simple: drop off the papers at various vendor/customer locations (most of them are gas stations), pick up what didn't sell the previous week, and collect payment from the vendors/customers. Unlike the days of old where I had to rely on memory and route cards, I use a Palm-based PDA with customized software to act as my "brain". It knows the stops, how many papers of each I should drop off, scans the unsold papers, and calculates how much I should collect.
Some highlights:
Hearing the Flaming Lips on NPR Morning Edition.
I arrived at stop #2 somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00. Next to it is a golf course, and people were already out on the course. Morning is the time to play, before it gets too warm.
Encountering a severe crash on my way to stop #6. (The crash was at E. Leffel and Burnett.) Thankfully, I had a good street map and found a detour.
Enjoying a late morning lunch of hot dogs and diet Coke in South Vienna, watching the traffic on I-70. (Speedway is my choice for cheap eats.)
Seeing a young mother and her weeks-ond baby at stop #11 in South Charleston. This is why I work -- to provide for my little one.
Surviving stop #17: a "Convenience Mart" with bars on the doors and windows, and a couple of people selling CDs in front of the store. I had to go into "native mode" and act as if I belonged there. No one bothered me. (Whew!) I had to pay the store because I took away more papers than what I dropped off.
I arrived back at the distribution location at around 3:00pm and made many trips to the recycling dumpster.
Next week I get paid for my efforts. And I get to do this all over again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-04-14 07:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-14 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-15 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-16 01:42 am (UTC)