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It's 3:25 a.m. and . . .

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by sportschick, Feb 6, 2007.

  1. Big Buckin' agate_monkey

    Big Buckin' agate_monkey Active Member

    SC is right. It has to do with adults delivering papers now. Kids don't want to anymore and to make it profitable for adults, they have to deliver 400-500 papers.
    I delivered USA Today for 18 months, anywhere from 250 to almost 600 papers daily (it varied because I had vending machines on my route). My first delivers would be made as early as 2:30 a.m. and the route took between three and four hours (90 miles per day).
    Of course, the Natzi at USAT demanded you be there when the truck arrived. I tested that during the school year, when I split the route with my dad, and never had a problem.
     
  2. Left_Coast

    Left_Coast Active Member

    Of course, circulation is way, way WAY down everywhere, so they're printing fewer papers. And yet, deadlines get earlier.
     
  3. TrooperBari

    TrooperBari Well-Known Member

    If there's better late, late night TV out there, I haven't seen it.
     
  4. TrooperBari

    TrooperBari Well-Known Member

    I don't know ... I've seen the urban sprawl in your neck of the woods. Some folks might just be leaving for work when the paper hit their doorstep at 5:35.
     
  5. KYSportsWriter

    KYSportsWriter Well-Known Member

    Our deadline is 11:45, and if I'm lucky and time it just right (meaning I don't leave the office until 12:30 or so and get home close to 1 a.m.), I can pick up Thursday's paper when I get home that night.
     
  6. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    It's all part of the self-fulfilling prophecy. NEWSPAPERS CANNOT SURVIVE!! SEE? NO ONE RELIES ON US FOR LATE SCORES OR STORIES ANY MORE!!! Never mind the bastards have been pushing things back on their own for decades.

    You're absolutely right. Technology makes everything faster and newspapers get slower.
     
  7. WSKY

    WSKY Member

    I've been home drinking so long at night the paper with come, the first time that happened I thought I was a loser. Now, I just deal with it.
     
  8. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    It's not that kids don't want to do it so much as it's that parents don't want the kids to do it. Given some of the psychopaths out there, would you want your kid delivering papers at 5:30 a.m. on a pitch-black road with no street lights? Papers really went away from kids delivering for that reason, even in places where they still had kids wanting to deliver.
     
  9. Sxysprtswrtr

    Sxysprtswrtr Active Member

    For about 6 months during high school, I would help my Dad deliver newspapers.
    Buckin' - don't you love the ODD sort of people you'd meet out during those hours? I loved running into the folks who were *waiting* on the paper to hit the door, the light would come on, door would open, he or she would wave, door shuts. ODD.
    That and all the animals out and about. And the cops that do nothing but sip on Dunkin' Donuts coffee between 3 and 5am.
     
  10. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    I worked the night shift for about a year. I'd get off work at 5 a.m. and then hop home. It was weird, that's for sure.
     
  11. EStreetJoe

    EStreetJoe Well-Known Member

    That's because some papers have joint production agreements with other papers so the paper gets printed 45 minutes- 1+ hours away.
    Then because they've got adults delivering instead of kids, there's no need to deliver the papers to the kids houses anymore, just set up a couple of central depots and bring all the papers there to be sorted out for the adults who need to drive over and pick up the papers.
    But you need to make sure the press start is early enough so if there is a production glitch the papers will still be at the depot ready to go for the adults when they drive their cars up to pick up the papers.
     
  12. Trucha

    Trucha Member

    Is that the Ronan edition, 'chick?
     
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