How many of you get your Cincinnati Enquirer delivered to your home? It is nice to wake up, get a cup of coffee and read the paper before getting your day started, isn't it? I use to think so as well and then I decided to get a paper route as a part time job. I thought that the hours were great and they did not interfere with any of my day to day activities.
I thought, "how hard can it really be?" You go in grab your papers, bag them, and then deliver them. An extra $300 a week in my pocket did not sound bad at all. Then I learned that there is just so much more to being a paper carrier.
For example, you get paid $0.09 per paper delivered Monday thru Saturday. On Sunday you are paid $0.14 per paper. You are also paid a few extra dollars to put the Sunday inserts together. On Sundays the amount of papers to be delivered is double. So they open the warehouse up at noon to 7pm on Saturday so that you can come in and put the inserts together before that night. .Then when you come in that night you have to add the mains or front page of the paper, bag them and try like hell to fit them into your vehicle. Sometimes it requires you to make another trip back to the warehouse to pick up those papers that you could not fit in your car.
Now you know how much a carrier gets paid. You need to know how much the Cincinnati Enquirer costs at the stands. Monday-Saturday you can purchase the paper for $0.75 at any store. The Sunday paper costs $1.75. If the carrier miss throwing a paper the Enquirer charges the carrier $5.00 for every paper that is missed. How is that they can charge $5.00 for every paper that is missed for a paper that at most cost $1.75.
Sometimes the bundles are short, which makes the carrier short. Sometimes the warehouse workers do not give you the correct amount of papers, which makes the carrier short. What do you do? They expect you to stop by the store to purchase the papers that you are short. A lot of carriers opt to spend the $0.75 to purchase the paper to avoid being charged $5.00 for missing the paper.
My question to you is who is the Cincinnati Enquirer making a profit off of. Its subscriptions holders or their carriers? You do the math?
