Must be using employee-run distribution/circulation operations at those
newspapers. Newspapers that utilize contract distributors (like my old
company) don't give a **** whether the papers go out on time or not --
it isn't *their* problem to deal with the ****ed-off drivers. It's a
whole different attitude at newspapers with employee district managers
running the carriers! (I've worked in both systems...)

Hmm.. I don't know. I don't think I've ever been in a mailroom that didn't
give a **** if they were late.

Well, okay -- they SAY they care. But here's the difference:

Scenario #1: Independent Distributors. You see the owners of these
companies quarterly -- maybe. Papers are late? You deal with phone calls.

Scenario #2: Employee District Managers: You see these guys every day. They
report to you. You know their families. Papers late? You deal with them
and their wives, every hour, of every day.

Who you gonna care more about? What's going to make you make the hard
decisions necessary to fix the problems?

That said, employee district managers don't give half a damn about their
jobs, compared to an independent distributor -- since they get paid whether
the papers go out or not. Distributors live and die on sales, so
newspapers that care about their circulation generally use distributors
where they can.

That said, I've seen mailrooms make decisions to allow them to meet their
targets, even if they have adverse affects on drivers - like sequence
changes to improve inserter productivity.

God, yes. Internal flow ALWAYS came ahead of common sense in the real
world. A great example of this was when the Gazette's new mailroom plan was
being implemented, and someone in a Circulation Dept. meeting asked how they
were going to send carrier supplies (rubber bands, rain bags, etc.) out on
the newspaper bundles.

There was a long pause, and everyone stared blankly at each other. Finally
one of the mailroom design engineers volunteered "that it would no longer be
possible to cap bundles with supplies" -- because there was no room in the
conveyor system for a person to actually *do* that! This guy was
astounded at the sudden hostility in the room when it became obvious that
some moron had sold out the "real world" in favor of some theoretical flow
chart.

This situation eventually forced the contract drivers -- not the sharpest
sticks in the bunch to begin with -- to try to distribute carrier supplies
on their trucks. Needless to say, on rainy days there were a LOT more wet
papers delivered, simply because carriers couldn't get plastic bags -- and
it ALL went back to that stupid mailroom designer... (Of course, the
newspaper would never admit that...)

The newspaper industry is so old, and so backward in so many ways, that
there are literally dozens of examples of this kind of stupidity, as they
try to take half-steps into the 21st century.

IIRC 17 papers sued Goss. I was doing work for the NY Daily News who were
one of the plaintiffs. That was a mess. Amazingly enough, now Goss is
talking about buying Heidelberg!

No frickin' way! How does a bankrupt organization do *that*?

Hey - you still have to distribute the paper to all your guests!

Well, most mornings Mary takes care of that! :-) As much as I hate 'em,
I'll always love newspapers. After two decades, they're in my blood, and
the morning just isn't right without a cup of coffee and the paper...

I've found that (unlike much of the general population) most pilots agree
with me on that point.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"