Margy is famous!

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:q6Hkb.822403$YN5.841029@sccrnsc01:

Ow, ow, ow! Stop it -- you're hurting my head!

"Just when I thought I was out, they PULL me back in!"

No way. If I ever go back to newspapers, it will be back into the
marketing side, period. No more dealing with drunk contract haulers at
2 AM, thank you!

I much preferred my years in marketing, where I never had to actually
*do* any work. All I had to do was come up with ideas that *others*
had to implement. (And if the concepts failed in the field, it was
OBVIOUSLY the fault of the soldiers on the ground who were incapable of
properly implementing the plan -- right?)

Hey - I LIKE that! I think I'll have to try that sometime myself!

snip
Nah... Our stuff works! Besides, many of the papers where we do
installations don't have DCs. They go out the window with route-based
bundle breaks to "ma and pa" carriers who won't stick around if their
stuff is late. They gotta get back home to get their kids off to
school, or get to their day job!

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. At least not on a daily. It's true they
don't give a **** if the drivers are late... But they want to meet their
own targets, because in many cases they are rated on it.

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. So you end up with a pile of
bundles in everybody's way, waiting for a driver who isn't in yet, and a
driver who's been standing there 15 minutes waiting another 15 minutes for
his bundles because they have a different sized Sears flyer... That kinda
**** happens ALL the time.

Ouch. Been there, done that.

The worst hold ups I've seen were when the Cedar Rapids Gazette brought
their new mailroom and press equipment on-line. Although their primary
problems were press-related (they actually ended up bringing suit
against Goss, it was so bad -- a losing battle, since Goss was bankrupt
by that time...), it always seemed that an inserter or conveyor would
go down whenever the press was "up".

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!

We actually had to deliver newspapers at NOON one Sunday -- the papers
were NINE hours late, coming off the press. Many of my drivers had to
go to their regular jobs, and the ONLY thing that saved us was the fact
that it happened on a Sunday -- otherwise we would have lost them all.

My stomach churns just thinking about that day. And there were sooo
many like that, over the years...

Geez! That's bad news! NOON!! Holy cow... I can't even imagine that...

I finally just let my Editor & Publisher subscription lapse, after some
15+ years as a subscriber. Now that we've survived 14 months with the
inn -- thus far, successfully -- I'm hopeful that I can let the rest of
my newspaper skills atrophy...

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


Wow -- they've got 38 products now? Impressive.

If you do hit Lee up, be prepared -- they're so tight, they make
Gannett look like drunken sailors... :-)

Well, we have a Gannett paper already (actually they're the one in
Colorado). And to be honest, They were for the most part a pleasure to deal
with. Then again, I am heavily sheltered by my key distributor in deals
like that. But even they seemed to be pretty happy with things over there.
Besides, we got to eat at this INCREDIBLE steak house. Actually, it was
more of a sports bar, but the meat there was absolutely out of this world!

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"

Well, if you make it over, my offer to shoot the Hudson corridor is
still good.

Hey, if you pass thru northern Colorado, I can arrange a mountain
flight for you! With a few weeks notice, I can get on the
schedule at the gliderport and we can fly the Grob-103 sailplane.

Best regards,

Jer/ Eberhard, Chief Flight Instructor, EMAIL:
--
Poudre Aviation, Ft Collins, CO, USA
CELL/VM: 970 231-6325, CELL Message:
WEB: http://poudreaviation.com/ "Online Services" "New User"

Hey, it just so happens that the Grob 103 is about the only
glider I can fit in. If I fly from the back seat that is...

Paul the large.

wrote in message
...
Hey, if you pass thru northern Colorado, I can arrange a mountain
flight for you! With a few weeks notice, I can get on the
schedule at the gliderport and we can fly the Grob-103 sailplane.