FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for August 05, 2021

Know of newspaper deliverers who expect to get a tip?

Sounds like his aim is spot on, under the circumstances.

Five cents. Way to go, Diamond Roger. The kid may have to declare that…

Aim for the roof!

Went online, don’t have to worry about stuff like that and cheaper.

I knew a guy who had a son delivering papers in their apartment building. The dad went to speak to the 3 young guys in one apartment who frequently did not pay. The response was ‘What are you going to do about it, old man?’ He told him ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it’.He bought several tubes of crazy glue and at night he glued their door shut. It cost all three of them a day’s pay! They had to cut out the door frame with a concrete saw. The next day, down by the mail boxes, he made sure to drop a tube of glue, pick it up and look straight at the guy who refused to pay. This guy was from a tough part of Montreal: I think his dad was a tail gunner on a bread truck!

The only thing left readable on the paper was “Cartoonist is final survivor”

I delivered the local paper every day and several out-of-town papers on Sunday, as well. I really only had one problem-customer, who was constantly complaining about me (unfairly), to the “Hub” that dropped my papers off. Finally, I just said to myself, “Well, might as well give him something to complain about” and started throwing the paper into the yard, onto the roof, but mostly hitting the bottom, metal part of his “Storm Door”, which made a really loud bang. Had to be accurate too, ’cause the upper part of that door was glass. And you know what? The complaints stopped!

Its seems surreal now that at 13 years old I would (on my own) deliver about 100 papers everyday and handle the collection of all the subscription money. I learned about running a business, responsibility, that people can be serious a@@holes and what it was like to be exploited shamelessly. And without tips I wouldn’t have done it. The pay was too low for the amount of effort without tips.

You should see how he pees….

Paperboy from hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsxJfcFVnpo

At least he didn’t paper your house with a tip like that……

I was a paperboy in the late 70’s; 90 cents a week for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. One customer was notorious for not tipping and always wanted his dime change. One Christmas, he gave me a Christmas card with two dimes taped in it but that weekend came up short on the week’s fee so he had me take one of the dimes in my card and add it to his payment. He got his paper on the porch roof more than once after that.

With cheap labor, you get what you don’t pay for.