Friday, 19 Oct 2007

A magic-markered note on the bulletin board at work (all the policy changes are in magic marker so there’s no paper trail) says that carriers should ALWAYS follow the GPS route lists [Which really suck, I don't know _anyone_ who goes by those routes] because starting ’soon’ (e.g. some unspecified time in the near future) carriers will be charged for missed deliveries.

Peachy. It better be just for MISSED deliveries, not for complaints. I’ve had complaints that I didn’t put a paper in the door, or I put their Sunday paper in their tube (where they want the paper every other day of the week), or that they were missing the Television listings or the real estate section. Ok, occassionally (rarely - usually 1 or 2 complaints TPS per over 1000 papers delivered during the week (A satisfaction rate of 99.9%) - BUT I ASSURE you that I am NOT taking sections out of your paper before I bag and deliver it to you. But of course that shows up on my complaint list - hilited. What am _I_ supposed to do about missing sections of the paper? Open every paper and ensure that every paper has all the sections? I don’t think so.

A couple of weeks back they let us know that we needed to manually count our Sunday AD sections because they put them at our stations on Thursdays, and are no longer going back on Saturday and adjusting the count for any cancellations or new customers added between Thursday and Sunday. Ok. THEN this past week they told us WE have to count our daily papers because we can’t take extra papers unless we count them FIRST and find a discrepancy and report it to them so THEY can count our papers and give us any extra if the counts are off. WTH?

Seriously, this job is getting really tedious. Just give me a list of papers and a list of who gets the papers and I’ll fold them and bag then and deliver them, but don’t ask me to count the gd papers everyday and act like I am going to try to steal papers if I occassionally ask for an extra front or back because I have leftovers of one or the other.

I need to get through the holidays, then I can re-evaluate my financial situation.

Friday, 19 Oct 2007

almost bought it this morning. after a high speed jerk of the wheel I swear I was tokyo drifting in a direction about 70 degrees off of the direction my steering wheel was heading. no sound of skidding or sliding, felt like I was gliding on ice. I might have slipped into bullet-time like I did in that one accident when I totalled my Sentra - as it seemed like I had way more time to think about and react to the situation than the second or two the incident must have occurred in. Also that same complete silence even though I know the radio was playing. That would explain the lack of skidding sound though. Guess it’s back to early weeknight bedtimes for me.

Yesterday driving home around 5pm sun low in sky generic rte 95 i had a brief moment when I didn’t know whether I was heading North or South, whether I was on my TO work or was heading home at the end of it. Didn’t know if it was morning or evening. It was a very odd feeling of complete disorientation.

Wednesday, 3 Oct 2007

Sometimes a news story is just so horrific it boggles the mind and sounds funny even though it’s not. Probably just because it is SO over the top that it’s too far removed from anything resembling the reality I know that it must not be real.

In New York last night a woman was arrested in a prostitution sting. The over the top part is that she had her 2 children with her in the car (5 yrs old and 8 weeks). The kids were awake during some of her sexual liasons which she had IN the car. Did I mention she smoked crack and snorted coke 10-12 times during the night with her kids present? Ok, still not that bad? How about this. At one point in the evening between her hooker hookups she engaged in with her children present and WATCHING, she snorted coke OFF HER 8 WEEK OLD BABY’S STOMACH… (wait for it)….. WHILE SHE WAS BREASTFEEDING THE CHILD!

I really have nothing else to say. I am speechless.

link

Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007

So I admit I am not the most planny-aheady person in a seasonal sort of way. Yes, I buy my Christmas tree the week before xmas and do all the decorating then (I used to get it xmas eve and decorating it was part of xmas eve, but my Jewish kid complained and wanted it earlier so now I get it usually the weekend before xmas). But still. Sunday morning while delivering newspapers I noticed that one of my customers had a large fake wreath hung on their door. Halloween I will grant you, even though it’s a month away. Thanksgiving? No way - it’s TWO months away. But CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS? It was 4AM on September 30th, when means the decorations were put up at the VERY LATEST on September 29th!

Well at least I don’t feel so bad for having 3 light up reindeer in my kitchen back in April.

On a related note, I clicked an email link for one of those dating services that advertises “vinylrake, here are your new matches” and while perusing the people the service thought I would like noticed that in the ‘types of music’ category this woman had listed ‘holiday music’. ARGHHHHGHGH! “Holiday” music as a seperate genre? WTH? Is that ALL Holidays? Or just religious holidays? Or just xmas? Or WHAT?