Oct 2, 2002 By Kathryn Jones 4 min read

This is to all Herald-Standard customers. First, a disclaimer: The carriers who deliver your newspapers every day are not newspaper employees. They are independent contractors who contract with the newspaper to cover certain areas. The following thoughts are not those of the Herald-Standard, just those of a mother who drives her boys on their routes every day and drives again and again and again as they try (sometimes in vain) to collect money owed to them. Three of my six sons are independent contractors. They deliver four routes on a daily basis. They have to pay for these papers every two weeks, and although some customers pay by mail, they still have to go door-to-door to collect from other customers in order to make the money to pay their bills and eke out a profit for their hard work. They get up every morning at 4:45 to begin their routes. They then go to school and one doesn’t return home until after 5 p.m. due to football practice. Basketball is starting soon, so another will be tied up after school and on weekends. In addition, they have homework, chores and other responsibilities. Somewhere in there we still have to have time for dinner and other mundane tasks.

We enjoy delivering the newspapers. It gives me an hour and a half a day to spend quality time with my teen-agers, and most of the time it is a pleasant way to start the day. Our customers receive their papers by 6:30 every morning. With the exception of banging a few doors here and there and the occasional knocking over of a flower pot (keep in mind that it is dark, and they can’t always see what you have on your porches), we have had no complaints.

However, the collection process is almost enough to make me say enough is enough. The collection process is something that we must psyche ourselves up for. It is demanding, most times discouraging and sometimes downright aggravating.

I have tried to tell the boys that collecting allows them to get to know their customers. They sometimes develop a liking for a particular customer and will go out of their way to please that customer. It gives the customer the opportunity to make special requests, for example, where they prefer to have the paper placed. It is also a hard lesson in the shortcomings of human beings.

If I strung together all of the “come back tomorrows” they have heard, we’d be into 2004. Folks, we don’t have time to come back tomorrow. They don’t collect in advance and the money is for papers already delivered, read and recycled. How well would it go over if we said, sorry customer, today’s paper will be delivered tomorrow? I doubt the switchboard at the Herald-Standard could take the heat from the phone calls that would generate.

They have customers who routinely ask them to come back tomorrow, day after day after day. After a while, all respect for the customer, not to mention adults in general starts to dwindle. They have had some customers who actually hide. We see them as we drive down the street, then we see them scurry indoors and ignore the bell or knocking.

My bet is that it is some of these people who complain loudest about the condition of today’s youth, and how they don’t have any respect for adults and think the world owes them a living. Guess where some of this is being picked up? Right at your front door. You know who you are.

Some of our customers are elderly and on a fixed income. They make requests that we come on a certain day of the month and we always oblige. These folks are also the biggest tippers. They have respect for the boys and their efforts. In fact, it seems like the nicer the house, the newer the car, the better the neighborhood, the more trouble they have getting paid for their services.

Please, dear customer, remember that this is a two-way street. They deliver the newspaper to you every day and you pay for it once a month. That’s not so hard, is it?

Kathryn Jones is a resident of Uniontown.

Uniontown