The Tipping Argument

The companies, which rely on the carriers to get their publications out, continue to use outdated formulae to compensate the carriers for their effort; in a nutshell, after subsidies are phased out, only the difference between the wholesale and the retail cost of the paper remains as payment; and that is already under the attack by the cost cutters for the companies. Some newspaper companies have contracted clearing houses that deliver multiple newspaper publications, which in turn pay their carriers flat fees per publication, which in turn require heavier loads to earn the same monies. Now, the news-paper carriers must deliver two or more routes, often requiring three or four hours of driving time.

But the effort to get up early in the morning is not the only obstacle today’s carriers face. Dangers lurk in the dark: costly accidents with deer have erased weeks of hard earned income for many. Somewhat amusing but terrifying at the time, in 2006 around Halloween time, on Shades of Death Road, (near Ghost Lake), the author, in a rare instance, was bitten by a bat while placing a paper into a newspaper box; the bat then found himself trapped inside the car, certainly as terrified as the author was. Subsequently, five hospital visits for shots and a rabies vaccine set him back ten weeks of newspaper earnings.

He was a lucky one. Single car accidents in the ice and snow have ruined many-a-family car, and yes, carriers have been seriously hurt. Sadly, some were not lucky enough to survive their fateful encounters in the night.

The cost to the carrier to deliver has never been higher either; as you may imagine, a car that is used in delivery requires greater care in order to maintain the reliable standards the companies demand. In average there are monthly oil changes, brake-work that is necessary three times more often than a car that only commutes, and two or three sets of tires and wheel alignments a year are not unheard of. We have not even talked about the cost of gas and delivery supplies, such as rubber bands and plastic bags! All at that and no increase in wages for more than a decade have if fact substantially reduced the income a carrier makes.

So as you read your paper early in the morning, take a look around a the comfort of your home, and the quality time you gain by getting the newspaper delivered to your driveway, and ponder on this; at fifty-one cents per mile and a round trip to the store of two miles, to buy a fifty cent paper, a person would spend one dollar and fifty-two cents per day, ($3.02 on Sunday), for a total of $12.40 per week, and consume about twenty five minutes of his time each day. Would that make it worthwhile for a customer to rethink tipping his paper carrier? Would $0.30 tip per day seems so much when the bill comes around?

It is a little more difficult to figure out what to tip for Thursday and Sunday service, as it would be for a daily routine; as you see, if you use the mileage to the store and back, plus the face value of the newspaper, times .20, (20%), to factor the tip, and you are satisfied that the amount does not exceed reason, then the amount is sufficient. If the amount seems too low, then you may add what you think would make it a fair figure.
Some people will take offense to being placed on the spot about how to dispense of their money. However, if most of the people reached by this paper are persuaded to rethink their tipping habits, even those customers who do not see how this relates to them will benefit form the goodness of the of the customers who do, for when a service person feels rewarded he can’t help but to improve the quality of the service he provides to all.