Thursday 1st February 2007: Three words to strike fear into the heart of Frome delivery agents - Somerset Standards
Late! Yep, once again today the biggest local paper (for Frome anyway) was delayed. By three hours we were originally
told by our wholesalers, however they outdid themselves this time and eventually arrived at...wait for it...12:50pm! A full
eight and a half hours after the main papers came in and almost five hours since the last paper round left the office! To date,
we have had no notification as to why they, and all the other local papers, were late so whilst we can only apologise to all
our customers who, once again will have to wait until tomorrow for their Standard, we feel that there should also be an apology
from the guilty party. We shall see. On top of that, one of our adults slipped down the stairs at home injuring her knee and couldn't do her round
today. On the plus side, we have been knee deep in snow at this time of the year before so it isn't all bad.
Friday 2nd February 2007: All Standards went out this morning which invariably adds to the setting up time for the papers
however all deliverers were in including one particularly happy girl who has finally managed to secure a Saturday job in
Bath! If her enthusiasm is anything like her delight at getting the job, she should very well. Injured knee lady was back today
which was a blessing as we'd decided to allocate time today to get as much of our spreadsheet work up and running as possible. Five
hours after starting, we think we cracked it. Next time we'll do it on a quiet Sunday afternoon I think! We are also undergoing some
serious decorating (not my department though) and this time next week, the office will look totally different, although even now
I'm struggling to find where my co-owner has moved things to.
Saturday 3rd February 2007: Now this was better. All papers in just after 4:30am which is good for a Saturday and only a couple of those horrible unfoldable silver things. The Sun have the start of a `teach yourself Spanish` CD
whilst the Times have a DVD of BBC's Coast series. Additional weekend extras in some of the others include booklets in the Guardian (Make Your Own Craft Special) and the Indy (Improve Your Photography). Black mark of the day though goes to the Telegraph which are normally awkward of a Saturday as they arrive in FOUR
separate sections for us to put together. Not today though as we had FIVE different sections which when you consider that we handle 180 Tele's, that makes 900 parts just to the Tele this morning!! This would be even more if you take into account that in most of the five bits that we had, there is an
additional section already inside. One of their front page headlines today is "Only Man Can Stop Climate Disaster." although to be fair most of the broadsheets have similar. Considering the size and weight of the weekend papers, the
phrase Pot Kettle Black springs to mind.
Sunday 4th February 2007: Now this was a cold one today with frozen windscreens and brass monkeys looking for welders everywhere! I reckon some of our deliveries have got sixth sense as three had booked today off in advance, resulting in a total of six rounds to get covered. A couple of our daily lads helped out but I did four myself which included a couple of the newer estates in the town. I am convinced that the designers of these estates are the same ones that designed the mazes at Longleat and Hampton Court as, once in, you need a map to get out again! On the CD/DVD front today, the Times have the first two parts (third part next week) of a Charlottes Web audio book to tie in with the release of the forthcoming film and the Express have part one (part two next week!) of a Dusty Springfield CD which sparked at least one of our deliverers to ask, "Who is she?" The wonderful innocence of youth eh! Oh and the Indy have an Improve Your Photography CD to tie in with yesterday's book.
Tuesday 6th February 2007: Considering the weather, the papers were pretty good today as they arrived just before 4:30am. Not only is it bitterly
cold again but we also have fog to contend with which slows everything up on the road for obvious reasons. Tomorrow afternoon is D-Day when the office
gets totally revamped and re-organised and it's already started on a lesser scale to the extent that, after having a day off yesterday, I came in today unable to find where the round sheets were! After ten minutes of panic wondering whether I should ring my colleague at 4am or just do a re-print, I eventually found them....in the one place I'd asked that they should be left! I was left with a round to do at 8:30am after one of our usual later ones
overslept and only awoke with our phone call.
Wednesday 7th February 2007: Not as cold today (cold enough though) and no fog, all of which probably contributed to the papers catching us out and
arriving at....4am!! Cracking start which makes a huge difference on what will be a long and testing day. On which point, I'm typing this before the mass revamp today so if the diary fails to appear for a few days, it's probably because I can't find the PC!
Thursday 8th February 2007: "A Long, Long Time Ago, I Can Still Remember When The Standard Used To Come On Time!" - With
apologies to Don McLean and any fellow American Pie fans but once again the local weekly is late and, much like last week, late
BIG TIME. At the time of typing it's 11:15am and we haven't seen them or heard from anyone at the newspaper! Still, we've made our
feelings clear enough on this subject before so lets move on. Yesterday's office re-vamp went well although it was an extremely long
day for all concerned. The new carpet, desks and other equipment looks great and although we still need to tweak (i.e. find!) a
few things, it's finally beginning to look how we want it to. A few pretty pictures on the wall and it'll be almost homely which is
ironic as we're probably spending more time here than at home at the moment anyway. Onto the papers, no problems and all in by
4:20am (apart from the aforementioned unmentionable local!). We sadly had to replace one deliverer today for constant lateness and
no-show and whilst we hate doing it, unfortunately we do have ground rules that have to be adhered to. Customers pay us for a decent
service and we have to do our best to ensure that we provide one.
Friday 9th February 2007: The Standards arrived at 1pm yesterday, just as we were closing so that was good (or bad?) timing! It remains cold although
compared to other parts of the country we have been let of light. We've had a bit of sleet and snow but nothing major and certainly nothing that has delayed either us or the papers (apart from the Standard!). Today's batch arived before 4:30am along with part of tomorrow's inserts and it looks as though the Telegraph are going OTT again with an Overseas Property insert polybagged with their colour supp. I can't wait ;)
Saturday 10th February 2007: Well this isn't bad for a wet Saturday. Papers all in by 4:30am and our first adult on the road by 5am. One of our other early adults has the day off so others are chipping in with extras although this has meant some areas will be a bit later than they are used to but still well within our limits. I have to do a round fairly near the shop which gives me chance to show off our new newsbags with our name plastered all across the front! Silver unfoldable things alert: The Mail have gone for sex and scandal with a freebie DVD of Hollywood Wives (not my thing) and the Times have gone for a super duper CD of...Chinese (or Mandarin to be exact) Made Easy! So if you are considering learning how to really show off at the local Chinese Takeaway and ask for Egg Fried Rice in the local dialect, now is your chance!! Today's Sun have arrived with most the magazines missing the bingo card. Funny how the advertising rubbish always seems to find its way inside the mag but not the one thing that the customers want!
Sunday 11th February 2007: Today didn't start well with wet weather combining with late papers. Apparently the Mail on Sunday
didn't get to Bristol until 4:15am and the drivers had to wait. Our driver got to us dead on 5am, although we've said in the past that
it's best to have them all a little bit late than have one paper on re-run and not get in until three hours after the rest. Oddly
enough it all went perfectly after that. We had a new deliverer start on two big town centre rounds and he seems to have done well
and apart from one of our girls oversleeping after a late night, it was all largely uneventful and to be fair to her, she was still
in and finished at a decent time. For us, an uneventful morning is a good one as regards the paper rounds are concerned and it's credit
to our deliverers that this was the case.
Tuesday 13th February 2007: Good start today with all papers in by 4:10am and the rain has finally stopped falling. After the last few days, there really can't be much more up there! The Mirror have a wierd little catalogue thinggy inserted today from someone called Witt International. In truth, it's so thin it makes little difference to the weight of the paper, although trying to stack 136 of them first thing was a challenge to say the least and it ended up like a paper version of the leaning tower of Pisa. Maybe we'll enter it for the Turner Prize next year!
Wednesday 14th February 2007: Thanks to last night's football going to extra time and penalties, the papers were a bit later today although we still
had them all in by 4:45am which wasn't too bad. One of our lads had some major dental work yesterday and isn't in today which meant a nice walk for
yours truly. All good exercise though. Today is Valentines Day and one of our early adults came in with a joke that he'd heard on the radio:
"A man said that he'd bought his wife a new belt and bag for Valentines Day. The hoover now works perfectly!"
Don't blame me, I'm only the messenger!
Thursday 15th February 2007: The Frome Standard is late again for the third week in a row! No surprise really but can they beat their record of arriving by 1pm today? The excitement is nerve-shreading!! Despite those inconsiderate players at Bolton Football Club scoring a last minute equaliser last night against Arsenal to send the football into extra time, the papers weren't too bad and were all here by 4:35am. Next week it's school holidays so we now have the
challenge of covering all the deliverers who are going away for half term. Luckily there are usually plenty of kids wanting to double-up and earn some extra cash. Finally, yesterday yours truly here misjudged where our shelf in the shop window ended and as I put my foot on what I thought was solid wood to
balance in the window to reach up to our blind. Sadly all I managed to do was place my foot on an overhanging newspaper resulting in a dramatic fall from grace with one leg landing either side of our metal Standard stand! Luckily the only injury was a nasty graze on the inside of my leg. It could have been a lot worse (Ouch!)
UPDATE: Standards arrived just before 7:30am although they still missed all bar five of our rounds. Getting better
though so what odds on them arriving on time next week?
Friday 16th February 2007: It was a bit wet and windy when I left for work today at Stupid o'clock, however thankfully it seems to have eased and even stopped as the morning has gone on. Papers were in slightly after 4:30am which isn't too bad although the preparation and delivery of the Standards always adds time. One of our lads isn't well however his Mum is a hero and has come in to do it with help from his brother. Some of the papers are in a bit of a state this morning. The `bottom of the bundle` papers are always tattered and torn but a few Mirror and Western Daily Press seem to have been in a scrap. Never mind, we shall overcome and all that.
Saturday 17th February 2007: Nice morning today weather wise, calm and dry which is always a good thing. Papers were in around 4:45am as they were delayed by the Mail apparently. We were short on Guardian mags but thankfully had enough to cover our deliveries before we ran out. Otherwise, it's a normal morning with no major problems (always good on a Saturday) and all rounds out by 8am which again remains a novelty for a Saturday. Add to that just one unfoldable silver disc as the Telegraph have the start of a National Geographic series and we what is a reasonable morning.
Sunday 18th February 2007: Walking into work at the weekend is always an education with many stragglers from the pubs and clubs
still making their way home. Thankfully whilst many are boisterous and loud, I rarely have any problems touch wood. Today, a couple
of rather large, middle-aged woman were walking towards me talking loudly (which at 3:30am always sounds twice as loud as usual anyway)
discussing how Mandy burnt herself on the electric fire! I didn't catch the end of the story but got to work feeling like I'd been
left with the burden of a 24-style cliffhanger! Who is Mandy and, more to the point, how is she? That aside, bit of an odd morning
at work with papers early, a new girl starting and another girl off ill with the chickenpox. One of our more reliable lads made a
couple of mistakes which is very unusual and to cap it all, we had the sad news that one of our former adult deliverers passed away
last night.
Tuesday 20th February 2007: Tuesday is our biggest day as regards the arrival of mags with all the TV mags and a big selection of womans mags all scheduled for today. Subsequently they take a while to sort out when they arrive with the papers so it was a pleasant surprise this morning to see most of the mags on a pre-run which meant they were all in when I arrived and could be sorted before the mad rush that greets the papers. The papers were nicely on time as well although at least two of our early adults were hindering by some bright spark messing around with the traffic lights and cones around the Rodden Road area. As it's half term, our kids are a little bit later coming in although all are within our guidelines and many of them are doubling up with holiday cover rounds. Indeed one lad is trebling and doing three rounds. People moan about today's youth, but there are some good ones out there that rarely get noticed or get praised.
Wednesday 21st February 2007: We had a change of van driver this morning although we're not sure what happened to the old one. They were still early though and were here before 4:15am which was excellent. The weather can't seem to make up it's mind whether to rain or stay dry for us and at the moment it's a combination of both. We had our second (and hopefully last) major office re-organisation yesterday as the main desk that we ordered didn't arrive until Monday. Subsequently today is a bit of a learning process as regards where everything is. It's a bit like driving a new make of car where the indicators and windscreen wipers are on opposite sides to what you are used to. You then spend ages switching the wipers on when you mean to indicate right! That said, it's another good job done and major thanks to one of our early adults for putting the flat pack together for us. I just need to read, "Join Part C to Part P" on the instructions and I'm lost!
Thursday 22nd February 2007: Standards late again for the fourth week in a row. The record is six I think so not far away now! Everything else in
just after 4:30am which was handy on a rain soaked morning. I've had my arm twisted into mentioning an incident that happened to me last weekend. Bear in mind it was very early and, as I always do, I came into the office and booted up the computer. In trying to open various icons, it became apparent that whilst the pointer was on screen, the mouse point-blank refused to work. In the past, our old mouse kept coming out of the socket at the back if I pulled it too much so with no real inclination to go climbing under the desk at such a dopey hour, I took the other option and kept trying to move it whilst swearing regularly at the screen which had no effect except making me feel better. Eventually I turned the little mechanical rodent upside down to take the rollerball out and clean it and then realised I 'd been using the paperweight instead of the mouse! Once I decided to move the mouse instead , it worked fine oddly enough!
Friday 23rd February 2007: Standards arrived at 11am yesterday so I'll make no comment on that! The Mirror are continuing their recent trend of putting free crap mini catalogues inside the paper with today's lucky readers treated with a copy of a 48 page Marshall Ward enticement. Shock horror but the Daily Mail is actually reducing it's price tomorrow! There will be a free `Diana - 10 Years On` (Can't they please let her rest??) DVD with the paper and to `celebrate` it will be 50p - 20p less than usual. Whilst this is a decent selling ploy, we didn't find out until today by which time we'd already done all the accounts including tomorrow's! Surely they know in advance that they'll be promoting in this way so please give us advance warning of more than a day. I wonder what the odds will be on the `new temporary` cover price being so big on the front tomorrow that even Mr Magoo would be able to spot it? Not like when the price goes up...
Saturday 24th February 2007: As predicted, almost the whole of the Mail's
front page is taken up with the low cover price and the details of the
freebies so it's a case of `spot the news` really (it is there somewhere).
I have decided that free CDs and DVDs aren't so bad after all compared to
the Independent today who are giving away a free HARDBACK book (again this takes up around half of the front page). A few of those are likely to be left on doorsteps this morning I reckon, although if anyone wants a copy of A Clockwork Orange then look no further. It's the start of their `banned books` series although thankfully the rest are not free with the paper although we'll still be handling them. One of our early adults has got a bad ear at the moment and is totally (and hopefully temporarily) deaf in it so he's the butt of a few good
humoured jokes at present. That said, when he says `pardon` to a question, it's got to the stage where we
don't know if he genuinely didn't hear if he's simply winding us up! And finally, the problem with the Sun bingo cards continues with a large number missing from the mags today. Extracting the urine springs to mind.
Sunday 25th February 2007: Good start with the papers arriving just after
4am. The News of the World and Times were already in and inserts done by
the time the big lot arrived and I was just about to check the sports
pages that Leeds did actually lose (sadly they did!) when the van pulled
up. One of our girls is still suffering with chicken pox so I had that
round to do and showed a measure
of my lack of fitness as I puffed and panted walking up a nearby hill. There are the usual freebies flying around with the Tele continuing
their National Geographic collection, not helped by their colour mag polybagged sideways making it very hard to fold. Some free
music CDs as well ranging from Culture Club (who have had a couple of big hits) to Dolly Parton (who has something very similar).
Finally, did anyone else see the story in the Times picked up from a local paper about the office chair that was set on fire in a
field and filmed and then uploaded onto the Internet! Amazingly, this has become one of the most watched clips with some brilliantly witty
comments including, "These chairs come from overseas and think they can take our bottoms." and "I work closely with office chairs
and they've always treated me very well." to the classic, "It was friendly fire and the owners are asking the US cockpits pilots
for the copy of their film." Now unless the chair I'm sat on un-jams and lets us move the seat up and down, it could be next! Chair 2 - The Sequel is
coming...!
Tuesday 27th February 2007: We seem to have a new driver on our main van and to say the least he is quick and early as all were in by 4:05am today.
Apparently in the town centre during the night, a car had ploughed into one of the Building Society's in the town and it was our driver who reported it to the police. It's not often realised but by being up and about at silly o'clock, us earlybirds are usually the ones that discover such problems and obviously need to contact the authorities about it. Mind you, it almost got worse when one of our more mature paperboys (he's 30 actually!) didnt spot another lads bike parked outside our window as he went outside and managed to walk straight into it. To say the air turned blue was an understatement! Finally, my wonderful football team (Leeds) lost again on Saturday and just as my wounds were beginning to heal, a chap walked in this morning and rubbed salt into them with a programme from the game as he had gone up to see it. He's a Wolves fan and took great delight in telling me just how poor Leeds were. Thanks a lot mate, much appreciated...!
Wednesday 28th February 2007: Not a good start today as I got totally drenched walking to work and then walked straight into the van's tow bar hitch as I went to help unload the papers. That said, despite the late finish of the football last night, everything was here by 4:20am. Yesterday, two of our lads came out with some real gems. One had gone away last week and had kindly brought me back some mints which are very nice I must admit. I thanked him for his kindness and then he shattered my ilusions by saying, "Now when you go away, you can bring me back soemthing!" An eye for an eye I guess. Another lad was asking for some extra work if we had any and his reason was simple - "I just want to make money!" Say what you like about today's kids, these two will go far in life!
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