Dear dimwit on the phone

Ohhhh ... this always ends so well too!

 

This threat is great because it literally means nothing.

 

But I was talking about golf in that first quote.

 

We've already knocked off one would-be competitor a few years back. A weekly that was more of an ego trip for the guy who started it than an actual competitor. It lasted a year and a half in print, then tried to switch to all-digital, which bombed. The guy sold what was left of it to someone, who got stuck with no assets and all of the bills. Of course, back then we were fully staffed and were still printing five days a week.

 

Bit of a multi-part story:

Our copy desk is within earshot of circulation. For the night folks there's only about two hours of overlap, so no big deal. I heard one of the clerks take a call from a reader who was restarting with the stipulation that the paper be delivered inside his building to his door. Seems reasonable. One of the reasons I don't take a discounted physical copy of the paper (other than that they'd pile up in my already messy apartment) is that I don't think they can get inside my building.

Normally I try and tune the circulation jabber out, but today my interest was piqued by the following out of context quote.

"You had me at the undies part."

Apparently, the delivery person refused the request from yesterday because the reader has a tendency to meet them at his door in his skivvies and maybe a robe with a cigarette.

These stories are one of the things we are sacrificing in the digital era.

 

We don't get that option. Can't even get a digital-only subscription. Have to keep those numbers up....

 

Discounted? We get our copies for free. It's the only "benefit" we have left*.

* - This is a bit of an exaggeration. We still have shitty health insurance and a 401k that the company doesn't match anymore.

 

We used to get the paper for $1 a week through a payroll deduction. Now we have to pay full freight and be billed like a common reader.

 

We get discounted subscriptions but can also take a copy when we'd like.

 

I used to have my free paper sent to my mother. I didn't need it because, duh, I read it at work. Then they told me I had to take it myself because of the expense of shipping it out of zone.

I live out of zone, too. I live in a town 30 miles to the south. So they don't save anything by sending it to my house ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I can get the daily paper, where I work part time, delivered for $3.65 per year. That also includes full access to the web edition with a password. Despite the penny-a-day access for news, I don't get get the paper because they'd just pile up my house. I just use a co-worker's password, with his permission, for the full online access.

 

Our paper's pay wall doesn't even make office access exempt. You reach your limit while at work? Too bad, you should've been a subscriber.

Of course, there's always the private window.