What Delivering Newspapers can Teach someone
Delivering newspapers is often the first job for many boys and girls. In the United Kingdom, a youngster can deliver newspapers from thirteen years old. A newspaper delivery round is many young people’s first paid employment, in Britain especially, because most other jobs are closed to them.
A newspaper round can teach a young person many valuable things about work. When you deliver newspapers, you have to learn to get up early in the morning and to be at work on time to collect your newspapers. You also must go to work every day rain or shine. In Britain, there is no riding your bicycle down the centre of the road throwing the papers from the bike, you have to physically go down each path, and place the newspaper through the letterbox in each front door. You also have to be careful not to tear the newspaper as you slide it through the letterbox. You have to remember to push the newspaper right into the letterbox and not leave it sticking out.
You learn responsibility because it is your responsibility to ensure that the customer gets the right newspaper at the proper time. You learn to be a dependable employee, because the newsagent depends on you to be there, each day, to deliver the newspapers, and to finish your round in a reasonable time.
A newspaper delivery boy, or girl, learns about the vagaries of customers, and their likes and dislikes, and that customers are not an amorphous mass, but individuals. He, or she, also learns that if you do not pay attention to your work, you make mistakes and the customer will complain to your employer. If you make too many mistakes, you could lose your job. You also learn that customers are appreciative of good service, when a customer hands you a little envelope at Christmas.
A newspaper delivery round earns a young person their first wages and teaches them that money does not grow on trees, but takes hard and diligent work to earn. It gives them an income that does not come from their parents but from their own efforts. This teaches them about managing money, and about the choices, one has to make about spending and saving. It teaches young people to budget carefully and they learn that if you spend all your wages on sweets on Saturday, when you get paid, you will not have any left to buy your best friend a birthday present the following Friday.
In the U.K., newspaper delivery boys and girls also learn about the extremes of the British weather, and that rain makes you, and your newspapers, if you are not careful, very wet. They also learn a great deal about letterboxes, some are way down at the bottom of the front door, some are in the middle, some are very high, and a few letterboxes are not in the front door at all but in the wall of the house. British newspaper delivery boys and girls, also learn about dogs and their personalities and how to push a newspaper through a letterbox, ensuring that your fingers never go through the letterbox to form the customer’s dog’s breakfast.
A newspaper delivery job teaches young people many useful lessons about work, the necessity of performing that work properly and the relationship between employer and employee. It teaches young people about the satisfaction of putting in a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, and about how to budget your money properly. A newspaper delivery boy, or girl, learns the importance of customer service and satisfaction. All these skills will stand young people in good stead when they embark on their careers.
