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Globe reporters back to delivering papers
By adamg on Sun, 01/10/2016 - 12:06pm
Sorry for the delay. @BostonGlobe delivery boy and girl at your service and on the way pic.twitter.com/AN0kXsJzwt
— David Abel (@davabel) January 10, 2016
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Comments
Even the editor
Delivering the Globe kind of sucks
The Globe interviews some of its delivery people.
Terrific story.....finally.
Terrific story.....finally.
Amidst the blur of cute stories (and darn it, those kids are cute) of professional newspaper people delivering papers, it's nice to see that the Globe devoted a few paragraphs to the "employees" who actually deliver the product.
Perhaps they could further expand this coverage of the bottom 40% of the population that works hard to cobble together a living. I know that these people don't buy very much, yet it might be valuable news for the Globe's target demographic. r
Independent Contractors
Because you can work 365 days a year for a corporation for six years without a day off and not be an employee. America Fuck Yeah!
And if there were laws on the books against that sort of thing..
then a lot of those people would be out of work 365 days a year. Because Marxism Fuck Yeah!
Isn't that the point?
So if you're unlucky in life -- don't get a good education, parents dysfunctional, need to care for relatives, etc you have two choices in life:
1. Be mostly unemployed, living on meager public benefits between what work you can find.
2. Work a horrible job with no chances of advancement, no opportunity to take time off, no time or money to invest in school or other activities which get you out of the hole you're in.
Sure, there are people from bad backgrounds who "make it". But most end up living what generally would be considered sucky lives.
And if you think
there are laws that can stop bad things from happening to good people, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Better a system where some can rise high than a system that guarantees everyone stays down.
Well, there's a middle ground
It's not one or the other system. While all laws will have some negative externalities (as does no law at all), I am a believer that the role of the government is partly to protect those without means from being completely screwed over and taken advantage of. There is a enormous middle area between libertarian utopia and tightly controlled communist state. Capitalism will survive if they close the "contractor" loophole.
Of course there is a middle ground
but I advocate erring on the side of maximum flexibility and away from empowering any large institutions, especially governmental ones, to micromanage economic relationships more.
The problem is that to date, no one's been able to figure out a way to completely "protect" those without means without simultaneously imposing burdens (financial, administrative, liability) on everyone else, and without also creating yet another mechanism for corruption or a mechanism to game the system.
In a place like Mass with a more parochial political system and less of an aversion to a strongman system of governance than other parts of the country, there's even more opportunity for such graft, and a greater chance that any such protections will just feed the political machine.
Even the minimum wage hike is a step in the wrong direction because it's essentially vote-buying at the expense of reducing the number of short-term odd-jobs of the sort that kids and recent immigrants used to do to get some spending money and/or to get some experience before they get on their feet.
Thank you
for making that point. The people who see socialism as the answer to all problems think that criticizing capitalism and its problems justifies and supports their embrace of a socialist alternative. This is mystifying to me, because there are so very many examples of the ways socialism is bad for all.
Cool story bro
Take a look at the general well being data for MA vs KS and tell me again about how great it would be if the evil state were to step back from throttling the citizenry. Better education, better jobs, healthier population, less poverty, more mobility, etc...
I like the nice straw man argument that no one has been able to completely protect those without means as somehow justifying stripping away even meager protections. We also can't cure cancer 100% of the time so maybe we should just down Dana Farber?
Grow up.
Grow up.
After you
.
If you can't acknowledge
If you cannot acknowledge that socialist structures paid for your sorry ass to both immigrate and go to school and pay for your student loans, you will never be grown up.
Yes, that simple.
Most pathetic.
If you can't acknowledge
that you don't know jack about anything beyond the lefty echo chamber between your ears, you will never be grown up.
Maybe your sorry ass could never have stood on its own two feet without the rest of us subsidizing you, but that's an experience unique to your own special self. Don't mistake that for everyone else's reality.
Never say that to a vet
Never say that to someone who spent time in the military to afford school.
Ever.
I have been self supporting for thirty years. My taxes paid for you to live here and to go to school.
Too bad your parents never dragged you back to whatever "utopia" you came from. You might have learned a little something about all the sweet perks of being in the US that your "specialness" or "talent" had shit-all to do with.
Classic self-absorbed "me me me special did it all myself" millennial bullshit.
If you want to live in a complete festering fascist shithole of a country, by all means GO BACK TO THE ONE YOUR PARENTS SAVED YOU FROM.
Do not wreck my country with your ungrateful festering shithole nonsense and self-exceptional blather.
Got it?
Hows about
we make a rule that you have to take a breathalyzer test before you post a comment, eh?
I think you'll like it. And you'll find it easier to remember your lefty sensibilities if you do that instead of accidentally going all Trump-parody all over yourself.
For the record, your taxes payed for exactly jack shit of me. A small fraction of your taxes do pay for the defense contract my current employer operates under, for which I thank you from the very bottom of my heart. And a whole hell of a lot more of your tax dollars pay to subsidize the mismanaged municipal, state, and federal agencies, (with a special shout-out to the "affordable" housing projects, less-than-stellar schools, and college loans for majoring in underwater basket weaving) we keep reading about here.
And as someone who likes to brag about how she pulled herself up by her own bootstraps, go ahead and tell me that where you are today had nothing to do with your own specialness and talent and is solely a product only of the "socialist institutions" of this great nation of ours.
Why are you even talking
Why are you even talking about immigration and the countries people came from? What exactly are you trying to say?
Not quite
You'd still need people to deliver the papers, so allowing vacations or illnesses would not be the start of some workers' paradise.
Of course, the whole reason the job went from grade schoolers to breadwinners is due to workplace regulations, so who know what could become of this.
True, but the devil is always in the details
It's already illegal to not give vacations, overtime, breaks, etc to your own employees under existing state and federal laws, and it's already illegal to misclassify people who are effectively your own employees as independent contractors.
The problem is that there will always be a need to fast flexible labor for short-term work like shoveling snow, delivering stuff, day labor, etc etc where the period of performance is sufficiently short that there's no way it'll justify going through the mess of actually employing these people, assuming responsibility for administrative overhead to pay all the taxes and file all the forms, and assuming liability that comes with being an employer.
And that's what the concept of an independent contractor is for. Or to put it into hipster parlance: it's what the gig economy is for. Try to come down on it with a bludgeon to stamp out the perceived abuses, and you'll drive it underground or you'll hobble a lot of legitimate operations that will see their costs rise.
Remember: people choose to take these jobs. Taking away those jobs will just make it harder for them to find income.
Fast Flexible Labor
Maybe it would help the conversation if you could explain how working 365 days a year for 6 years is fast flexible labor for short time work.
Maybe because it's only a few
Maybe because it's only a few hours a day.
There's a term for that too
It's "Part-Time Employee."
Well, it seems it's a choice
at least going by the story of the one gentleman from Newton interviewed in last week's (or maybe two weeks ago?) article who does it as a side job on top of owning his own small construction company.
I don't see a reason to restrict his ability to make extra money given that he does it all of his own volition.
.
.
.
.
Translation
It isn't, you can't, and you're too small to admit it.
This guy sounds awful...
...familiar. Almost as if he were a banned user back under a different name.
Wrong.
Unlike in most other developed countries, employers in the U.S. do not have to provide any vacation.
In general, vacation isn't
In general, vacation isn't covered under most employment laws.
Not sure how the new Mass. laws figure in, but there's no federal requirement to provide vacation, paid or otherwise.
more important stories to cover
Like people who pay thousands of dollars a month to live in a couple-years-old developments losing their precious downtown skyline views. Now that's newsworthy!
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/09/they-took-sky/eeUPy6Avc9Oivi...
Actually, it kind of is
If that were the only story they covered today, or even if it had been, say, a Spotlight report, or if that was all they (or even just that one reporter) ever covered, I'd agree. But there's a lot more in the Globe today than just that one story, which is an interesting look at what happens in a city with tons of construction going on.
Oh, God, I'm defending the Globe, somebody slap me!
interesting for some, I suppose
A newspaper is still pretty much a zero-sum game with limited column inches and reporter capacity, so an article whose only goal is to win sympathy for people who spend so much on rent that they can't afford window treatments for their bathrooms rings hollow when there are large parts of this city's population like the delivery drivers referenced in the comment I responded to who are facing significantly bigger housing and other economic issues. But, like the original comment also said, those people aren't big targets for advertisers and aren't likely to be Globe subscribers anyway. Thus, we end up with articles with headlines like "They took my sky", belying the plight of people who feel like they can own the sky in the first place. For people in that demographic, I can understand how this might be an interesting and newsworthy topic. But for me, it would have made a more interesting story if it were presented as an assessment of how much development is stymied and thus kept out of the market due to the successes of these kinds of arguments (or proxies like "shadows" and "traffic" coming from places like Boston Harbor Towers) rather than just "woe is us, the people who moved in a few years too soon and couldn't be bothered to look up the zoning for the parcels surrounding our buildings".
Except the Globe writes articles that you want
Like the front page story on the beginnings of gentrification in East Boston and how Suffolk University students, getting priced out of their traditional haunts to the extent that relying on a single T line to get home is an acceptable option. That ran not too long ago.
Yes, there are many articles geared for those with money, but they do write articles about the other people.
By now ...
the editors and newsroom must hate Henry's guts. It will be interesting to see what happens if "cuts" are found necessary.
Thousands of papers went undelivered at first
Here's a copy of the urgent e-mail Brian McGrory sent out at 5:04 a.m. today:
kinda sick of this.
So last Sunday was the first day in a week I got a paper, then missed Monday. It came Tuesday and Wednesday, but that's it. Not Thursday, not Friday, not Saturday, and sure as shit not today.
"Thousands of papers went undelivered at first." LOL at "at first." Thousands of those papers are staying undelivered, as far as I can tell.
Gonna have to stop the subscription for a few weeks. This sucks. :(
No globe again
At some point in this past crazy week, between dealing w husband's health issues, plus aftermath of his sister's recent death, I got very nice replies from reporters whose work I'd praised in emails to them. One even called me on my land line to say he'd try to get one of the big delivery trucks to deliver to our house. He even gave his cell phone number but I didn't bother him to tell him we still get no deliveries. This has also been so hard on all the Globe staff. More important to get whole system up and running again. I'm heading out in this lovely warm rain to visit the nice man at our local convenience store. Ours is definitely a first world problem.
Good luck with that suspension
I've been trying to cancel for a week.
I gave up calling a few days ago, never got beyond a fast busy signal, but maybe you'll have better luck. I sent e-mails, but have only received auto-replies for 2 weeks.
I did see some people delivering papers in Roslindale this afternoon who might have been reporters, but none did my route in W. Roxbury - still not one paper since 12/27.
Globe reporters aren't the ones who messed this up
That's the big guy. Who has more than enough money to pay for emergency logistics.
Otherwise, the effect is:
1. Contract to take people's money, for delivery of newspapers.
2. Voluntarily end your ability to deliver the newspapers.
3. Keep people's money.
4. Don't let people get through on the phone to cancel.
5. Make up stories about how everyone's chipping in, we're all in this together, except for the billionaire who caused it.
6. Parlay this situation further however you want to; no one will call you on it. Go Sox!
Since the Globe has become
Since the Globe has become the Charlie Baker Is Amazing machine, why not have Bakers team deliver it.
No Sunday Globe again
Not last week, not this week. I only subscribe to Sundays. The Globe reporters "valiant effort" isn't working.
I wonder how many of these guys got up at 3am?
Like I did when I used to deliver heralds?
Then deliver all 300 before 6am or face a potential $2 per paper fee deduction if the papers are late?
Nah, let's take the kids and go when we want to go.......
You are right
They went to the distribution center at midnight last weekend and worked through the late morning and into the afternoon in some cases. Many responded to this morning's 5 a.m. email without a moment's notice. I agree there's legitimate criticism about the self-congratulatory attitude, but please. People worked hard on top of their already demanding day jobs.
Must have been a tough weekend!
They had to work overnight?!?
The horror.
On top of their regular shifts
And for free. Imagine if, say, a patrol supervisor started calling up police officers at 5 a.m. asking them to work several hours for free.
This is why this kind of bothers me. On the one hand, it's great Globe reporters care so much about their work they're willing to pitch in. On the other hand, I've yet to see John Henry make any sort of commitment to pay them for the extra work to keep his business afloat after a screwup they had nothing to do with (maybe he is and we just haven't heard about it; he tends to be pretty quiet, but I'm kind of doubting it).
That's the thing
Last week some folk here were engaging in one of their favorite pasttimes- mocking Shirley Leung. Her crime this time- staying home to take care of her two young children on a day when a lot of people do a lot less. At the end of the day, it wasn't her fault (or the fault of any of the Globe employees we know by byline) that some bean counter decided that this was a good idea.
If this were some startup, all of this would make sense. But the Globe has been putting out a product for 143 years. It would be like some of Henry's other Boston concerns opening for the year with half the needed ticket takers, and only the hopes that by the All-Star Break they will be fully staffed, and since they let the pervious staff go and have only started training the new folk, only one gate would be open for the foreseeable future.
Well I'm sure there are more details Adam....
Did every Globe employee work for free? Was everybody asked? Did anyone say no? Were they allowed to say no? Did they ask any of the union employees who work for them? (there are still some union workers at the Globe who work in different capacities).
Since police managers in the US have historically abused police officers (early 1900s), the police have very strong unions which would not allow them to make them come in for free. But they can order command staff to come in for free (since they are on salary and cannot make overtime).
But that wasn't really my point, my point had more to do with these reporters pretending they are making some sort of huge sacrifice when the real workers do this 24/7/365. I'm being snarky and don't care too much but I don't feel bad for these guys one bit.
Jesus Hiram Christ...
This would be charming and quaint if we were talking about some small town paper in like Pelham or Ashfield; but this is a major metropolitan paper (okay, what's left of one).
John Henry, stop trying to sell us tickets to your goddamn shitshow.
Wait
Are talking about the Sox or the Boston Globe?
Don't all home delivery subscribers
get a free subscription to BostonGlobe.com?
I'm seeing a lot of people on here and on Boston.com complaining that they don't have their physical newspaper (one woman used Boston.com to comment that she'd had to go to the convenience store to buy the paper), when everyone is displaying the requisite skill set to avail themselves of the free website access.
Granted, that doesn't get the company off the hook for charging subscribers for a service they haven't provided, and it does nothing for the people who for whatever reason cannot use technology to access the website, but it seems a good interim solution for those who are able to do so.
Yes, they do, so?
Setting aside the reasons why somebody might want to still get a paper on, well, paper (some of us still like reading it over Sunday breakfast), the fact is that people are paying good money (several hundred dollars a year for 7-day delivery) for something they are no longer getting.
You pay, what, $30 or $40 a month for Internet service? Imagine if your ISP did something rash and stupid and you couldn't get online for two weeks - and now people are saying "I don't understand - you can just go down to the library and get on the WiFi for free until they fix it."
Let's see if I can answer this nicely
I replied to an anon who asked this question a while ago, and while all you anons look the same to me, I will pretend you are someone else.
It's all about preferences and choices. I enjoy print. I read physical books only, even though I own 2 devices that have book readers. I read the webpages of some foreign newspapers, but if I were in an area where I could go to a store and purchase a physical copy, I would be much happier.
But I cannot be that nice. When you invent a device that weighs less than a pound, has a screen 20 x 14 and is less than an inch thick, and durability guaranteed, we can talk. Until then, bugger off.
bostonglobe.com is not the
bostonglobe.com is not the daily paper! You cannot find articles from the print edition on Bostonglobe.com without spending a good time looking for them.
The layout of bostonglobe.com changes during the day, you cannot compare the two.
The E Paper was good until they rolled out a new format a couple of weeks ago, now it stinks.
No paper to me
No Globe in my section of Dorchester. Not a surprise since very few of the reporters seem to live in Boston anymore, much less Dorchester. Am hoping that the guy who used to delivery both our (Sundays only) Globe and Times will go back to doing both again. He was great. (We got the Times today as usual.)
Expectations
Based on the Globe's repeated emails about how they have this under control with PCF sharing routes with the new crap-tastic service they signed up with, I fully expect to get a paper at my door Monday morning. Globe, you got 2 weeks of "patience" but it officially runs out tomorrow.
Got a paper!
I did finally get a paper this morning - first one since all this started.
It was down by the street, no where near the house, so I guess my old delivery person did not come back.
Globe
Is this what Globe Delivery has become? David Abel: Honey it's noontime and the kids are getting restless. let's go deliver some newspapers - Better late than never?
I find these postings from
I find these postings from "heroic" globe staff insulting.
they dont insult me per se
but at the end of the day what they're doing is self serving, in addition to being SEEMINGLY helpful to subscribers.
i say seemingly because if they just refused then the globe would be forced to do something about it instead, so in my mind they're also part of the problem.
i dont particularly care about the welfare of the globe but i somewhat despise the idea that people (possibly? i dont honestly know) are doing a paying job for free, when there are others that recently lost part of their income for doing the same job.
that being said, i've been interviewed by dave a couple of times and since it made me happy he is a-okay in my book. it was badass when my friend, a schoolteacher, called me in disbelief because she gave an assignment to class to bring in a current event article and she saw me in it!