CURBSIDE ETIQUETTE

Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess



Below you will find links to dates when new entries are added. The stories will not necessarily be in chronological order, but rather as I remember them. I am dating them so that you can skip to new ones you haven't read since the last time you visited, and so that you are more easily able to find something you found humorous to share with others.
Mobile Office


Today is a Saturday; the only traumatizing thing about a normal Saturday is trying to make it back to the depot to stuff or put together the first three parts of Sunday's papers. The samples we delivered with today's papers are normally something we would deliver with a Sunday paper, but we got them with today's papers instead. We delivered cereal and granola bars. Sounds exciting, huh? WRONG! Our mobile offices are NOT big enough for something like that - especially of that size. We usually call an organized bunch of bags hanging from a cardboard backing a "sleeve" of bags, and for normal, everyday bags, there are one hundred per sleeve. Today, with the tastey samples, the bags were TEN per sleeve. Below I've tried to give a brief description of each area in my mobile office, including the sample bags from today. Thought everyone might like a look into our nightly lives and our "Mobile Offices".
DESK
Note the stack of newspapers on the passenger seat, and on the passenger floor.
Auxiliary Desk
Note several piles of newspapers and paperwork scattered across the dashboard. I am too short to see over more than a half dozen papers stacked at one time on my Auxiliary Desk.

Filing System
Today's mail, and occasionally yesterday's notes are always stored above the visor; any important notes from the past are either under the newspapers on the dashboard, or in the pocket on the back of the seat.

Tool Belt
Everyone hangs their bags in a different place. I have a hook (bungee) on my service handle along the door frame in my truck (shown here); in my car, I stick the cardboard between the door panels from
where the window rolls up. Most people hang their bags from the rear view mirror, and the taller folks (like Bob) hang them from the passenger visor where my orange bags are hanging, utilizing the Overhead Tool Belt area. My orange bags are for the USAToday paper - I dont' have many of those on my route, so it's not a big deal to reach that far for an occasional bag. If I were to hang my bags from the rear view mirror like other folks, (my car does not have a rear view... so that might be a problem), the bags dangle down over top of the gear shift knob, and I can't shift gears without pulling bags down off the the backing, then they blow around the inside of the car; usually in front of my face. Now that we deliver both the Post Gazette and the Trib from the same Mobile Office, everyone had to revise thier tool belts to accept another set of bags. If you look at the "Auxiliary Desk" picture, you can see a blue bag at the far end of the dashboard - that is a NYTimes. I have those bagged ahead of time because I can't seem to make my tool belt big enough to accomodate bags for the Post Gazette, Trib, NYTimes, USAToday, Wall Street Journal, Finanacial Times and Investment Business Daily, all of which float around in my car and in Bob's car on a daily basis.

Mobile Storage
I have no idea what people who have smaller cars did this morning. With the cereal box sample bags, you can only fit so many inside the car. In this picture, you are looking at 100 bags tossed into the backseat of my truck. Underneath those bags are bundles of Tribs that I break open and put a half dozen at a time on my Auxiliary Desk. YOu can see that 100 takes up nearly the entire back seat.
In this picture, you can see my Mobile Storage had to spill over into the bed of my truck. Each box has 100 bags inside. Now, if I'd have taken my car, not only do I believe these boxes would NOT have fit through the opening for the back door, but how on earth would I have taken four boxes in the car, and still been able to reach my Desk and gearshift? What a nightmare.

Occupational Hazzard
On a final note about this morning, you might be able to see into how much space twenty of these bags expand. The occupational hazzard here, is that I drive a five-speed. I crushed more than one cereal box under my clutch pedal this morning. Once I closed the driver's door, the boxes of cereal and granola bars have nowhere to go, but between my calf and the seat. If I were to try and hang more than one sleeve of bags on my Tool Belt, there would absolutely NOT be room for my feet, and the entire pedal area of the under my Auxiliary Desk would be consumed by bags of cereal and granola. The cops, of course, believe that the multiple bags hanging from the "Overhead Tool Belt" (visor and mirror) are an occupational hazzard; good thing it's usually dark when we deliver, and we are driving down the left side of the streets. A substantial amount of the right side of the Mobile Office is blocked when people hang more than one sleeve of bags from the Overhead Tool Belts.

Personal Locker
I did not think to take a picture of my Personal Locker this morning. Under the front seat, wedged between the floor and the lever that moves the seat forward and back, I have my binder with my license, credit cards, calculator, calendar (not that I use it), appointment book... (again, not often used) and a pen. On days when there's a storm approaching, and the animals insist on frantically running out in front of my car, I hit the brakes hard enough that all of the newspapers on my "Desk" and the binder in my "Personal Locker" come flying forward and end up .... always... under my pedals. I suppose that's another Occupational Hazzard, but so far, I have not seen any OSHA signs posted on or around my office.