Paying it forward, mailbox-style

Allow me to start off by first rising to my feet, slapping my hands together in applause and shouting loudly: “Newspaper carriers, I salute you!”

It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s exhausting, it’s underpaid — but somebody’s got to do it, right? Last week I — and admittedly with some resistance — agreed to be one of those somebodys.

By now I’m sure most of you have heard of the new reality TV show ‘Undercover Boss,’ in which CEOs of major big business corporations in the United States go ‘under cover’ as an employee in one of the lesser-paid, dirtier positions of their particular company.

After going through the paces in the shoes of a porta-potty cleaner, garbage picker or delivery guy, the CEOs are supposed to establish an appreciation for what some of their employees go through in an average day.

Okay, so I’m not the CEO of a major company — I’m just a reporter — and I’ll admit I didn’t agree to deliver the newspapers last week with the goal of gaining some sort of a greater understanding about the carriers.

However, that’s exactly what happened.

Last Friday afternoon I set out on my endeavour as a newspaper carrier. It was bitter cold, raining and the bag hung snugly around my shoulders was weighing me down as I walked.

Yet, I was determined to hand deliver all 216 papers on my route.

After nearly three hours of trudging down puddle-filled, muddy sidewalks and driveways, and climbing up 103 — yes, I counted — sets of rickety stairs to reach the mailboxes, I just had to call it quits.

I felt defeated.

But hey, I’m not looking for your sympathy. After all, I’m not a newspaper carrier. The sympathy belongs instead to the men, women, boys and girls who do this every week.

To give you a little perspective about what I’m talking about, let’s do the math.

It’s takes approximately one minute on average to deliver a paper to one house — keeping in mind most mailboxes are located either at the top of a high set of stairs, down a long driveway or sidewalk, or completely hidden from first glance.

Times that by the 216 houses on the route and you’re looking at a 216-minute (or three hour and 36 minute) job for much less than minimum wage.

So, I’m proposing a revolution.

To help our friends the newspaper delivery people and perhaps make their job just a little easier, I say we all take our hard-to-get-to mailboxes out from the far-off reaches of our yards and return them to plain view.

I mean, who was the guy who decided mailboxes should be removed from their former stands conveniently placed at the end of driveways and mounted instead on the high-up or far-back exterior corners of our houses?

Let’s call it ‘Operation Move Your Mailbox’ — for lack of a better, more creative name.

Just think, the easier our mailboxes are to get to, the less likely the carriers are to throw our papers in a puddle, trample over our flowerbeds and cut across our perfectly trimmed lawns.

Everybody wins.

So grab your toolboxes and a piece of plywood and join the revolution.