The Michael Swayne Story V: King of his Castle

I left the house at 4:45am this morning. I had to give myself a few extra minutes so I could inflate my rear tire in the garage. It was completely flat when I walked in the garage. The hole in the inner tube has gotten bigger, because it had already deflated a lot by the time I got to Grandma's.

The route itself was fine. There wasn't a lot of traffic to dodge. The weather was great, though it was a bit chilly on the way to town. There were no loud kids out playing and generally being annoying. Wade and Misty's kids don't count, because they are more like family now that I have watched them grow up during these past seven years of working with Wade and Misty.

And then when I go in to get my check, I am told to stick around. I had to be instructed on how to do my job. Some of the businesses have been moving what I drop off to other spots and folding them in undesirable ways. So, Iris immediately assumes that I am not doing my job correctly. Her main concern was with businesses that I deliver to before they open. I have to put them by their mailboxes, so I have no power on where they go once I leave them. I am not going to stick around until 1pm for them to open just so I can put them in the businesses myself. I have things I have to do. That's why I get to the office so early to deliver, so I can spend the day doing stuff I want rather than wait for places to open.

But what bugs me is the fact that Iris thought I wasn't doing my job. I have been doing this for seven years (actually it has only been six years, ten months, and two weeks). I know more about how to leave newspapers at a place than she does, who only delivered for a few weeks four years ago before she was removed from the job. Though it is one of the easiest jobs in the world, not a lot of people are able to do it. I mean, you basically just throw newspapers on people's porches; but most people end up cheating in some way and get fired. So yes, when someone who wasn't cut out to do the same job I do tries to tell me how to do my job, I am going to be a little upset.

So, I ended up showing her how I leave papers at the businesses. And I mean every business. Not only that, but I also described each specific place in the business that I placed the papers. That way I know I am covered and can have no chance of being thought of as one of those people who couldn't hack it.

I have not been giving all of the details when it comes to some things I put in this blog. But after what happened today, I feel in the mood to let loose of some the things I have been keeping to myself. For the original, please see my entry on July 8, 2013.

You see, the reason I was not needed as composer and editor of the paper was not because my work had been slipping. It is because of one click of the computer mouse. At 7pm on July 3, 2013, I accidentally clicked No instead of Yes when the software asked to check for the images I had placed in the paper. When it didn't show any ads that needed to be redone, I sent the paper to press. I thought I had clicked Yes, and that there didn't happen to be anything that needed checked. When the paper was printed, there were a few ads that looked faded, as if the computer didn't know where to access them.

So I was held responsible, despite it being accidental.

I was also held responsible for a couple of the ads to not even get printed in the paper. I thought I had put them in, but due to the computer closing the program that day, I didn't check as well as I should to make sure. However, it is Iris's job to check over my work to make sure everything that is supposed to be in there is in there. She didn't notice they were missing either. And she gave the okay to send the paper to press.

But in the end, I was at fault. I didn't use the ad list as instructed (though neither did she) and we ended up losing that sales money.

I am not saying that I should not be blamed for how it turned out. I messed up, and they know that I would not have done it maliciously. I am just saying that maybe instead of telling me that I am no longer needed, I should have been punished in some other way. It just seems that when someone has to be blamed for something, they always look to me to bare the fault.

In other news...

The newspapers since I have not been working on them have dropped in page count and creativity. The sales staff haven't sold as much in ad space. I can't any of the credit (I have only told immediate family members of the situation and I highly doubt people who know me read this), but when the businesses discovered that I was no longer working in the office as composer, they decided it was best to spend their advertising money elsewhere. It can't be helped that several businesses are owned by my family members. And then other businesses are owned by friends of those family members. The amount of houses that pick up the paper have decreased as well. Instead of the 1,000 papers I normally deliver, I now deliver 902. Residents are leaving them where I put them, and businesses have more and more returns each week. Oh, the power of word-of-mouth media.

I must confess that I still haven't deleted the paper's Facebook page. In fact, there were just two more people to like it this week. It's almost at 100 likes. I haven't gotten rid of it because I have the feeling that I will be asked back. There is still a hope in me that believes they will see their mistake and want me to work again.

Moving on...

I may be getting some online work in the next few days. I have been doing some research and found some work that needs done on a couple sites. A couple people I know suggested being one of those mturks over on Amazon to help make some extra money. And now that I have passed the certifications in English (Top 1%) and Mathematics (Top 5%) on Freelancer, I am eligible for the higher paying jobs there. So things are looking up.

Anyway, back to the day.

I went to sleep after I got home. I played a little more Dark Cloud, and learned a bit about the game that will be discussed in my gaming blog. Be sure to read it when it gets posted. And I had a meatball sub that my brother made for dinner. I also watched the fourth episode of the new anime Free!. I don't like it, but it keeps me from total boredom for twenty minutes each week. And that's about it.

I hope to see you around the forums, and until then...

Later!

Michael