SO, first day as Captain Junk Mail Distributor today. My route is set to take 1:14 hours. It took closer to 3:30. The order of the newspapers and ads was messy (so much so that i fucked up on the placement of some of them), two of the residences turned out to be nursing homes for the elderly, which means 30 mailboxes/apartments per home that i have to bring the junkmail to. And no, they're not clustered together in the entrance, i have to go inside and subject myself to possible contact with personnel and elderly people. But at least it's easy to just switch ones brain off and put the same thing into each mailbox, right? Nope. Some places get both ads and newspapers, some only get newspapers, and some don't get anything at all, so i have to check each and every one to avoid making mistakes. Further complicating matters is that people are terrible at keeping their "no junk mail pls" subscriptions (or whatever it is) up to date, so even though they have those stickers on the mailbox, i still have junkmail for them. Hell, there was even an empty apartment in there, i still had a full set of junkmail for it. >.>
The latter thing with the stickers was applicable for every single address, and the majority of them had narrow mail slots with some kind of wire basket inside, which made it a pain in the arse to mash all the junkmail inside. At one point, a guy even came running from behind and was like "EY DUDES we don't want junkmail??" (in a polite manner, thankfully), even though the residence was on the list. The only thing that went well is the fact that people were willing to unlock the door for the three apartment complexes with locked doors (and which also had those nice clustered mailboxes!), of which i am thankful.
Long story short, i am NOT paid enough for this route, and i intend to notify my manager of this. Yes, it takes longer as a newbie, and yes, it takes longer when the order is messed up, but it shouldn't be taking nearly three times as long. >:C