My Career in Newspaper Circulation Part Two

Dennis Concordia, my circulation manager at the Oakville Journal Record could have tried to hold onto me, but instead he was willing to help advance my career.   His friend, Eric Prosser who visited the office periodically made a strong impression on me.  Eric had been given the opportunity to set up the circulation department for a new newspaper in Kitchener, Newsday.  Dennis helped set me up and advised me.

Kitchener had a fascination for me going back to my university days.  In case you were wondering I still have not attended an Oktoberfest.

I met Eric for an official interview which went well.  Shortly after this my wife and I decided to buy a house in Kitchener and spent a Saturday looking over available houses.  We made a conditional offer almost right away.  A few weeks before we were able to sell our house in Hamilton and move.  At this time, Sharon was on maternity leave.

I commuted for a few weeks.  Eric and his crew believed in long hours.  I took part in some of the hiring decisions. Helped set route boundaries, trained and supervised new district managers.

A lot of canvassing was involved before the first paper was printed.  In fact we set a record for the fastest growth of a newspaper in Ontario--10,000 new subscribers.  Eric and his assistant Dick Killen wanted to make a strong impression and rented a bus and took the whole team with their spouses to the CN Tower for dining.  One of Eric's favorite sayings was that "half a promotion budget was like flying half way across the Atlantic Ocean."

We worked long hours on average over 70 per week.  I remember Dick Killen feigning forgetfulness when I phoned him on a task and then said, "Oh, the part timer."  I felt I had a reason to work hard, but that they unnecessarily made the staff work too many hours.  They felt it bonded them

The newspaper as a whole seemed very innovative and the staff very enthusiastic.  They were definitely going to do a wonderful service for Waterloo county.

One impression Eric made on me and the other zone manager Bob Tanner was to take us both to a very nice restaurant, Charcoal Steak House.  Both Bob and I were planning to unload a lot of complaints, but before we could get started we were each handed a $100 bill and thanked for our contribution to the success of the sales campaign.

Although I started out as a zone manager my experience was discounted at first.  I came to appreciate that I had received better training than I likely would have gotten at a larger newspaper.  In the end on a couple of points it was conceded that I had the better idea (I am thinking of one promotion plus design of collection cards).

From my point of view we were progressing in the right direction, but unknown to me trouble was brewing.  The owners were in the construction business and felt they had been dealt unfairly by the Kitchener daily.  Somehow they were persuaded to put up some big money to start a rival newspaper and start hiring staff.

They didn't really understand the newspaper business and at first just went along with the advice of some who claimed expertise.  Unfortunately some took advantage and abused expenses.  When the owners caught on they were furious and started to distrust everyone.  They refused to pay bills and as a result we had to look for new truck rental company each week.  I learned that part of our strategy was to get free trials of new equipment.

My boss was distrusted.  Although Eric worked over 70 hours a week and was responsible for the tremendous growth he chose to sleep in on the one day of publication.  This was not acceptable to the owners and he was fired.  His assistant Dick Killan quit in protest.  After a retired American circulation man was brought in I was recommended to take over the head job.  The editor was fired.

Morale was terrible, we had trouble getting trucks and bundling equipment.  Before too long the owners had had enough, refusing to pay bills.  When I got my notice of the newspaper termination.  I had just taken off my first day after thirty straight days with no break and it was Valentine's Day. Actually I was asked to stay on to help collect from carrier bills.

At one point my pay was not given and I was advised to go to small claims court.  Although still consciously working for Newsday I was shocked to get a legal notice that disavowed not only all of my claims, but that I even worked for them.  Ironically I was asked to get as much of unpaid carrier invoices as possible.  Morale was also very bad amongst newspaper carriers, but I was able to persuade them to pay their obligations.  I was by this time looking for another job and taking off time for interviews and sending out resumes.  Nevertheless I collected much more money than the boss's daughter who had no experience and probably got more flak for abandoning the newspaper carriers.  I was able to use the collections as leverage to get my pay.

I found Dennis's name worked magic.  I got a call from Winnipeg and it turned out it was the result of a letter to Owen Sound where the circulation manager was a national president and he passed my letter around.  It turned out the Winnipeg manager knew Dennis and on his word approached me.  I was advised not to accept a lower level job as it would be very hard to work my way back up.

In the end I needed work; my daughter was just 1 and my wife was able to do some part time work for her old boss back in Burlington.  Dennis' word was strong enough that a new position was created for me at the Globe and Mail office in Hamilton.  I became a trouble shooter and found myself commuting back to Hamilton and then triangulating to handle Brantford until I was able to hire a manager.

They could not justify a salary so in effect they created a new district where I would get double commissions on half the number of carriers and have to collect them.  A lot of long days.

At about this time I was offered an interview with the Hamilton Spectator, literally just across a bridge from the local Globe office.  I took the interview and then was told I had to go for a test in Toronto.  I had taken the test before and had not gotten a job.  This time I had to weigh that my time was stretched between Kitchener, Brantford and Hamilton and I was expected to help train managers.  On top of all that I felt it would let Dennis down as I had only been on the job a short time.  I learned later that the test was considered a formality and I would have had the job.  My life would have been quite different, but not necessarily better.

Just before summer vacation the Globe had a tradition of sending selected managers into cottage country to help set up summer distribution, mostly through dealers. I ended up near Bancroft which was close to where I went to high school in Haliburton.   I was able to collect some money and start some new dealers.  I also uncovered some problems.  In an effort to boost their circulation figures the Globe often sent papers to places that were only open during the summer vacation causing a lot of hard feelings.  

The Globe seemed to feel that because they were such a good newspaper (no argument there) they could run roughshod over the circulation department.  I did not feel comfortable with some of their practices.  One example being when the head office felt they had a big story they automatically charged all carriers with a few extra papers expecting them to sell them.  A lot of resentful district managers swallowed the loss.  I decided that was not for me and quit after giving notice.  Dennis was right, I did learn a lot in a short time and it was not by any means all negative.  

Still a few more years of circulation "adventures" left, but this has been enough for one post.  At this point I felt I was confident of my abilities and had undergone a lot of very educational experience.  I found out that not everyone shared that viewpoint.  Read it here:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2012/08/my-career-in-circulation-part-3-winding.html

HITCH-HIKING MEMORIES

Hopefully my kids think this is another boring blog.

To give some perspective just before this past Christmas my company, OKD Marketing asked each of their employees to provide a secret to be used for a Christmas party. I chose to say that I had hitch-hiked 15,000 miles. Talking to one of the young organizers I had to clarify why I had used miles instead of kilometers. The government had started a conversion program when I was indulging in my hitch-hiking career and when I started making my calculations it was far easier to use miles. That dates me and to some extent dates hitch-hiking.

I can’t remember when I started hitch-hiking. I do recall friends (including Bob Stone) encouraging me and I could not have been older than 16 (I think a little younger). In the beginning most of it was going around and near my home town of Oshawa.

I became conscious of danger, but at the time it seemed distant and very unlikely. I have ridden in cars and trucks with hundreds of strangers and feel they all had benevolent intentions. What encouraged me to overlook the danger was FREEDOM.  No car, little money and a keen interest of what was on the other side of the fence seemed a lot more important.

My parents just before I was to enter grade 12 decided to move from the urban city of Oshawa to the rural area of Haliburton, about a two hour drive away. I decided to see my old friends. I also realized that my new friends lived a lengthy school bus ride away. Then I went to the University of Guelph and found new horizons.

Always alert to information I discovered one helpful tool was using a sign with my destination on it.

Going from Guelph to Oshawa or Haliburton meant going around Toronto. On one occasion I was stopped by the police and given a fine that certainly hurt.  I learned you are not allowed to hitch-hike on a controlled access highway.  I was able to use some of the ramp areas, but they greatly reduced the pool of possible drivers.

On a long weekend, I started out from the University and did fairly good until I got to Toronto where there was a traffic jam. Nobody wanted to stop, but finally I got a ride that at first unnerved me. It was a fellow I knew as a bully in Haliburton. He had gotten a job in Toronto and was going home for the weekend. It was an awkward time for me. There weren’t that many university students from my high school class and he was a high school drop out. However people change.

The scariest ride was with my younger brother Marshall when we both decided to visit friends in Oshawa from our home in Haliburton. We got picked up by a group of young men with the driver hitting over 100 miles per hour on many stretches.  Just naming the places doesn’t really give you a picture of how scary it really was. The rural roads for the first half of the trip are very curvy and hilly. Later I learned they were visiting a lawyer in Oshawa regarding a very serious auto accident.

In Haliburton the students and teachers come from a very wide area. One of the teachers offered me a summer job doing handy work. I ended up hitch-hiking most of the time in both directions, sometimes smelling of grass, splattered with paint or a few times with insulation fibres in my skin, but it was easy.

Hitching a ride in Haliburton I got picked up by a fellow from Hamilton who told me I lived in “God’s country.” He described a scene that sounded horrific and looking back I realize he was describing the inside of a steel mill and not the city itself.   Nonetheless it turned me off the idea of ever working or living (or even visiting) the city that I now live in and love. He was right though, Haliburton is “God’s country.”

A trip from Guelph to Haliburton again took me around Toronto.  Rides seemed to be short with long waits between. An unusual vehicle driving by was a truck pulling a house, obviously going very slow. It passed me several times before the driver stopped to offer a ride. He said he would have given me a ride earlier, but he felt I would get there faster with other drivers.

For a few trips I traveled from Guelph to North Bay and back.  For a few legs of the trips I used a train pass, paid for a bus ride and got a ride from a friend of a friend. He lived in St. Catharines and thought that Guelph Line was on the way to Guelph (only in a very indirect manner). I had no idea, but headed north. The irony being that not too many years later I drove the same exit to visit a girl friend (now my wife) and also more recently for my job. I was very lucky as one driver spotted my sign and realized I was way off course. He was driving about half the distance to go home, but decided he would visit his sister in Guelph. Lucky for me as otherwise I would have been totally lost.

An unusual trip for me was from North Bay to Haliburton. At Hunstville there is a cross over to a road going to Haliburton. It was very late and I thought for the first time I had better find a place to stay overnight. However I had very little money and no connections. I decided I would hitch-hike all night and if necessary sleep in a ditch. I got picked up by a fellow and got talking.  I had been a very big fan of the Oshawa Green Gaels (who won several national lacrosse titles) and talked about a lot of different players, some of whom I remembered had come from Huntsville.  It turned out one of the players I talked about was the driver. He asked me how much money I had and then took me to a boarding house and talked the landlady into letting me stay overnight (she actually kicked her husband out of a bed). I think my lacrosse playing driver may have sweetened the offer, because I only paid $3.00 for my overnite stay in Dwight.

The next morning was another memorable one for me. A fellow and his wife were up from Windsor as he had heard the fall colours were very spectacular. They certainly were on that day and he stopped beside the road and asked me if I minded if it he took a photo of his wife with my sign against some of the trees and fallen leaves. He said he was “high on fall colours.” I had barely noticed fall colours before but with his enthusiasm I have since appreciated them a lot more, especially since I don’t get to see them as often in such a spectacular fashion.

Out of university looking for a job. On one of my trips someone suggested a particular line of work that I had never thought of before.  Based on the enthusiastic suggestion I applied to agencies all over Ontario. I got a response from one in Belleville who was interested to interview me. An almost totally new route for me that took me a couple of hours to do. I didn’t get that job, but it did help me understand better what was expected and I got hired for a similar job a few weeks later.

You meet a wide variety of people hitch-hiking and hear a lot of different stories. One I remember was one fellow who had discovered Greek music (he wasn’t Greek) and had me listen to a lot of it. It didn’t bore me at all and in fact was just another example of opening a door.

My first visit to Kitchener was done by hitch-hiking. On a Saturday with a friend we hitch-hiked for no particular reason except looking for something different.  I was impressed enough that later I sought out a job in Kitchener.

I hitch-hiked in all kinds of weather. Sometimes hot and sweaty, sometimes rainy. The worst I remember was winter weather, cold and snowy. I have spent hours in that kind of weather. To keep myself going I would keep saying my ride had just left and would be by within a short time. Eventually I did get a ride and sometimes some people felt it was a merciful thing to do in such weather. I learned later on that bad weather is not always a bad thing.  

While at university I saw a movie that involved young people hitch-hiking across Europe and had the line that if I ever get a car I will never pass a hitch-hiker. I kept my word for a few years, but eventually fear became a factor. A job, a wife and kids all made me look at the matter a little differently. Also "In Cold Blood" left a strong impression.

I regret that today it is not always advisable to trust people to do the right thing. There is nothing wrong with hitch-hiking. I am happy to help out others and am very grateful that so many people helped me and gave a lot of interesting experiences and truly enriched my life.