A kind, graceful way to get fired

 In the olden days, paperboys delivered the day’s edition right to your door or driveway in many towns. Before newspapers were dropped off in mailboxes, young carriers used to ride bicycles, artfully tossing heavy missiles of paper and ink onto front porches.

 

As a paperboy in the 1950s, sometimes I missed the porch and broke a window. People were understanding and didn’t cancel. How could they, when the newspaper was one of the few sources of news?

 

In El Cerrito, Calif., I had 25 customers for the Oakland Tribune. After school and on Sunday mornings, the guys would assemble at a converted garage to get our newspapers, fold them and get a pep talk (or brow beating) from the district manager.

 

As a 12-year-old, it was an exciting challenge, to get the papers delivered on time, collect money at the door like a grown-up and try to sign up new subscribers. We weren’t employees, we were independent contractors. Wow! (That meant the publisher was free from child labor laws and didn’t have to pay overtime.) They should have hired girls, too, but they wouldn’t.

 

When we moved, I dropped my route, but I started another years later as a junior in high school—a big one with 40 customers and a broader territory with a lot of hills. I wasn’t doing it for the challenge—only the money to buy records and other essentials. When I suddenly remembered missing someone’s house, I would just figure: “Aw, who cares?” and forget it.

 

One day when the manager, Al, saw me, he said, “Mike, you have had another complaint. This does not look good on my books. I don’t know what we are going to do. I want you to think about whether you really want this job and tell me next time we are here.”

 

I thought about it, and the next day when he came by, I said, “OK, I will quit my route.” And he seemed mighty pleased.

 

Looking back, I think that was such a kind, gentle way to get fired. He could have just given me the axe and demolished my teenage ego. I don’t know what he would have done if I wanted to keep the job.

 

Fifty years later, I was confronted with a part-time contract employee for the Kiplinger California Letter who wasn’t pulling his weight. As my Los Angeles correspondent, he told me, “Not much is going on.” What? Nothing is happening in the nation’s second largest city? O.J. Simpson, Charles Manson and Rodney King live somewhere else? My reporter didn’t really need the money—he was an experienced media professional who had just lost interest.

 

“Why don’t you tell me if you really want to do this. Think it over and then let me know,” I told him. He finally quit. No hard feelings. No damaged ego, I think.

 

Al, my old newspaper manager, did a good deed for me, and I passed it on. 

 

Thanks, Al!