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A Deets reader in Massachusetts sent in this excellent story about his experiences delivering phone books over two days for Verizon. Two days he wishes he could have back.
My favorite: Verizon’s delivery list telling him to delivery 90 phone books to a Verizon server farm: “Why do servers need phone books?”
Dear Mr. Kohler,
I came across your blog about Verizon and phone book delivery problem. On 12/29,30 I spent the 8+ hours trying to make “easy money” supposedly. I live in MA in the home town of Mitt Romney, Belmont MA, yeah not cool.
I worked for 8+ hours sorting, throwing ,driving, and more. First sign of futility , businesses need to sign when they get all 3 phone books supposedly. Businesses in town were too busy, didn’t want them, know English, thought they had to pay for phone book, care, and signed with a comment of “this is ridiculous”. Yes it is!
Signing for a damn book you will never use. Some did not even have Verizon as a carrier, so why do they need it.
People on the route legitimately ran out of their house giving them back to us! One guy said he has called Verizon 4 times screaming at them about this and they keep coming back. I was dude no problem.
In the beginning I tried to care about where I threw this phone books but at the end of all the stupidity I just threw them.
I did every single house/ business on the route 546 to be exact and had so many extra. WOW what a surprise no one wants an out of date phone book. The people were questioning that I exactly did it. They made a huge deal about it too. I could have been like anyone else and throw them in a dumpster without any care but I thought about recycling and reusing. Is that a bad thing?
Side point in the office they were using windows 98 on an ancient laptop obvious the digital revolution has not struck them yet.
The kicker was when on the list was a server farm that Verizon exactly OWNED and was supposed to received 30 bundles or 90 books total. There was a dude outside who said “why do servers need phone books?” Hmmm.
Oh another great green environment practice is putting every book into a plastic bag. More waste.
So having finished the great task and trying to earn quick cash to go snowboarding in VT, I don’t have my money. The lousy $120 split 2 ways without the gas, insurance, labor, headaches. The dumbass people think I did not do the route even as I explain the flaws in this system. They need to check it and make sure. Ok!
What started off as a why to go boarding ended up in a headache and a killer to the environment.
Thanks Verizon, Idearc ,and Whoever else!
Thanks for the sordid tale. I feel bad for the local businesses in Belmont, MA who paid for Verizon to delivery phone books to servers, people who didn’t want the, people who think they’re ridiculous, etc.
Verizon is not helping but hurting businesses in Belmont, MA when they behave like this.
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Ah. I miss windows 98
[...] person accounts from people who say they’ve called every year for four years, delivery people admitting that they ignore the lists, yellow pages companies littering boarded up properties with their spam, and a clear case of a [...]
if i’m in the drivers place i’ll stick these stupid books in a dumpster.
i would like to knowq when the phone books deliverry that starts in muskegon michigan we had done it befoer and would like to do it again this year. thank u
when are they going to start the routes for verzion phone books for melbourne FLA,
please email me atsherie899@yahoo.com
I actually did this job, and it was indeed pretty awful. I managad to make out ok though, but only by being smart and digging through the pile of routes until I found an “easy money” one. The vast majority of the routes will earn you peanuts and wear you out, but a few of them aren’t too bad. I think I ended up making $10 an hour or so.
This blog will tell you all the tips you need to know if you are thinking about taking a job delivering phone books.
http://phonebookdelivery.blogspot.com/
You people dont seem to understand anything except your own pitiful little lives. Why are you so obsessed with phone books? If you dont want it then recycle it. How hard is that. Instead you want to put 1000’s of people out of work. Nice.
Would like to know when distribution of the Verizon phone book is scheduled for the Harrisburg,PA area? Did last year and would like to do again Thanks
I think in this case the problem lies with Directory Distribution Associates, also known as DDA. They are the sole delivery company in New England for Verizon. And Verizon has to take some responsibility here too as they let DDA run an anemic operation which in its strive to get the business from Verizon bids extremely low.
I am an insider and can tell you DDA is a terrible company. They pay at the top and trickle down money to the carriers. They load up the delivery with all kinds of useless staff and pay high salaries to the managers. They then pay peanuts to the deliver people(carriers).
DDA continues to allow inner office politics and favoritism which leads to a weird and stressful atmosphere. They have had several people die of heart attacks on the job which doesn’t surprise me as the managers know how poorly the approved tactics they use on carriers is.
Their tactics are so restrictive carriers in some cases have no choice but to do weird things such as throw away books and dump large quantities on the poor businesses. One such fellow filled up his apartment with books left over from jobs because he was scared to bring back extra books. He was fired and the incident swept under.
This can be a decent form of extra income or in some cases a full income but DDA has turned it into a string along type of operation which preys on people who need money today.
And you managers know what I am talking about Mary, David(deceased) and Judy. You have been pulling this crap for decades.
Does anyone know when they will be in michigan and where they will be? Last year I did the flint area and want to do it again.
Thank you