Tuesday, May 28, 2019

The Newspaper Vendor Mafia

I like my newspaper to come in at 7 am. This is something I specifically ask of the vendor and they normally humour me. When they do not deliver on time, I seek an alternate vendor who can comply. Things were smooth with a couple of vendors being changed over the years for some reason or the other.

My current vendor is a pesky one. He is not always sharp in following my instructions. The one time when I had a problem with him and tried to change the vendor he somehow came back - perhaps he had a chat with the other guy and sorted things out.

Now once again he started messing up delivery. After a few attempts to call him I asked another vendor to deliver the paper. He agreed. The next day morning we had a grand spectacle of the old vendor threatening the new one and the new one making off without delivering the newspaper. I was livid. How could this guy force himself on me like this?

I asked my friend who works in The Hindu if he could find me another vendor. Turns out that this vendor of mine had 'bought' off delivery to all the houses in our row of the colony and no one else had the rights to do it. Which means I either buy it from him, however lousy his service, or go without a paper. I told them that I cannot subscribe to this kind of a blackmail. I would rather go without a paper if need be.

The Hindu's team spoke and negotiated with the guy and finally got the other fellow who had delivered one paper to me to continue with the delivery. Who'd think that so much lay beneath the simple newspaper delivery story? Newsworthy!

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