It's been almost four months since I officially retired at age 70. I don't think I was home for three days and I was out looking for a part time job to keep me busy and supplement my income from Social security. I found what I thought was the perfect thing for me to do; Deliver newspapers. Since I am an early riser in the mornings, getting up at 2:30am would be no problem.
They gave me three days of on the route training, which was a big farce. Total darkness and zigzagging up and down the streets not seeing the house numbers at all; Then I was on my own.The next day I picked up my 300 papers and started out. Thought I was doing pretty good, I had only tripped on cracks in the sidewalk twice and was pretty sure I hadn't missed any houses.
I finally finished the route 3 1/2hrs. late with 17 papers left over. I had no idea who I had missed so I just discarded them and waited for a call to redeliver the missed ones. The next morning there was a note in my bundle of papers that 17 houses were missed and their house numbers.
I did not have to re-deliver the papers, just a reminder to check each house off the route roster as I deliver the paper. There was no sequential order to the roster of house numbers. So as I checked off each house and drove to the next it took a lot longer to deliver the papers. I was supposed to have all of the papers done by 6:30am and at 9:00am I still had 45 papers to go. As the week went by I continued learning the route and being late along with a few missed papers.
Monday morning the next week I was called into the office for some additional training and route changes. I had complained about the route having no order to the main and side streets which coordinated with the house numbers. After a short discussion and some training, they printed me a directional map with the house numbers in numerical order.
I thought now I can finally do my job and start making some money. Things actually started going along pretty smooth; I was getting the papers delivered on time and had only a few changes in subscriptions. I noticed I was filling up with gas every week; and with gas at $4.00 a gallon it was eating up all of my profit. Then at the end of the month when I received my statement and figured up my expenses, I was earning $2.05 an hr. (Shock )
It didn't take long for me to decide to give the route up. With winter coming on and plowing through the snow this was not for me.
I want to stay busy and active in some kind of Part time employment for seniors. So now I am in search of a new occupation to learn.
Part of keeping fit in the golden years is staying active whether it's doing manual labor, or belonging to a fitness club and exercising.
A good fitness site that I have found that you can use in your home is thefitnesswiz.com
