Lessons from my Paper Route
Why Routine Matters More Than the Paper
My first real job wasn’t glamorous. I was a paperboy. And I’m about to date myself, because this was back when delivering newspapers meant more than dropping them on driveways.
You had to go door to door and ask new residents if they wanted the paper. At the end of every month, you’d go back and collect in person. That meant knocking, getting feedback, hearing complaints, and if you were lucky, earning a tip.
Every morning, I was up before daylight. Sometimes I had to assemble the sections, especially on Sundays. My job was to have every paper delivered by 6:30 AM, or by 7:00 on Sundays when they were twice as thick. To this day, I still have a dream once a year where I’ve overslept and missed my route.
My delivery area was a big circle. And right in the middle of it lived my hardest customer.
He wanted his paper at 6:00 AM. Not around 6. Not early in the morning. Six o’clock sharp.
The route took about 30 minutes, so he usually got his paper around 6:15. I didn’t think that was a disaster. He did.
And so did my paper route manager, Bob.
Bob drove a Chevy Chevette, which even at that age I knew wasn’t exactly a power move. One day, after hearing another complaint from Mr. Gumpypants about his “late” delivery, Bob pulled me aside and said something I’ll never forget:
“It’s not about the 25 cent paper. It’s about his routine.”
That was it. No lecture. No punishment. Just a reminder that the paper wasn’t the product. The timing was.
The Lesson I Didn’t See Coming
At the time, I thought I was doing my job just fine. But for that customer, the paper wasn’t news. It was ritual. It went with his coffee, his chair, his morning rhythm. When it showed up at 6:15, even if it had all the same words and ink, it was already late to his day.
That lesson has stuck with me for years, especially working in hospitality and service-focused environments. Satisfaction is rarely about the thing itself. It’s about whether it shows up when, where, and how someone expects it.
This Applies Everywhere
In hospitality and member-based environments, I’ve seen this play out over and over:
A member walks into the fitness center at their usual time and can’t complete their workout in the order they prefer because equipment is unavailable. To them, the experience is already off, even if everything is technically open.
A golfer goes to book a tee time at their normal hour and can’t get it. It doesn’t matter that there are other times available — the routine was disrupted.
A locker room towel delivered two minutes late feels more inconvenient than a brand-new amenity added a month earlier.
A club newsletter sent on the wrong day feels less reliable, even if the content is better.
This all ties back to the value we think we offer versus the value people believe they are paying for. Members at clubs and customers in any business don’t just pay for access. They pay to get what they want, when they want it, where they want it, and how they expect it.
People don’t build loyalty around features. They build it around predictability.
Routine Is Emotional, Not Practical
Most leaders assume inconvenience is about delay or cost. It’s not. Disruption of routine feels personal. It throws off rhythm. It communicates, “You didn’t think about me.”
That paper wasn’t worth a quarter. It was worth the feeling of starting the morning the right way.
And the same is true today in workplaces, clubs, households, and teams. We think we’re delivering a service. Often, we’re delivering stability.
Your Turn
I’m convinced a lot of who we become starts with jobs like that. The ones with cold mornings, cranky customers, and small stakes that turned out to be big lessons.
What was one of your early jobs, and what did it teach you about people, service, or responsibility?
I’d love to hear it.
