My Upper Body Fitness Regimen

 
As long as I have this job at the paper I'll have no trouble keeping my upper body in shape.

Here are a few bundles of today's paper. The one on the bottom left is a standard one of 50 papers. Admittedly, they were a little heavier than usual today. A mere 22+ pounds. I was thinking 25 because they felt like shifty anchors, so I weighed one and it was disappointingly almost three pounds less than that.



With a run of 9000+ papers, that's 9000/50=180 bundles. 180x22=3960 pounds. 3960/2000=1.98 tons. That's tons of paper folks. And that's just Ludington Daily News (LDN).

I also did a packet for Freeway before that, and then we did Freeway in the afternoon (both much lighter, but still the bundles all had to be picked up. Tonight we do White Lake Shopper, White Lake Beacon (also a heavy one, but a shorter run), and then we do Saturday's LDN. Saturday's LDN is usually around 18 pound bundles with 25 in a bundle. So that's 9000/25x18/2000=another 3.2 tons of paper (plus the first two runs) tonight.

Also today, I began training Michelle how to do the bundling. Someone shot a picture of us. Usually, I'm on the right, where Michelle is in the picture. For part of the Freeway run we swapped so she could start the learning process.



At least Freeway was a wimpy size today, so that was a nice break after the heavy LDN. She got to pull them off the belt and straighten them.





Then she passed them on to me, and I strapped them and put the bundles in tubs or on the dock... wherever their correct destination. She was nervous, but did fine for her first time at this more responsible task. There's a lot to keep track of. The bundler has to count, keep track of what inserts are being run (we color code the runs) and stop the line when it's time to switch things on and off. The bundler has to straighten messy piles, pull out and replace ones that didn't open or are ripped or just too big a mess. The bundler has to spot check to make sure the stacker is counting right, and do a bunch of pre and post-run paperwork. The bundler and strapper both watch the feeder for jams, and the stacker for dumping errors.

Easy-peasy for me to just strap and distribute for a change! Michelle was really nervous but she did great for her first time.

Do you wonder why we girls of the mailroom are a tough bunch?

Need to make my coffee and get ready to go wrestle a few tons of paper.

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