The fake paperboy
We have a weekend subscription on one of the local papers here but each Saturday and Sunday the door bell rings – a boy wants to sell two other newspapers. Its a common thing and we’ve gladly bought a paper or two. The boy pops up like a clockwork but sometimes another boy showed up. It made us a bit curious.
One day we learned that the boy we buy papers from is not the owner of this route! He visit just us because we’re always buying from him! He makes sure to go out before the “real” one takes the route. The other boy that pops up once in a while is the real paperboy for this route.
Now we’ve stopped buying from the fake one but we don’t have the guts telling him why.. We’re chickens. And we don’t want to call the newspaper sales department because we don’t want to give the kid any trouble..
(irony)Oh the huge problems we have in this life… (/irony)
I think I’d rather buy off the ‘fake’ one. Someone with that entrepreneurial spirit deserves the custom.
It is good that you have not said anything to the newspaper, nor the actual paperboy, about the other one, but you really should at least tell him why you have stopped buying the paper from him. For he has been, in effect, stealing from the actual paperboy, and as long as he thinks that it doesn’t matter, he may move on to bigger things, such as stealing contracts and securities, which could be devastating to many.