Those of my many, many readers who are also actual personal friends of mine, or who follow me on Facebook, will know that I recently got a job in the advertising industry. I use ambulatory technology to ensure the delivery of high-quality marketing presentations direct to the consumer. In other words, I deliver junk mail.
It doesn't pay much, but at the moment every little bit helps. I see it as a way to get paid for doing exercise. A few things have come to my notice since I started doing it, and I'd like to talk about them for a moment.
The main thing I've noticed is that some people really don't like getting junk mail. I've noticed that there are several strategies that people employ to avoid getting junk mail, but there is one effective strategy that I will recommend to all my readers - those in the local area, anyway.
Get a "No Junk Mail" label for your letterbox. You can get one for under ten dollars at the hardware store.
Now, I'm not the only person who delivers junk mail in my area, but the contract that I operate under requires me to honour these labels. And it doesn't matter if you don't want to fork out the cash for one - you can just write it on in sharpie if you like, and I'll walk straight past your place without stopping. I'm required to - it's part of my contract. I don't know for certain, but the other person who delivers in my area also does not appear to put junk mail into boxes with a label, so it looks like it's pretty universal - in the areas that are covered by either company, at least. I can't speak for any other jurisdictions. For that reason what I say here probably isn't applicable in other countries. For my American readers - there are so many of them - all this is probably just a curiosity.
The simple "No Junk Mail" sign is the best, but there are other styles of label. Some say "Postmarked mail only", or "Australia Post Mail Only" or "No Circulars" and these are all fine. Quite a few people seem to have ones that say "No advertising material accepted", and I think that's hilarious. No, you don't get to say whether you will "accept" it, unless you happen to be out on the street during the time that I happen to be walking past your place. If I want to put advertising material in your letterbox, you are going to "accept" it. Of course, I won't, because these labels are just the same as the regular "No Junk Mail" labels and I am obliged by my contract to honour them.
Then there are the people who literally tape up their mailboxes. As in, cover the slot with duct tape. That's fine - my contract also states that if it's physically impossible for me to put junk mail into the mailbox, I am obliged not to. It seems a bit... I don't know... excessive, though. A bit over-the-top, if you will.
There's even one place on my run that not only has tape over the slot, but it has a BIG sign - much larger than any other label I've seen, that says "NO MAIL NO JUNK MAIL PHONE 13xxxx". Um, okay, sure. You don't want it, you don't have to get it, but I'm not sure what the phone number is there for. The fact that it's a 13 number indicates that it's something that extends over multiple regions. I don't know - is there an Organisation for No Mail somewhere that I don't know about? Some day I might phone that number just to see what it's all about. Do I phone it to find out the reason this person doesn't want mail? I don't care. You don't want it, I won't deliver it. Weird.
Some people just seem to leave the junk mail in their letterbox to rot. Granted, some of those people might have been on holidays for the last month and a half (holiday season and all), and haven't been home to collect it, but most of these places still have cars in the driveway. That's cool - clogging your letterbox with half-rotted old paper works as a technique for getting me to not put more in. But you might want to do something about that at some point.
So here's what putting a "No Junk Mail" sticker on your letterbox will do: It will cause me to walk straight past your place without giving you any junk mail. Here's what it won't do: Save the planet.
These catalogues are getting printed regardless of whether you want me to deliver one to you or not. One catalogue per house in the region, probably rounded up to the nearest hundred. If some houses don't receive a catalogue, those catalogues are left over and I return them to the distributor, who presumably recycles them. Do this because you don't want me to give you junk mail. Do something else to save the planet.
I understand and appreciate that some people don't want junk mail. I really do. And if you don't want junk mail, all you have to do is ask. A majority of labels that people have are super cool - "No Junk Mail - Thanks!" Some are a little passive-aggressive. A few seem a touch rude. If you don't want junk mail, just get one of those labels, display it prominently so that it's visible from the road, and you never have to worry about me delivering it to you.
