(I'm sure this has a lot of editing to go through)
If you are looking to be a route driver, please send an e-mail to [email protected].

How your newspaper gets to your house:

A Independent Agent Hires route drivers.
The Route driver comes to a Distribution Center between 2:00am - 4:30am.
The Route driver then inserts the 2+ parts into a bag.
Then, the papers go into the car, which in turn go to the houses.
All routes have a beginning and an end, and in My area, each route consists of 1-2 hours of throwing time.
Therefore, if the driver begins at 4:30, he/she will probabally not throw the last paper untill 5:30 -6:30am.
Local delivery times are 5:30 during the week, and 7:00 on Sunday.
(Sunday's consist of more, see below)

How route drivers get paid: (un-verified)

A route driver will make between $120 - $250 a week to deliver newspapers.
This price is based on $0.90 cents per gallon of gas.
$0.25 cents per mile driven (20-90 miles average route)
$0.07 cents daily and $0.20 cents for sunday delivery.
$0.03 cents for inserting an extra part.

How the sunday paper is made and delivered to homes:

Sunday NewsPapers consist of 6-7 parts.  These parts are delivered on Thursday and Friday to the Distribution center.
On Friday Night, "stuffers" will come to the distribution center and put the parts together, they get paid $0.01 cents per part, and most stuffers put together between 500-1000 Sunday Parts.
Once the parts are stuffed, the route drivers take over.  Sunday morning, the Chicago tribune Delivery truck is supposed to come in at 3:30 ... usually, they arrive between 4:00am and 4:30am.
The parts are then unloaded and the drivers stuff the Business with the Main section into the bag along with the part that was put together on Friday night.
Then, they are loaded into their cars, and delivered to the customers.
An average Sunday route consists of 200-300 Sunday papers.  Each paper weighing an average of 7lbs.
Bagging times vary on the person, but usually to bag 250 papers, it takes at least an hour.
So, the Sunday paper starts to hit the street between 5:00am and 6:00am!
On Sunday, to deliver 250 Papers, the normal driver must make 2 trips to the distribution center.
This means, that the first paper is delivered at 5:00 and the last paper gets thrown between 7:00am and 8:00am.
The Tribune allotted time is 7:00am for Sunday which most of the time is quite impossible to meet.  If the paper is not in the customers driveway by 9:00am on Sunday, It should be assumed that you were missed (see below).

How complaints are handled:

The customer calls the tribune (1-800-TRIBUNE) and then in turn, the tribune Pages the Agent.
The agent receives the complaint and has 1 hour to get the paper to the customer. (on Sunday it may take a little longer)
The agent stops delivering complaints at 10:30am Mon-Sat, and at 11:00am on Sunday.   After that, you can request a credit to your account.
If you do request a credit to your account, the Agent will not deliver you another paper that day.