Tag Archives: newspaper

21/01/2015
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Advice

“Jaw With John” – Puzzling Situation Is Trivial

“I work at a city department with about 20 employees. Our office receives two different newspapers every day and they are put in our lunch/break room for the staff to share. Recently someone has been taking the page with the crossword puzzle and not allowing others to enjoy it.

The problem is that other daily printings are located on the same page and I love reading them daily.

What is the proper protocol for communal newspapers? Should any one person fill out the crossword puzzles or take portions of the paper out of the break room? — Puzzled Reader”

Dear Puzzled:

As someone who does the crossword attempts the crossword every morning I feel your pain. As someone who is just reading this as is, I am left thinking that the communal newspapers are first-come-first-served. This is spilled milk you’re crying over here, in all honesty. It’s a puzzle. Your “outrage” is similar to how I can feel when I sit down in an airplane, open their in-flight magazine, and find the crossword has already been done. Then again, I always bring a crossword puzzle book with me in case that happens.

I am sure that you can find the daily puzzle and the other articles online and print it out OR you can help save a dying industry (print media) and subscribe to the paper yourself! It really sounds like it’s just you who is bothered by the disappearing puzzle. If it annoys you that you can’t do the puzzle or read the articles, then you can photocopy the crossword page as soon as the paper arrives and have at it.

 

 

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03/01/2015
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Advice

“Jaw With John” – Paper Purloiner Has No Shame

“My husband and I have the newspaper delivered to our condo building each day, but we have noticed that if we don’t retrieve it from the lobby by about 8:30 a.m., it’s already gone.

We think that other condo owners take our paper. It would be annoying under any circumstance, but in this high-end building, all the unit owners are well heeled and can easily afford their own subscription.

It seems the height of pettiness to pinch someone else’s paper, and I would like to bring it up at a board meeting in a respectful way (just stating that we notice our paper is gone before we get to it, does anyone know why, does anyone else have the problem, and so on) but my husband says doing so won’t change anyone’s behavior; they will do what they will do.

I say that it’s a cop-out not to call this to the attention of the condo owners in the hope that the possible culprit/culprits may feel at least a little ashamed, whether they stop doing it or not. What is your take on this? — Miffed”

Dear Miffed:

This is just not cool. Straight up. Here’s what you should do, before you go to the condo board meeting, have a stake out! Watch your paper for a few days in a row and see who is taking it. Then a few days down the line, when the thief shows up to take the paper again, BOOM you caught ’em in the act! They’ll deny it but then you can provide evidence countering their argument. You can then take that to the condo board if they don’t fess up – essentially blackmail – but at this point you are beyond half measures. It’s time for full measures.

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