Larry Faichuk, the News's longtime circulation manager and family member for 50 years, retired Friday at 64 years old.--NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
If you didn’t get a paper his morning, don’t call Larry Faichuk… unless he’s your neighbour.
The News’s long-serving circulation district manager, who’s taken calls, managed routes and delivery accounts for the last 50 years, retired on Friday.
Faichuk will still handle his own delivery route – his own block came open a few years ago – but at age 64, he says it’s time to retire from the only company for which he’s ever worked.
It started with his own paper route in Riverside in 1971, then as a jack-of-all-trades in the mailroom and sometimes flyboy on the press when it was in the former Empress Theatre downtown.
By 1978 he became a district manager, managing a battalion of school-aged careers and fleet of delivery trucks to get out the afternoon edition.
Since then, he’s become so well known to subscribers that he often fielded calls at home on Saturdays, doing his best to get errant editions to the right address on personal time.
“The secret of customer service it that you should treat people as you like to be treated,” said Faichuk. “People are so, so happy when they see someone go out of their way to help them.
“That’s important these days.”
What else is important, he adds, is the power of the News to connect people and the community. That’s especially so during the last year when he helped guide the circulation department through the pandemic and the paper itself without missing a single issue.
“A lot of people still rely on the paper, and when it’s not there, they miss it,” he said. “It’s the only outside connection for a lot of folks.”
He also makes fast friends on the phone or at the front desk, renewing subscriptions for longtime acquaintances, or those new to town seeking copies of Alberta News Group’s rural weekly papers.
Faichuk admits he’ll miss the chance to wise-crack at the office, or tackle ever-changing myriad mishaps that are unavoidable when getting 10,000 papers to 10,000 addresses five or six times each week.
“Every day it’s something different,” he said, explaining how to stay engaged over 50 years. But, he adds, 4 a.m. phone calls to find a missing bundle or fill in for a sick driver, won’t be missed.
“I’ve started more woodworking projects than I’ve finished,” he said of retirement.
“I’m not a coffee drinker, so I’ll have to find something to do.”
The job has changed during a career spanning six different decades.
Time once spent teaching kid-carriers how to fill out a collection book, is now used to confirm credit card expiry dates.
The carrier base changed dramatically after the News became a morning paper in 1996.
Instead of after-school jobs, more retirees and early risers took on longer routes that required cars.
“When I started we had stacks of binders full of applications and only so many routes,” he said. “It was the only money a 10- or 12-year-old could earn, and they’d hang onto those jobs,”
In case you were wondering, Faichuk swears that most of what he deals with is not lost or late papers, but service calls, renewing subscriptions, or people wanting flyer packs.
“Sometimes they say a missed paper can wait, but flyers?” he said. “They want them right away.”
