The New York Times 'Shortage'

Every Sunday, I like to buy the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Rather than subscribe for their weekend package, I buy my copy from Borders, usually after the church service.

This past Sunday, I missed church as I was not feeling well. When I left home later in the afternoon, I completely forgot to buy a copy. And it was not until this morning when I remembered.

My first instinct was to call Borders and hope that they still had some of yesterday's copies. The associate told me that unsold copies are usually sent back to the publisher at the end of the day. And then I made a call to Starbucks. Here it was a different story. They normally trash any unsold papers at the end of the day.

You would think that with The NY Times hemorrhaging, they would at least have their Sunday paper in the stands for a bit longer. Personally, I view the Sunday paper as a magazine and I usually read it during the week rather than on Sunday.

Sometimes I think businesses should put themselves in the shoes of their customers. Instead they prefer to force customers to conform to their practices.

And this is not the first time I have witnessed such folly from newspapers. The day after Obama was elected president, I could not find a single copy of The New York Times. I drove all over town in search of the day's daily and every single book stand had run out most of the newspapers. I mean, who didn't know that there would be a huge demand for newspapers. And you can be sure, the shortage occurred the day after Obama's inauguration.

With such incidences, it doesn't surprise me that the newspaper industry is begging the government for a bailout.