The US post office says the number one carrier injury is from falling and the number one enemy are dogs. Almost every household has a dog, (or two or three) but usually a lonely dog barking once a day. As I approached the porch a wild tearing at the curtains and windows made me wonder if the glass was thick enough to contain them. There were a few things that made me laugh in my 3 1/2 month stint delivering mail for the postal service, usually something a customer posted on their doorstep or in their window. But mostly I stormed around looking for mailboxes and addresses, sometimes shouting, "hey people, where IS your address!" or "why must you hide your mailbox!!"
It was of course terrifying if the dog didn't bark at all, but showed itself stealthily approaching from the side yard. One time I opened a gate and walked around to the side of the house to deliver a package. The door was open and as I put the package on the inside of the doorway, I noticed a little terrier lying on the floor about 3 feet from me. It took one look at me and I knew I had to exit but slowly, as I got out of it's sight, I ran for the gate just in time to save my ass from being chomped. Those gated yards are treacherous. Sometimes I could sneak in quietly without being detected, "ha, you didn't hear me."
The job was so Zen. All day long looking at little tiny numbers, and I mean tiny. Sometimes as with magazines the numbers were behind plastic or printed upside down, or sideways or the mail was completely out of sequence or for a different city. Look at the envelopes, look at the flats, look at the packages, look at the advertisements, all small numbers all day long, and all looking sideways.
Mobile home parks were the absolute worst: what order is there to them, there is none. The numbers are going along, but not starting with 1, they can start with 63 and then go to 101, then 87 OMG I was tearing my hair out. Did I mention when I was in training, I rarely got the same route two days in a row, so of course I didn't get to memorize routes, I was always trying to keep on track.
The bosses were such bitches, yes two women, one a super and the other the post master. It was their job to make my life hell, hurry hurry, gawd you would have thought a letter was the most important thing on the planet. "The Sanctity of the Mail". This was one of my mantra's while working there. I really like how mail is treated like sanctity. I know if I mail a letter, it's going to get to where it's addressed. The other mantra I heard everyday in the post office was, "It makes no sense. !!" Usually referring to how the postal service is run.
You know, being a kind employer can heighten the vibration of the planet. Yes, that's right, making a point of being respectful of each employee can completely alter life here on planet earth; as well as employees being helpful with each other. But the mood is set by the post master and the supervisor. So many times I saw how a kind word of encouragement could have helped me, especially since I have a preponderance for revolting when mistreated. When receiving an evaluation from the post master, I received an "unsatisfactory" in attendance because I contracted a severe cold and stayed out for two days. Prior to this, every time they needed extra help I came in on my days off, my willingness to be a "team player" was evident. prrrumph! This "no-flex" by the post master was hurtful. Another troubling, almost repulsive thing, was that everything was disgustingly dirty, including me when I was finished with the day. Think about it, ink on everything.
I never noticed postal carriers looking dirty before, but we are, and so are the trucks and bins and baskets. They do clean the floors and the bathrooms and of course the public areas. The public is keen on postal workers; I loved being accepted everywhere. Not only are we accepted, we are trusted and have credibility. Pretty much everyone greeted me with uplifting energy. The women my age perked up when they saw a wrinkled skin older woman in a postal service uniform delivering mail. Many asked about employment, I encouraged them to apply. I encouraged many folks to make this a career. In fact, all the people in training with me, had ALL had previous professional careers. These people's white collar jobs became "dead-ended." They wanted to be part of a business that had extensive possibilites for expansion. The USPS is the second largest employer in the U.S. Another perk that is totally helpful on the job, I could pretty much park my rig anywhere and not be questioned, not even by police.
While we are visible in public, we can be targets for people's general agitation. This takes some detaching with deep breathing to not engage when confronted. I did get chewed out a few times by disgruntled customers. A woman was upset when her tax returns arrived from her accountant in a large unsealed envelope, "the contents could have fallen out!!" "Yes they could have, I am so sorry." "That could have been awful for me." "Yes." I say. She, getting more angry, realizing the potential horror of missing tax forms....... I didn't engage, but it didn't exactly "make my day" either.
I decided to try Postal work, trading off a life-time career of painting houses. I truly thought delivering mail would be easier. There's a few things that made delivering mail rough. The fumes from the mail truck were awful, designers hear my plea: " please have the tail pipe exhaust fumes exit on the opposite side of our door". The sliding door wracked my shoulder and arm, over and over and over all day long. The leverage place for closing the door is behind the shoulder, putting unnecessary strain there. AND every time I exited the vehicle to place post in a box, the first metal I touched "shocked" me.
I am pretty much a painting detail perfectionist; but the Zen of reading the detailed numbers ALL day long was a killer. Being 67 on the job, I had to wear glasses to see the little numbers. Walking with reading glasses didn't really work. If I for one second, lost my attention span, I would put the wrong mail in a box. Some of those "boxes" were not retrievable, such as slots in a garage or house door. Then I would have to write a note and leave it in the "wrong box" asking them to please deliver the mail to their neighbor. Sometimes street names would confuse my brain, like the "Jewel Box" neighborhood, Jade, Garnet, Diamond, Jewel, Opal, Topaz, and Crystal. I cannot explain it, but I would get Jewel and Topaz mixed up, just a weird brain-wire crossing. I had to concentrate intently on this route. AND of course I wiped out someones fencepost one day. The front bumper on the vehicles stick out about a foot, and can easily get caught on "things". The post office does not like accidents of any sort. Each Post Office wants a clean slate, it's like a competition. "WE are accident free!"
And then there are the children. WHAT Children? we are trained that children love to run up to our trucks and play hide and seek around them. There are mirrors to see the front of our rig, in case a child is playing there. There are so many mirrors on these rigs that I can't even see the road sometimes. What I found was that most children are not playing outside anymore. Even when it was a Saturday, the children were not to be seen. Gawd when I grew up we were all about being outside. We are looking out for children and at the same time, we are constantly looking at numbers, and looking for numbers. (Please people, make sure your house has a visible number on it.) All of this is done in a hurry. A hurry.
A long time employee, of which there were several, like 30 plus years, told me, "before the internet, the postal service was doing great. WE would come in at 7 a.m. and leave on time. WE didn't need overtime, there were plenty of people and we worked happily with very little stress. Then yikes first class mail fell off dramatically and the post office lost a lot of money. The higher ups were freaking out and started clamping down on the relaxed atmosphere, pressuring workers to work faster. Fewer people were hired and life for the postal carriers became a living hell. Then a contract with Amazon was struck and the post office is doing well financially. (Trainees exclusively deliver Amazon packages on Sunday, customers are amazed they are getting their package on Sunday. Make sure you check, "I don't care for a Sunday delivery" box when ordering, otherwise you will see us trainees delivering on Mother's Day, Easter, etc.). The pressure on the carriers has not lifted however, and the image of the carriers joyfully sauntering along your neighborhoods is gone." The post office is not financially supported by the US Govt. On the contrary, it is self sustaining. (the US Govt CAN take the interest the Post Office makes on its income, however). All those stamps you buy add up, as well as the advertising we deliver. Some of the advertising is difficult to deliver and can be quite extensive some days. I consider some of the ads propaganda (for instance - pharmaceutical ads) and pornographic (for instance- clothing ads are very provocative now, with both men and women scantily dressed and in the action of taking clothing off, not just displaying what they are wearing) and should be illegal for the Govt to distribute. Our distributing ads with provocative clothing is helping normalize this kind of advertising. Many magazines and catalogs are perfumed, making for ad nauseam.
I also delivered a lot of prescription drugs. White plastic envelops with white plastic pill bottles, were hard to organize with flat mail. BUT be aware people that postal carrier rigs are hot in the summer, but worse than that is the floor of the vehicle is hot, all year round. All of our packages that are next-in-line for delivery are organized on the front floor, making your medications subject to destruction. Speaking of destruction, you know those little labels: "FRAGILE", this means nothing at the post office, truly. Even though, "DON'T THROW' is all over the post office walls, it happens. Fragile items go in with everything else, very heavy objects just get tossed in the same bin. I recently received a shattered bottle, wrapped in bubble wrap, in a cardboard box. It had the obligatory "WE CARE..." but we broke it! plastic bag around it. I was not surprised considering some very very heavy packages are mailed through the USPS. One surely landed on this labeled "fragile" package. We deliver mail from the truck in drive-up mailboxes
or there is "dismount" delivery. Walking and lugging packages, mail, and advertisements is hazardous. WE thumb through the mail as we walk so when we arrive at a house, we can plunk it into the designated area. This can make for tripping, which of course I did on my first week, pretty much landing on my face. There are many accidents waiting to happen out there, and we have to be mindful of backing off of front porches, cracked sidewalks, invisible steps, un-level ground and misc objects strewn about. The post master general approved boxes, are anything but carrier approved, (why can't they ask the workers for advice)......some of the boxes cannot be opened with one hand, some of the slots cannot accommodate magazines, some of the metal rips the skin, for instance: most mail boxes have red flags for customers to put up showing the carrier there is a letter to be picked up. These red flags are attached on the right side with the screws protruding inside the box. Most carriers are right handed, so when I put your mail in your box with my right hand, I rip my skin. 
Some customers are very creative about their boxes while others have no pride what so ever with deteriorating boxes, missing doors and flags and leaning precipitously. Some boxes have mail piling up for weeks. This is another time I am calling out, "you don't seem to want your mail and there is no more room in your box". This is when I take it all out, put it in a box and deliver it to their front porch.
My partner and I were actually trying to move to Santa Cruz, this is why I applied for this area in the first place. I stayed with a friend for $100 a week. This was an excellent deal for the area, but I hadn't paid rent for years, owning my own farm in Southern Oregon. When I started looking around for a place to rent I was pretty much outraged by what home owners were charging for what they were offering. A small fridge on the floor, stacked with a microwave and hotplate on top, and using the bathroom for a sink, does not constitute a kitchen to me, but , hey, this is another story.
As a trainee I had a year before I could become a "regular". We were worked unfairly, I thought, even though there is a union. They are pretty much hand in glove with the govt. For instance in December, regulars and trainees do not get the usual overtime pay because December has very long work hours. Usually if anyone works longer than 10 hours in one day, double time clicks in. Management calls it "penalty" time and comes down on workers very hard if they cross into it, which on some days it is inevitable. My pay started at $16.06 per hour, if I worked over 8 hours in one day I made time and a half. So why in December do the workers have to pick up the extra load of mail without regular overtime compensation. Merry Christmas carriers!!
After nearly 4 months at my friends house I decided to go back home. Rents were truly impossible on my salary. One thing I learned: be kind to employees. Owning my own business for 40 years, I know stress caused me to be unkind. I send much caring to the workers at the Capitola Post Office, thank you for your helpfulness. May your bosses be respectful and encourage you to be lighthearted, by being lighthearted themselves. While working there was rough, I like to remember, it had it's fun times too, usually with my new friend, Katie. We had some real crack-up moments. May all management remember, "Be an ally to the workers !!"
