“Part 5 Post Office random thoughts”
Some things are too embarrassing to be told but they did happen. I remember shortly after being hired and I was scheduled to substitute for Pete Halteman the coming week. I woke up and looked at the clock and I was already late for work. I jumped up and reached for a uniform. Uh, Oh, none there. Now I am not the bravest person around but my new job was in jeopardy here. I pulled Frieda`s covers back a bit briskly and sort of shouted, “I am late for work and I have no uniform.” Frieda looked me right in the eye without a smile or twinkle of the eye and said for me to go back to bed. “It`s Sunday,” she said.
Years later I had a similar experience. I always arrived at my house about lunch time so I ate there. I would eat in front of the TV with the news on. On this particular day I dropped off to sleep. When I woke up it was dark outside. I had slept at least 6 hours and no one had called or woke me. Then luckily I woke up in bed at two am. This one I had three or four times.
One time when Joe Ward bought a brand new car someone, (Now I am not calling Jerald Chandler`s name), brought in a smoke bomb and he and I put it on Joe`s new car. We were all watching when he cranked the car and it whistled and smoked. Now this was not just a little smoke, it was big. He jumped out and raised the hood and I do not think he was a happy camper. He sure did not like our guffaws. Joe was one of those special people to work with.
Ed Latta was cold natured, I mean really cold natured. When we moved to the federal building the thermostats had locked covers over them. Now they had to have vent holes so we use a straightened out paper clip with a hook on one end to move the control down in summer. Ed would get cold and get his key and readjust it. We would just pull out another paper clip. Ed finally gave up and started wearing long sleeve turtle neck sweaters. He knew we were changing it but I don`t think he knew how.
A carrier really gets attached to the families on the route and especially the kids. Many of those, who grew up on the route that I carried for twenty two years, I have found on facebook and still keep up with them.
I will never forget when the USPS upper management sent me a Ford Pinto. Their reasoning was that as, I could park it at intersections and walk in four directions, I could carry the route faster with the car and then they added more for me to deliver. Two years later they took the cars away from us. They said that as I no longer had to fool with the car I could carry more in less time and they were adding more deliveries to me. My response this time was, “Would you prefer to settle this in arbitration or court it does not much matter to me which and my congressman and senator will be informed of what has been done to me. Results were no change this time. Reminds me of President Reagan`s saying. “Ten most fearsome words are, I`m from the government and I am here to help.” Well something like that.
I was hired in 1964-5 when it was still the Post Office Dept. and it was a different world. The pay was not so good but there was job security and the company and the employees shared some respect. It was after the Post Office reorganization act that it started downhill.
I remember lots of days with bad weather and we were off we would go in to help sort mail for a little while. This did not take any time from the carriers and gave them a head start on extremely hot, cold, in fact any in climate weather. After I quit the city route for a maintenance job on a lot of heavy mail days or bad weather Jerald Chandler, the Postmaster and I would take parts of each route to help the carriers. It was fun just to go to work with people in labor and management respecting each other. It was like a happy family group.
Now the carriers and clerks may start the day at home and then be sent twenty to fifty miles to work an unfamiliar job. Having to carry a route and half of another and often getting off way after dark is the pits and unconscionable in bad weather. The mail is being sorted and routed for the carriers out of town where they do not know the routes or really care. We once delivered a magazine to a lady with a gibberish name and street. The magazine employee had the hands over one character on a qwerty keyboard. We delivered it for a year. Employees in Evansville or even Paducah are not going to do this.
The union is looking out for their leadership and the USPS is trying to destroy a tradition started by Benjamin Franklin after an act of congress. I am sad to see the company I worked for, for thirty five years, destroyed. I painted a sign for our office that said, Service Is Our Only Product, sadly that is no longer so.
I have a feeling that the customers still interact favorably as they always have. They make the job much more bearable.
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