When we moved to FL in 1996 our mail carrier was a good ‘old cracker woman 
(“cracker” being a term applied to native Floridian pioneer settlers) who had 
done the route for decades. “Miss Donna” knew my kids, me, and all the 
neighbors. She always had time to stop and chat a little on her route, was 
always prompt, and kept things straight.

Fast forward to 2010, when we returned to Florida and the same neighborhood 
from two years in IN. Sure enough, Miss Donna came to the door the first week 
we returned and rekindled our friendship. I could do things like leave a note 
in the mailbox for her to come to the door and ring the bell because I had a 
Priority Mail box I needed to send out that day. That was the kind of carrier 
she was. She ultimately retired on disability, I believe, because she had a bad 
knee. The last week she did her route she had those USPS white tubs in her 
truck filled with gifts from all the neighbors.

I moved a couple blocks away a few years ago and at this house we’ve got the 
same setup with a carrier. “Miss Ginny” is a cracker lady who has been doing 
the mail in this area for decades as well. Super nice, always pleasant, never 
screws up. Comes to the door for my Priority Mail packages as well. She’s up in 
years, so I’m not sure how munch longer we’ll have her, but she’s great. 
There’s a young man of color who also does the route on Miss Ginny’s days off, 
who does a good job and is pretty talkative, but he’s not Miss Ginny.

We’ve got a really good postmaster at our post office, too. I can’t recall the 
details, but I had some sort of shenanigans going on with the USPS a few years 
back that I had to escalate up to him, and he did a really good job sorting 
things out and communicating.

We have a little rural post office a few miles away in Turkey Creek. It’s one 
of those places where it’s two rooms, a lobby with PO boxes and another with 
the sorting and counter. The person at the counter is the postmaster. I’ll 
often go over there if I have to ship something during the holidays so I don’t 
have to go to our big local PO that’s always crazy this time of year. The rural 
PO you just walk into, do your business and leave.

-D

> On Dec 13, 2021, at 12:29 AM, Buggered Benzmail via Mercedes 
> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:
> 
> One summer in college a buddy told me that the mail was hiring summer help to 
> cover vacations and whatever other humannel shortages. So 3 or 4 of us went 
> down to take the test. I ended up getting another job but one guy got the 
> gig. Keep in mind we were fairly intelligent and had done well in our 
> studies. Oh, and we were all 18 or so. 
> 
> After a few days to get the hang of it, he figured out a better way to do the 
> route and got it done by noon or earlier. I think he had to be there at 8, 
> sort his stuff then hit the street. The other mailmen took all day, would 
> finish by 4 or 5. So my buddy would go home, hang out, meet others of us for 
> lunch, do whatever ( he did not have a gf so that was not a feature of his 
> schedule), then go back to the facility 4ish, sort some mail, and close out. 
> We were all quite jealous. 
> 
> At some point his supervisor got wind of his deal and called him in for a 
> chat. He explained that letting anyone else know about this would cause 
> problems with staff and his higher ups etc etc. So basically WTF you doing 
> college boy?
> 
> my buddy said but wait, I could help you get this whole operation running 
> better, get more done, fewer people, save money, whatever. (Remember he was 
> 18 and knew everything at that point in life). The supervisor then had to 
> explain to my dumbass buddy that the whole point of the operation was to hire 
> people, spend money, buy more trucks, bigger facilities, more machines, 
> people move up the ladder, more pay, more staff to manage, all that. 
> 
> He advised my buddy to keep doing what he was doing and STFU about it around 
> the office so as not to upset the delicate balance of built-in inefficiency 
> and bureaucratic budget growth.  Oh, and upset his less-perspicacious 
> colleagues who also yearned to f off half the day but were not sufficiently 
> analytical or insightful to figure out the scheme. 
> 
> This was a significant educational experience for my buddy as he learned the 
> way of the gummint bureaucracy. And he got paid well for it and got to 
> basically screw off half the summer. 
> 
> He was not asked to return the following summer. 
> 
> --FT
> Sent from iFōn
> 
>> On Dec 12, 2021, at 10:17 PM, Clay via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> In the early 80’s I stood the test to be a carrier.  At the time pay would 
>> have been great ($10.hr) and the test simple.  My fellows in the room were a 
>> motley crew of ESL and high school grads, along with a few veterans.   I 
>> opted to continue higher education over putting in marathon strolls in rain. 
>>  At the time the postmaster at the local had high volume and competent crew. 
>>  By the time I returned to the zip code a few years later it was bedlam and 
>> equal opportunity hires behind the counter.  My carrier was one of the guys 
>> I took the test with, who became the postmaster around 2012.  Went from a 
>> nice guy to a power hungry jerk who yelled at me when I had issues with the 
>> replacement carriers who no longer spoke english or knew how to deliver or 
>> pick up mail.
>> 
>> The job is not an easy one.  There was a neighbor a few blocks over who 
>> transitioned from working the state liquor store to carrier when the 
>> citizens voted to disband the bottle shoppes.  He dropped 60 pounds and 
>> worked himself to the bones.  Finally got a decent route after five years of 
>> busting his backend.  Last I talked to him he was not the happy fellow I had 
>> known.  Stressed out, hitting the bottle and pretty much screaming about 
>> Amazon having screwed over USPS because he had to get their junk delivered 
>> even if it meant he had to skip the people at end of his route and hope to 
>> get their mail delivered in the next day or three.
>> 
>> GWN seems to run a dedicated Amazon route for boxes, while the carrier has 
>> to handle anything that fits in the mailbox.  I have not met the carrier, 
>> but the way he plays at Mario Andretti, I doubt I will.
>> 
>> Clay
>> 
>> 
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