I read these posts about the triangle boxes and toilet paper tube
mailers with a chuckle and it brings me back to my old days as what was
known as a "casual" working for the Postal System to pay my way through
college with summer work. It paid well, and I worked from 2:30 AM to
9:00 AM.
People maintain the illusion that there is some higher presence watching
over every letter and parcel they have committed to the care of the US
Postal Service. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As a rookie, I unloaded trucks at 3 AM with both letters and parcels.
My boss, a "supervisor of mails" (think of that title, if you will),
stood watching me while I had 15 minutes to unload a delivery truck
stacked 6 foot high with parcels and canvas letter bags. When I first
started working, I would notice parcels marked "Fragile" and "Handle
with Care" and I was under the illusion that this was actuallly read and
acted upon. I was yelled at and threatened with firing if I did not
take every parcel and toss it into a canvas roller tote set 8 feet away
in a very short time. Many was the time that I heard what sounded like
a glass item or set of dishes break when they hit the cart or the
pavement. Every thing was treated the same no matter what was written
on it.
Along with that truth was the interesting way that people, at least in
those days, packed up items. During this same unloading, a number of
packages were leaking fluids when unloaded ( this included boxes of
stuff used to inseminate cattle...you get the drift). People often
packaged oversize items such that the item was uncovered on both ends
(like umbrellas) with no packing paper. Some packages smelled so bad we
had to leave them outside, and sometimes we just literally threw them
out when the flies were too bad. Others dropped off packages beautifully
wrapped as gifts to send through the mail..bows, adornments, sequins,
etc.
Then we come to the truly bizarre. Packages that in the address section
carry a half-nude picture of the sender vs. an address label. Packages
in a foreign language that no one in our postal office could read or
translate and which we could not figure out how they made it to a small
post office in central Connecticut. Parcels adorned with religious
symbols. Ashes of the deceased sent through the mail ("contents inside
from dead loved one"). To this, add the fact that we had to collect
from post office boxes often subject to pranks containing...well, I
won't go there.
For amusement, some of the letter sorters would hold letters from the
Department of Health up to a fluourescent light to see if they knew the
person receiving the notification of a socially transmitted disease.
They identified quite a few leaders in the community.
Welcome to the US Post office.
To this day, it amazes me that things I mail ever reach their
destination.
Eric Melanson
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