The Insanity of the United States Postal Service

Quote: Face

No way. The 4 days after TDay was ungodly. s

I didn't think it out. It was the busiest
at the PO itself. You won't see the result
of that on your route until Fri and Mon.

Face, you have to tell us if this resonates:

[apologies]


34 seconds in starts it at the right spot: https://youtu.be/IZaiMYh6cHw?t=34

Quote: odiousgambit

Face, you have to tell us if this resonates:

Not entirely. I went to a 4yr SUNY school for bio/chem, not junior college for psychology. And I have no alimony, and my ex was/is a prude. But other than that... lol.

The letter load isn't all that bad. It is a pain in the ass when my outgoing tray overflows onto my feet whenever I turn or hit the brake as there's gotta be a 800% increase in those, but it's a mild inconvenience. And I wouldn't know about shopping because I don't go, and couldn't go if I wanted to on account of always being on one clock or another. But yes, I think now is about as good a time as any for an official Airing of Grievances. Tis the season, after all.

I'm not gonna do, what you all think I'm gonna do (Half Baked reference, anyone? =p) and just scream "F#$% XMAS". I say it a lot. I do scream it at work when I'm casing, but that is misleading. What really, honestly, and truly needs to f#$% off is this rampant orgy of consumerism. It's what turned me off from Xmas to begin with, and I am nothing short of horrified now that I REALLY see it. It's just disgusting. What do we do this for? Just 30 straight days of hypersonic spending. It's complete f#$%ing madness. I happen to deliver to some pretty swanky joints. I got one guy whose driveway is worth more than everything I own and everything I have ever owned put together. I deliver to Patrick Kane (or at least his dad), to sort of put things in perspective. I got a few roads that are "near the tracks", so to speak (and sometimes literally), but mostly it's posh, well-to-do suburbia. And it is just hell. A summer time parcel load is about half a tub, which is about 4' x 6' x 4'. A "heavy" summer day is a "full" tub, where "full" is defined as 2/3rds to the top. Now? Not only is the tub piled high and overflowing, but there's THREE OF THEM, often with larger parcels stacked in front of them. I literally could not fit it all in the truck on many days, and I am a damn good Tetris player. And once you get into the nuances of stacking it right so it's in order for the route, stacking it so everything doesn't cascade and shuffle while you're driving, stacking it right so removing a parcel to deliver doesn't cause same, and doing this 250 times a day, on top of mail, on top of pick ups, on top of consumer commuters and rush hour, on top of 20-30-40, 12+hr days in a row with no day off...

Why do we do this? I NEED to know. It ain't "because Jesus". Saturn never spoketh and sayeth "Go forth and consume". It's. F#$%ing. Insane. It needs to end. Not even the schadenfreude of getting to deliver all these c#$%s their credit card bills are breaking through the misery. I am just disgusted to my very core. /sigh

Then you have some real treats who come at me all pissed wondering where their mail is / why it's so late. This baffles me to no end. Who in the piss pole cares about mail? I mean, yeah, I need my bills delivered, I would like my car parts sent, but who gets all bent over the mail coming at 6p rather than 230p? The entitled c#$%s on my route, that's who! "Well, it comes so late I can't even get to the bank because it's closed" THEN DO IT F#$%ING TOMORROW! F#$% you and f#$% your bank. When my bills come, I got AT LEAST 15 days from receiving it to pay it. I get my truck note on the 12th and it ain't due until the 6th of the next month. Where in all of the f#$%s is the problem? And the attitude, the huffing and puffing, the irritated sighs... bitch, I ain't seen my kid in 20 days. I haven't f#$%ing sat in same. I work 90hrs a week at my FIRST job, then work until 1a at my other. I got 4 crushed disks my back and two torn ligaments in my "good" shoulder. I got thrown on this route blind with not so much as a single ride along to even know where I'm going, and my case is all f#$%ed up because the regular has it all in her head. And I still lug your 10,000 packages, even bring your paper mail with me to save you the trip, and still stand there with a smile and courteous explanation as to why I had the audacity to inconvenience you so. But I can tell an actual bill from a junk offer, and I catch one more f#$%ing word, I'm "losing" every last one of those motherf#$%ers until I am satisfied. GodDAMN people are stupid ><

I get this one old broad two days ago. Sweetest old lady, but... I'm coming down the road hitting my boxes. It's on a stretch where they're spread out, so I'm getting some speed in between. Maybe 20mph, instead of the typical 3 or 4. Suddenly, this old bird swerves into the oncoming lane and onto my shoulder, facing traffic. She's got her hand up signaling me to stop. I'm already stopped, because I'm a f#$%ing mailman at a mailbox. Holds the hand up all the way, too. I'm looking right at her. I'm stopped. Still holds the hand up until she's stopped, parked (in the oncoming lane facing traffic), and shuts off her car. I'm always in a frantic hurry, but whatever. Now she breaks out the cane and comes shuffling up to me with a large envelope. Jesus, lady... I'll take it, but damn, is it worth your life? Oh, but no. She doesn't want me to take it. "Excuse me, hi. Could you tell me how much it will cost to send this? I don't know how much it weighs." ........Bitch, do I look like the Bureau of Weights and Measures to you? What, I got a f#$%ing triple beam here in my bag of personal effects, let me weigh that right up for you? Un. Real. Then the kicker, "Oh, it's OK. I'm heading to the post office anyways." Someone kill me before I kill someone...

My fellow RC's tried to buoy my spirits. It's Xmas, after all. Expect to start getting thank you cards and tips. Keep your eye out, your route is huge and swanky. You'll clean up. Talking many hundreds, easy. And they are, sometimes getting $50 a pop. My partner was nearing $400 just 3 or 4 days in. Me? ... ONCE, one of the guys offered me a water. Oh, wait. No. Another came out and we chatted. Really cool guy, total artsy hippie, and gave genuine thanks for the service. That's kept me going for some 6 days now. He's been the one person who's shown genuine appreciation, care, or concern. Other than that, no monetary tip, thank you card, shake of the hand, flash of the t!ts, not nothing. Seriously, just once, meet me at the door when I have your 5 packages for this particular day, look me in the eye, and say "Thank you". Don't absently mumble it while you inspect your Ebay garbage, speak to me like a man ferchristsakes. Just mean it, just once. Gimme something...

Ahhhh. That's ever so slightly better. But it isn't all bad...

The weather has been insane. The lowest I think it has ever gotten was mid thirties, maybe, one morning. I did last Sunday in sweatpants and a tank top, and I was wishing I had wore mesh shorts. It's f#$%ing December in Buffalo. And it weren't no two day fluke, either. We're talking 15+ straight days, with several more to come. What was it Sunday, anyways? 65*? I heard we have more 60's, even high 60's coming up. It might be the only thing that has allowed me to so far succeed. If it was -15*, or 25* with 8' of snow...

It's also forced me to get good. It's very similar to my card counting training, when I was doing the speed counting. I would riffle the cards as fast as possible, whether I could read and/or compute them or not. I forced my eyes and my head to keep up, that's how I finally broke into the 9sec bracket. This is much the same. Whatever happens doesn't matter. You keep up, or you get trampled. Assuming I'll still be working here in the summer, it's gonna be a whole season of being home by noon because i am a million times better than before.

And I've had a few breakthroughs on the physical side. I've been able to identify at least one big irritant that gets the back to screaming, and found a few positions for relief without having to physically stop moving. It's also sort of reshuffled things under this new perspective, and I hope the Bar of Frustration has risen with it. Lol, just thinking that the only way to ever lower my physical pain is to raise the bar with which it's measured. I almost think that's funny-funny and not sad-funny. Hey, whatever works, eh?

Then there's the mental side. It's gotta be good for it, at least in the long run. To know that despite my physical issues, I could do it and DID do it. That I can handle a lot of s#$% all at the same time and still make it. That when duty called, I answered. At least that's what I'm hoping will happen when this all ends. Currently, my mental state is still stuck on "Seriously, how in the f#$% was I supposed to weight that envelope?"

21 days down, 7 more to go...

(F#$% Xmas =p)

WWJD - would he rather drag a cross for one evening, or deliver December mail. He might rather drag a cross IMO. It's over quicker.

: )

Quote: rxwine

WWJD - would he rather drag a cross for one evening, or deliver December mail. He might rather drag a cross IMO. It's over quicker.

: )

One day is nothing. I could survive a murder for one day. You can do anything for one day. This is not one day.

This is Sisyphean. It just never ends. You think it has to, you know it has to, but everyday when you walk in the door... Giant Wall of F#$%ing S#$%. Just huge. The Sunday run? I'm talking, seriously, a literal wall. Now, I've done a Sunday run. It's like a "full" bin, and driving all over hell and back. A full 7-8hr day. No. I get there and there's this wall. It was like the Coliseum. There was one entry way in, just wide as a man. Inside there was a ring maybe 12'-14' in diameter. In a ring on the floor, buckets. There went the small packages. Behind them, the huge single packages, stacked a little higher. Behind them, the bin, all heaped to overflowing. Behind that, an APC, which is this huge, 8'-10' high by 4' x 4' cage they were also throwing into. Each route had a section and one of these slices was a section. And to really just drive the point home, we brought this to our cases to find we also had the three overflowing bins of our regular route to go with it! And! AND! There were all 4 Rural Routes to do,... AND ONLY TWO OF US TO DO THEM -_-

21 straight days of this. TWENTY ONE. No break. Non stop, not even the slightest wisp of a breath of a fart of let up. 7 more to go, and the only rest is the Chaos of Christmas Day. Then right back at it again. There's gotta be a stronger word than "insane" or "madness". Whatever that word is is what this is.

You use lessons in life to help you in current struggles. About the only place I have left to pull from is tournament hockey. There's nothing else. Just that mindless "Go." You can't think about how long it's been, or how long to go, or how much it hurts, or how much you'd rather be doing anything else, or how you're going to get out of doing it (lol),... can't think of how long til home or if you'll have time to eat, or remember if it's been 4 or 5 days since you've showered... you can only think "Go".

Everybody in the parcel biz hates
the weeks after Tgiving. My wife
came home and cried every night.
Just laid on the couch and sobbed.
Every night. No breaks for 10-12
hours straight. No sitting down.
Pissed off stupid customers. But
it ends, it always ends.

Quote: Face

I think now is about as good a time as any for an official Airing of Grievances

I want you to know I read that whole thing.

The joke writers for Sinbad in that movie would have loved to come across something like this thread!

but seriously, worried about you Face. Hang in there.

Face, I just want you to know that your suffering is appreciated. It makes the rest of us feel much better about our days.

A guy works enough storms he knows he has to have a couple things at any price. Chapstick and Visine. It's the little things. Like finding a place and time to have a BM.

This reminds me, I got to mail some stuff. : )