"U.S. Postal Worker"

BY SARA HERNANDEZ

He has been a part of the workforce for over 40 years. He went from a paper boy, to a sales clerk, to a cubicle job, from landscaping to general contracting, until he found his place at the US post office. 

It’s an easy drive to the post office, about 10 minutes. The good thing about being a mailman is that they always need to deliver mail and you can do it anywhere. If I wanna move, I could. Working is learning how to survive. 

The first thing they teach you is 18 letters and eight flats, that's what gets sorted in a minute. A letter is your everyday envelope, and a flat is like a small package. When I finish sorting, I get to arrange everything in my truck. I’m lucky, my new truck has air conditioning. No more hot, nasty days in my tin-box. They give all the new kids the tin-boxes to drive. I guess doing this for 18 years gains you some respect. The managers are still jerks. They just expect us to push ourselves past what our bodies can handle. It's all about the rules to meet the time stamps, not about the people who do the actual work. The new kids get forced to work overtime, but at least they will be taken care of. It teaches them to be dedicated. If people saw my overtime pay, they would all wanna quit their jobs and start delivering mail, too. 

I still follow all the rules. But I am not just a cog in the machine of the post office because I learned how the machine works. It is a smooth and fluid job with a routine that will take care of you. Anyone can learn it and repeat it easily. When you stop learning, you might as well dig a hole and get in. I will never stop learning because it’s how we survive.