Further Experiments with Postal Karma

Ok, so in our last episode, I had delivered the movie-less Netflix mailpiece to the already upset postal customer Mrs. V.
A few days after that adventure, I came face to face with the usually not-at-home Mrs. V.
She was picking up her blue recycling bin from the curb when I came into her yard.
I offered her a sunny HELLO and in turn receiver a big fat nothing!
Two days later, she got a card mailed back to her that she had sent out with a non-existant street name on it. I knew the person she was mailing the card to ( a very nice teacher of mine from high school).
I was faced with a moral dilema.
1) Do i smugly stuff the letter back in her box and say to myself "See Mrs. V..sometimes it's not the dear old PO that screws up..."
or
2) do i dig deep and listen to my higher angels, bring the letter back to the PO, correct the address and send it on its merry way?

I went for option #2.
Now I am waiting to see if that secret act of kindness will be able to magically turn this embittered customer around.

Another day, another baggie

Just when i thought i was out of the woods with Mrs. N's chewed up bill,
I get the front only of a Netflix envelope..no movie ! Beautiful!
And doesn't it figure it has to be delivered to another doubting customer.
i don't have very many unhappy campers out there ..really..it just sounds like i do.
This lady wasn't getting a bank statement for weeks on end...and somehow..this was my fault???...even though my boss told her that the bank in question was screwing up LOTS of people's statements for some reason.
So i had to shove the Netflix lable in a damn WE'RE SORRY bag.
And then i had to hold my breath, drop it in the box and hightail it outta there.
which is exactly what i did.
so far...no call to the boss............
does this crap happen to other people, or am i just a crap magnet?

Why did it have to happen to HER?

Yesterday as i was pitching my mail, I came acrossed a piece of chewed up mail that had been placed in a "We're Sorry" baggie. The thing has been totally destroyed. All that remained of the envelope was the very corner where the return address was. So i was tasked with returning her little corner to her. God knows what happened to the other 98% of the bill she sent out. Don't ask me how.. I just know it was a bill.
If this happens to any customer, it's bad.
But when it happens to one like HER, it really sucks.
She has the misfortune of living at a number that often gets confused (by subs, of course, not by me!) with the same number on another street.
She is not a customers that needs any more amo against the USPS or another axe to grind.
Today, her mail from yesterday was still in the box, so happily i got a reprieve.
And just to make me even happier, Mrs. B got her freakin' DAILY WORD! It's more like a Bi-Monthly Word..but what's a few months among friends?

Data Drop

one of my fellow carriers told me of a phenomenon she calls "Data Drop".
Data Drop is when you bid off of a route and have been off of it for a short while, and another carrier asks you info about your old route like a no such number, or if a certain customer from that route is UTF.. and you have absolutely no idea. Out of sight out of mind. It's like you never carried the thing.

i used to think it was funny when i would see a customer on the route, talk to them, and then see them off the clock somewhere in my civilian clothes and they would walk right by me like they couldn't possibly recognize me unless i was wearing blue polyester.

well, the reverse just happened to me..several times in one night.
i was at my son's curriculum night at school.
i deliver in the same zip that i live in and lots of customers old and new have kids in school with mine.
so at curriculum night i had two families come up to me and ask why i wasn't there mail carrier anymore. i recognized their faces, but had a complete data drop as to their names and where they exactly lived..and i was their mail carrier just a year ago!
another lady told me "you're my carrier!" and i swear to God i couldn't even place her.
i did a total data drop on her and i'm still her carrier... i guess i need people to be standing in their yard or i have no idea who they are!
scary.

Quiz Show part 2

i had 11 days off.
i came back from vacation the day after the labor day holiday.
needless to say the mail was backed up to the rafters.
i took two hours OT in the office and still left 7 feet of bulk behind.
i had huge bundles.
i was trying to hustle.
i was hoping that just for this one day, i wouldn't have to stop and explain:
1) where i've been
2)why they got their mail at 5 pm while i was gone
3)why i was so late.

i made it through the first half of the route nicely.
a few customers said it was good to see me back.
a few bitched about the service in my absence.

then i got to mrs.B.
while i was gone she had left subs 2 handwritten messages wondering where her Daily Word was.
she didn't receive one in July or August!
i was hoping that i could quietly deliver her mail without having to confront the Daily Word controversy. i knew the conversation would take more time and patience than i had.

but that wasn't to be.
she was doing a stake out.
she wanted me to know that this had never happened in 40 years and that someone at the PO told her that it was being returned to sender.
and the Daily Word said they sent her a second copy and she STILL hadn't received that.
WHERE WERE THEY???
"I'm sure it's not your fault...but...."

Any other day i would have felt capable of handling this..but not after a vacation, after a postal holiday, and not when i'm running 2 hours late.
I tried to keep it short and sweet..but it went on and on and on...
my one small victory was that i didn't say any of the Amazing Kreskin comments that were floating through my mind.
after much discourse and many, many minutes i walked away and realised
that all of the peace, and relaxation i had built up over the past 11 days was now officially gone.
somehow i managed to make it through the rest of the week.
and no, the Daily Word still hasn't shown up.
God help me. God help Mrs. B.

Quiz show

I hate it when customers try to stump me with the old question
"How much does it cost to send a first class letter to Khazakistan?"
I feel so inadequate. I guess i should know all this stuff off the top of my head, but lately i feel lucky if i remember what day it is.

Last week, a kindly oldish customer wanted to know the denomination of all these stamps from the past that don't have their value on them, just the picture. i stared blankly at the Tulip, the Bird, the Heart...yeah, i've seen them all before but do i have a clue what their values are? i stalled for time while in my head i was cursing the person that made the executive decision to create all of these "priceless" stamps. i had to admit that i was stumped but told them that i could find out.
i wanted to say " why don't you just slam a few on there and hope for the best?" but i held my tongue for the 8,0000th time.

which reminds me of the classic .."Do i have enough postage on this ?"
how many times have i wanted to put my hands out to imitate a scale and then "weigh" them carefully and then thoughtfully throw them some totally random number like ..$1.62"..just to see if they could tell that i was BS-ing them.

it's like ground hog's day..this crap just keeps happening.. and i'm never ready for it.

search for the ultimate postal ring tone

about two weeks ago, my 20 year old pal jessie stopped by for a visit.
i hadn't seen her for quite a while and we were catching up.
at least we were trying to.
her cell phone was ringing every two minutes.
instead of being annoyed,
i was actually getting into it because she had such a cool ring tone
that every time she got another call, i wanted to get up and dance.

i have a pitiful tracfone and up until my meeting with jessie, an equally pitiful
pre-programmed ring tone.
after jess left, i summoned my techno-savy 11 year old son and told him the time had come for me to cough up the cash and buy my first ring tone.
he scanned through the menu and we listened for just the right song...
one that was cool, yet meaningful.
one that made a loud statement about my life.
after much searching we found it.
i believe this should be the official ring tone of mail carriers across America.
every time your boss walks by, blast your ring tone...
mick jagger belting out Beast of Burden !
it's so much more subtle than Take this job and Shove it.
and, oh yeah, i can dance to it.

why are you so late? part two

i am so late because i have to stop every 5 minutes and
explain to all of you pissed off customers
why i'm so late.
got it?

why are you so late?

why are you so late?

how do we explain it diplomatically?

i try to be brief and break it down to 3 things.
people can't take in more than 3 things.
the 3 things are:
1) they changed our start time to 8:00 from 7:00
2) they adjusted (read added on to our routes)
3) it's summer, which means we're covering vacationing co-workers routes in addition to our own...often working 10 hour days.

i have found there are two distinctly different responses to the above info.

1)" i have never gotten my mail so late in my life..who do i call and complain to?"
and
2) "boy, i'm so sorry that you are working such long hours,
it must be terrible for you."

i love those people in the 2nd camp.

unfortunately, one of my adorable customers hails from the first camp and will not accept that she is getting her mail at 3:30 even though i assure her that others on my route are getting their mail as late as 5:30. she stands out there and glares at me, as if she thinks that everything i told her is a steaming crock of poop and i'm actually just extending my 2 hour lunch to a three hour lunch. this from a women who hasn't gotten a piece of first class mail in weeks.

i'll just have to pray for her ..
as i know she is praying for me...
to bid off.

odds

where would i be without YAHOO homepage giving me such luscious factoids as the following:

Odds of dying from a dog bite: 1 in 20 million.
Odds of becoming a saint: 1 in 20 million.

i wonder how many mail carriers have died from dog bites?
i have a feeling i know how many mail carriers have become saints!

still have 9 lives left

it's summer.
what does that mean?
it means that every tom, dick and mary on my route is having some kind of home improvement project done.
for the most part, that's no big deal.
if the driveway has been resealed, you walk around it.
if the house is being painted, you try not to walk into the ladder as you're fingering through your letters.
these are not life or death issues.
when it comes to roof projects, that's another story.
first of all there is usually a heap of crap all over the lawn: old shingles, new shingles,nails pointing skyward,tools, lunch boxes, boom boxes. crossing the lawn feels like you're playing a twisted game of contractor hopscotch.
then there's the roofers themselves.
if you can see them up there, you cross your fingers and hope that they can likewise see you.
you run up to the mailbox as fast as you can, hoping that they will wait till you're gone before they toss down the roofing debris.
sometimes they are so involved in their work, or their conversation, that you feel it's necessary to give them a little shout. hopefully they can hear you above the boom box.
many times it comes down to saying a quick prayer, putting your head down and running like hell...

over the course of my career, i have faced this scenario hundreds of times.
i came upon roofers yesterday. i knew they were up there but couldn't see them. i could hear their voices coming from the back side of the house.
normally, that would be enough to make me feel safe, but for some reason, as i approached the mail slot, i had the distinct feeling that i was going to get nailed(no pun intended).
i crammed the mail through the slot and hadn't stepped more than two strides off the property when i heard an incredibly loud sound about 10 feet away.
still no roofers in sight, but on the ground where i had just been standing seconds before was a tool belt with a nail gun that had somehow fallen.
it could have been lights out for the mailgal.
another day,
another bullet successfully dodged.

six degrees of seperation

yesterday i was walking the beat,
wearing a golf visor (i almost never wear a hat of any kind).
three guys were hanging out on the front porch of one of my customer's homes.
i knew two of the guys, but not the third.
the third was a gentleman that looked to be in his 70's.
they were all having a good time and started chatting me up.
one of them asked me about my golf visor logo..and i told them about my brother phil's golf apparel company. eventually guy number three asked me where i was from and i told him that i grew up in fairport mostly.
he told me that his best childhood friend had coached and lived in fairport.
turns out,he was talking about my dad. they grew up together in a small town about 45 minutes outside of rochester.
he told me some stories about my dad and grandparents..he knew my aunt, uncle and cousin..
if it wasn't for my visor i don't think the conversation would've gone beyond the weather.
it's a small, cool, world...after all.
i can't do it justice describing it here but it gave me the chills.

survey says!

tonight my kids and i were watching celebrity family feud...( i know, get a life)
the very first question was:
"name the person married women are most likely to have an affair with that comes to their house".
much to the delight of my children,and much to my amazement
mailman was number one!
we edged out the UPS/FedX guy at number two.
we kicked the collective butts of
cable guy, gardener, neighbor, pool guy, and i can't remember who else.

who knew?
sorry ladies..
the way management is hitting us for under time, i think you're just gonna have to settle for
fantasizing about the mailman.

if i were the postmaster general

if i was in charge of this here operation, things would change.
lots of things.

1)the name of the game would be trying to keep workers happy, knowing that happy workers are more productive, and give better service..better service equals more business ..which equals a healthy bottom line..which means a happy company.

2)carriers would be given EARLIER start times in the summer so that they could get the pivots set up earlier.. and they would not be starting their jobs in the blazing afternoon sun.
they would also end tour earlier so they could have some time to spend with friends and fam which would make them happier..(see number 1).

3) the uniform would loosen up for the summer too..no daisy dukes or tank tops..
but at least groovy message t-shirts..so we'd be like walkng billboards..cool walking billboards.

4)the LLV's would be retrofitted as convertibles, or at least with air conditioners and sunroofs..and CD players
everybody else is having fun in the sun..so why shouldn't we?

5) people with last minute vacation needs would be granted time off..that's what those TE's were hired for, right? or better yet..give the regulars some freakin OT
so they can afford to go on a vacation in the first place!!!!

i'm on vacation next week..and will leave all of this stuff far behind for a while.
after this week's nonsense (letter of warning for a missed scan point????
seriously???) i am good and ready to bust out ...maybe you know the feeling!

food drive revisisted

When the temps are hot, the food drive ain't so fun...( i overheard one of my co-workers referring to it as the FFD ...f..ing food drive). we all start out feeling good about helping but by week's end, we're just a bunch of angry schleppers.

The other day, temps soared into the high eighties.
A customer (also in her high eighties) left this lovely earless easter bunny
for the carrier to take to the food bank.
"Some little kid is gonna love this!" she told the carrier.
Not as much as i love it!
Where the hell are the ears???
Don't know if you can see it on the picture, but there is a big old hole in the cellophane wrapper where she ripped into it!
Can't decide which is more bizzare; the deaf rabbit or last year's chocolate handcuffs.

food drive faux pas

nothing is worse than picking up food for the food drive
and having to look at it all day when you are really hungry.
all the sudden, that 5 year old can of pinto beans with the dents in it
makes your mouth water. it is a battle just to keep yourself from ripping open the box of Corn Flakes and grabbing a few hand fulls.

okay, there is something worse.
what's worse is picking up food all day while hungry and then being the one that delivers the food after work to the food cupboard when you are now way beyond hungry. you're wondering what Ramon noodles would taste like dry. that kind of hungry.

you're never supposed to go grocery shopping when you're hungry.
likewise you should never deliver food to a food pantry while hungry.
with that in mind, i made a trip to the vending machine inside the P.O. and bought a bag of Twizzlers and a bag of animal crackers to eat before making the trek.
after wolfing them down, i stuffed the empty bags in my pocket.

when i hopped out at the pantry i was greeted by a host of elderly volunteers, ready to help unload the tubs of food. i opened up the back of the truck, then threw my vehicle keys in my pocket. that's when it happened. the crinkling sound heard round the world.
as my keys hit the empty wrappers in my pocket, i felt as if all of those volunteers were thinking that i ate some of their food and had jammed the evidence into my pocket.
of course none of them were actually thinking that..
or were they?

another postal dream dashed

i'm not talking about the kind of dreaming you do at night while sleeping.
i'm talking about the kind where you have what you think is an awesome entry for a
national contest to come up with a 60 second commercial for a postal product..and the winning idea becomes THE national postal commercial.
i had cool music, a fun concept and cool tag lines.
unfortunately it wasn't cool enough to even win the regional contest. (insert loud sobbing noise here).
i always wanted to be like Dick VanDyke and Morrie Amsterdam or Darren Stevens and Larry Tate on Bewitched..sitting around and playing with jingles and ad campaigns for a living.
guess i'm back to being, Cliff or even worse, Newman.

karma contined: canine edition

sorry all of you dog lovers out there, but this story has to be told.

several years ago, a carrier that i work with, who will remain nameless, told me this karma filled episode from his route.

one of X's customers had a yappy little dog that would go batshit crazy every time
that he put mail in the box. not so unusual.

on one particular day, tired of this obnoxious pup, X decided to do some trash-talking at the dog through the closed door .
after calling the doggy a few choice names, he ended the conversation with "I hope you die!".

a few minutes later, one of the kids at the house opened the door to get the mail
and the dog got out.

at this point, X had already crossed the street to deliver the other side.
little old yappy, in hot pursuit of X, also crossed the street..or rather,
tried to. he had his eyes on the prize and didn't see the car coming.
sadly, it squashed him before he could fulfill his lifelong dream of sinking his incisors into X's leg. he died on the spot.

imagine X trying to comfort the grieving family, all the while knowing he and his postal karma had caused their pooch's untimely demise.

don't jerk with the postal karma

a few routes ago, i had many, many customers that i adored
and a few that "challenged" me.
in fact three of the "challenges" lived on the same street.
VERY shortly after a particularly tough "situation" with customer #1,
i found out that he was guilty of Medicaid fraud (he was a shrink).
soon after, he lost his licence and faced a stiff financial penalty.

customer #2, after screwing with my brain, met a similar fate, only he was an anaesthesiologist, and wound up in the slammer!

customer # 3, (who insisted that i only deliver certain catalogs and not the others
even though i repeatedly tried to explain to him that when it comes to junk mail, it's all or nothing) wound up drowning in the lake at his summer home.

makes you wonder.
nothing extremely bad seemed to happen to the nice folks on that route during my tenure.

suffice it to say.............

i will never, ever jerk with my mailguy...

more potty talk

here's a story that was told to me by a carrier under the condition that i would never tell anyone.
i'm not gonna name names so here it goes.

this carrier was in the unfortunate position of having miscalculated his bathroom pit stop.
what to do?
it was garbage day and he quickly and desperately snatched an empty container out of some one's recycling bin, hopped in the back of the truck, closed the cargo door for privacy and did his thing.
he figured he'd dump it out somewhere when he got off his route.

as he drove to his next park point, he noticed a strong (more than pee) odor
coming from the back of his truck.
he went in the back and saw FUMES rising from the container he had peed in.
that was when he realized that the container in question had previously housed CHLORINE ! apparently chlorine and urine combine to make some nasty toxic ammonia-like
concoction.
he determined he had to dump the stuff PRONTO!

up ahead he saw a storm sewer.
he drove up, looked around, dumped the fuming pee down the sewer, and casually set the container in a blue recycling bin.
he vowed NEVER to tell anyone, but broke down and told me the next day.
big mistake!