At the beginning of the month, my five month span of working at the United State Postal Service (USPS) came to an end. While I’m glad to move to the next stage in my life, I will greatly miss the time I spent there. For a job straight out of college, the pay and duties were well fitting.
I was unfortunate and pulled a stomach muscle on the 4th of July, cutting my working time short by three days. This hurt me, and especially the post office where I was scheduled to work, as we had double mail from the holiday. So, while I was sad and apologized at the time, consider this my stronger apology for having an injury and missing work.
The United States Postal Service is the largest employer in the United States, believe it or not. However, even with this statistic, they’re massively understaffed. It’s on an office-to-office basis, obviously, but overall the USPS needs more employees. If you enjoy working with great benefits, an ever-changing schedule, and making relationships with all walks of life, please consider working for them. It was one of the best positions I’ve had the pleasure to work in.
Without further ado, here are four aspects of working at the United States Postal Service, negative and positive.
1. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was nice to me.
Please note that I said “me”, as not all employees have similar experiences. This whole page is dedicated to my personal experience, not to the general consensus of all USPS employees. I worked as a rural carrier in relief, which meant I traveled around a lot. All in all, I worked in five rural offices on nine different routes. Out of those nine, I drove five regularly to the point of memorization.
Out of all the carriers, supervisors, and clerks I interacted with, I could count the negative interactions on one hand. I think there’s a general feeling towards those who aren’t regular so as not to lose them. For example, they want to be nice to me so that I don’t leave, and they’re more understaffed than normal. But just being in the office, there were few times I witnessed arguments or disagreements between coworkers.
I had very few bad interactions with customers as well. Customers, I mean, are those that live on the mail routes I delivered to. There were a few times I felt mildly unsafe, or customers were visibly frustrated with the service provided by the USPS (not me). On rare occasions, I refused delivery due to an aggressive dog.
I was regularly told that I picked up on the job extremely fast, compared to past carriers. It meant a lot coming from clerks and supervisors that had been working for USPS for literal decades.
2. Pay is much too low for retention among new workers.
When I was first starting out, I was surprised that they were offering over twenty dollars an hour for new workers. Most retail and restaurants offer fifteen, or sometimes less. So to receive over one thousand dollars in my first paycheck, I was astonished.
As time goes by, however, you’ll quickly realize most of the older carriers at USPS have been receiving this pay for well over a decade. So while inflation is soaring like a helium balloon, they’ve been getting robbed from the government. Most new carriers (I was planning on quitting early anyways) see this and get demotivated, then eventually quit.
For the amount of work carriers have to do, and the amount of crap they take from supervisors (not in my case), there’s no wonder they can’t retain new employees. Contract negotiations are ongoing with carriers and the higher-ups, but they don’t care enough. They’re not in the field doing the job. Carriers are taking the heavy burden of all this work while everyone above them doesn’t do jack, because they’re getting paid already.
If USPS actually chooses to start valuing their employees and putting them first, they might have retention. The key word there is “might”. I do hope they turn it around in negotiations and get more pay because it’s ridiculous as of now.
3. It’s time to update the vehicle fleet.
The common LLV (box truck) that most think of when mail trucks come to mind were created in 1987-1994. The average life span of a car, just on average, is around twelve years. You don’t need to be a mathematician to do the math there. The majority of the mail delivery vehicles should not be on the road anymore, especially after daily use for thirty plus years.
There are plenty of well-documented issues with the LLV, of which I have a personal story as well. I was working in a city outside of my normal area, and was issued an LLV for packages. It had been rainy the past week, and I got stuck in mud trying to turn around at a dead end. I’m sure you can guess how the story ended: if you guessed with a tow truck, you’re correct.
LLV’s are basically human ovens in the summer. There’s no functioning air conditioning, which results in a lot of heat illnesses by workers. All you get is a tiny fan that half the time doesn’t work. At least one worker dies every year from heat related causes, which is one too many. In the winter, there’s usually no working heat in the same vehicle. No radio is just the cherry on top.
I only had the pleasure of driving that and the Metris, which is comparably better. While I did get stuck a lot in muddy winters, and had issues with the brakes, door jamming, and many other facets, it was better. Anything was better than working in an LLV. I hope the new model (which looks incredibly goofy) can put the LLV to rest for good.
4. Working in an office, at seven in the morning, wasn’t that bad.
The start times for USPS varied by office, but in the New London office, which I was frequenting, started at seven. Add the twenty minute drive and then at least half hour to get ready in the morning, I was often times awake at five thirty. Now, looking back as someone who normally wakes at nine without an alarm, it may seem like hell. But to be honest, I worked best in the morning, having the afternoon and evening to myself.
Don’t get me wrong, working in an office was the worst part of the job. As one of my favorite clerk’s said to me, “You’ll lose time on the road”. He was so right about that. Once I’m out of the office in the morning, on the road, the time flew by. If I could be out of the office within two hours in the morning, I would be back within five hours. I would dread leaving the office late, but it was never too horrible (except once).
The other office I frequented was a seven-thirty start time, and an eight minute drive away. I yearned for those days, let me tell you. The biggest takeaway I got from working for USPS is that I wouldn’t mind doing the job again, I think there needs to be some major reforms, however, if I’m to rejoin. Also, I refuse to join in a large city like Houston. I would first burn to death in the sun, then rip out all of my hair, including body hair, due to stress of working in such a large office.
Today’s cover image isn’t from today in a previous year, but instead the cursed LLV that got me trapped in mud.
Hey people!!!!!
Good mood and good luck to everyone!!!!!