If I hadn’t planned on this being my last day at the Post Office, it probably would have been anyway. It was long and slow and frustrating. First, it took me until noon to get out of the Post Office and 5 hours to deliver. What made it the worst was that it snowed a week ago and many of the streets still needed cleaning. At a lot of the boxes, I couldn’t stop at the box and frequently had to back up once I did stop, and couldn’t get going once I got the mail in the box. It doesn’t sound all bad, it probably sounds like I’m just bitching about a little thing, but when you have to stop the car 380 times (no exaggeration), it does really get frustrating.
On the upside, I had no accountables (certified letters, registered mail, C.O.D.s, or insured mail) so I didn’t have to ring doorbells for signatures. This is actually quite rare, there are usually at least 2 certified letters to deliver. Not having any is nice.
One thing I learned working there is that it’s nice to have a friggin huge mailbox. The less the mail carrier has to go to the door the better. If I had a package the size of a shoebox, it won’t fit in most mailboxes, but if the person has an extra large box, it will. I like those, and will probably have them at any future homes I own as a courtesy to my mail carrier. The most frustrating thing on the day-to-day part of the job is when you have a box that’s a quarter inch too big to go in a box and have to walk up the driveway and leave it by the door. Actually, if I got paid for time worked, not rated time, it wouldn’t be as bad, but when I work 10 hours and get paid for 7, every minute that takes longer really is frustrating.