Regarding the United States Postal Service...

My apologies in advance for this screed. I don't know if it belongs here, but maybe it does.

I have always been a big fan of the post office. To me, it has always been an example of government & people working together to perform a service that is integral to the functioning of society. I work for the post office now, but even before I did, I defended the post office from misconceptions and attacks on its' solvency.

That being said, the place is run terribly, probably from the top down. I am a City Carrier Assistant, which is basically a mailman without a few of the benefits. You become a full mailman when you become what is called a "Regular." Depending on your particular office, it can take anywhere between 1 year to 5 years to become a regular, it just depends on how many people retire or quit in your area for a "regular" spot to open. City Carrier Assistants (CCA) do all the same things as a regular mailman, which just don't get all the same protections from the Union, and therefore, can be treated like garbage. Don't get me wrong, we have many protections from the Union as soon as we are hired, even if we don't pay dues, but in several important areas, we are powerless. And unfortunately, because we have no power in those areas, we are abused.

In any postal office, CCA's make up about 10% of the carriers. Our job is to respond to daily vacancies. Your mailman calls out sick, a CCA is probably going to deliver it. As such, our hours are not guaranteed. When I was hired, I was told that I probably could not rely on making 40 hours a week. That was a year and a half ago, and I have seldom worked fewer than 50 hours a week. CCA's can be worked 7 days a week, and since the USPS delivers Amazon packages on Sundays, many of us are worked 7 days a week. And those that work 6 days usually work 10 hours a day. So, even if you get a day off, you are so tired you really don't feel like doing a whole lot except resting your body.

As I type this, I just finished working a 13 hour shift. I got to work at 6:30 am, delivered packages for 4 hours, and I was then ordered to deliver a walking route that I didn't know. Walking routes are often terrible because those people don't have standard mailboxes out by the curb. Usually their box is right next to their front door, but it could just as easily be around the back of their house. You don't know until you deliver to that house, and hopefully, you remember it when you do the route again 4 months later.

I could go on about bad experiences working at the post office, and some of you may care just because you are nice. But for others, I will tell you why you should care. Due to the Post Office purposefully not hiring more people, many of us are delivering after dark, and we are going to end up killing someone by hitting them with our vehicles. After working 10 hours or so on a route we most likely don't know, we are being ordered to deliver the mail in unsafe conditions. A few of my coworkers reported almost hitting pedestrians a couple weeks ago, and brought a little bit of mail back to the office. They were ordered to take the mail back out or be fired. It's dark, you can't see address numbers on people's mailboxes or houses. You have to strain to make out the numbers, and while you are doing that, it is easy to almost run someone down. After all, you can't stop or drive at a snail's pace or else it would take forever to deliver.

I had a casual sit down with our new Post Master here in central Florida. He transferred after a few weeks, by the way. Anyway, I made him aware of almost killing someone, and he acknowledged it and told me, and others, to deliver the mail or we will be fired. He then went on to say that we are all replaceable and that we can't really use these skills anywhere else so where are we going to go? He then implied that if we do hurt someone, we will be the ones held accountable and supervisors won't be.

Maybe this is different in your city, maybe it is worse. I just thought some of you may care to know.