You might be thinking I've decided to join the armed forces, but no, I haven't. That is the first part of the oath you take when you are sworn into the postal service. Our trainer laughed and said that pretty much if all the armed forces die off, it's up to us postal workers to defend the country. HAHAHAHA! So let's hope and pray that never happens.
Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this job. It's going to be crazy hard, but once I get the hang of it I should be fine. Every person I've talked to who works for the post office says it's the best job they have ever had. So, once I get pasted what that call the, "Holy crap" stage then it will all click and make total sense.
I don't think a lot of people know exactly what their mail carrier does. Well, here is a very brief explanation. All the mail is sent to the proper Post Office. The carrier has to go through each class of mail and sort it. (Luckily the first class letters are already sorted into route order as well as some of the others). Once you've sorted all that mail. (which takes forever) you have to load it out if the case and put it into trays to take to the vehicle. There are also packages of all sorts that you have to know what type they are and how to handle them on the street. Once your to the street it is supposed to be the easy part. Ha ha!
I will be driving one of these... (What they call the Cadillac of mail trucks) ;)
Come to find out, it's really true that dogs LOVE to go after the mail man. Everyone who trained my little group had dogs stories. Little tid bit for ya. Every mail carrier is given dog spray. It does NOT hurt the dog. It's for the post mans protection. So if your dog runs towards the mail man, don't be surprised if it gets sprayed. Please don't be mean to the mail man. Your dog may love everyone but the post man may not know that, and if he feels threatened in any way he is trained to do that. Or in more severe cases, he will just stop delivering your mail to you until the dog is either restrained properly or taken away.
So hopefully I have this....
I also found out something else very interesting. I tell you so that you will know for yourself, because it either applies to you now, or will later. A friend of mine asked me why her mail lady wouldn't ever hand her the mail when she was a kid. At first I didn't know... I thought that was really weird. Well, that was a HUGE part of our training. First reason is, they are not a responsible party. Second and WAY more important, the Post Office does NOT want to have accidents with anyone least of all children. I have driven around in the post office vehicles and I can tell you from experience that it is VERY hard to see around the vehicle. So please keep your kids away from the vehicles. I heard some pretty sad stories of kids getting killed because they were playing around them. Don't be alarmed if the post man/woman is mean to your kids. It's their job to keep them safe and the best way to keep a child away is to make them not want to approach the vehicle at all.
Well now that I've given you all a class on the post office.... Ha ha!
I'm excited to get started. I'm still training and such but soon enough I will be out there and passing along your mail. Not to mentioned getting paid again. YAY!
