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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic


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....
and not 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!

6 comments:

  1. This sounds like quite an adventure! I am very excited for you!

    My cousin says the worst part is the extreme cold days when you have to go out on foot and the extreme HOT days because there is not A/C in the mail trucks. Other than that she likes her job for the most part and I'm sure you will too once the initial "holy Crap" phase is over. Your posts always make me laugh!

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  2. Sounds kinda dangerous. Dogs, kids, defending country and all! Good Luck! I hope you like it.

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  3. I'll be out on foot quite a bit. I have a lot of what they call, cluster boxes. There in all the new subdivisions. It's like having a street side PO Box. That should be interesting. Ha ha! Those mail trucks have this dorky little fan attached to the dash for "AC". So, it's nothing but weather appropriate clothes for me. I don't have to wear a uniform so that's good for that "weather appropriate" stuff.

    I think they tell you all the super scary stuff so that you be really careful, even though it doesn't happen very often. Better to be safe than sorry. :)

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  4. That was a really interesting post. I had know idea that it was the carriers that had to sort the mail too. I don't think you will have a problem with dogs, they all seem to always really like you. Good luck when you offically start! That is awesome

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  5. I have delivered the whole route now. I had a dog today that i swear wanted to eat me. It was in a backyard, thank goodness! It should all be good. I'm super tired and glad to have a day of rest before Monday and Tuesday, when I get to spend the day in the case, really digging in and sorting the mail. It doesn't help that I have had this nasty cold since I started training, almost 2 weeks ago. I can't wait for that to go away. But, on the seriously awesome plus side, I will be getting paid for all this training.... Really well. ;) So it's all worth it!

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