Why I hate the mailman

A major part of my job depends on the mail. I need to process the checks that people pay us, so we can pay our bills, which come in the mail at the same time. Besides the actual money issue, I have nothing to do for most of the day. The mail and the resulting work that comes from it are important to keep my time staring blankly at the wall to a minimum.

Our normal mailman delivers the mail around 12:30 – 1pm. This is fine. I have the rest of the day to do my thing. But our normal mailman is on paternity leave. Did you know that postal employees get 3 months paternity leave? That’s great for them, but it screws up our mail. We get any number of replacement mailmen, and each one comes at a different time every day. This means I have to go check the mail several times a day, which takes a long time because the elevators rarely work (I just spent 10 minutes waiting to go down 2 floors). If the stairs were of any use, that would be a different story, but they are exit only. Once you are in the stairwell you have to go all the way down to the emergency exit on the first floor because the “door” you entered through has turned into a solid brick wall behind you.

Since I don’t have much to do anyway, I don’t mind the exercise in patience that is checking the mail. But I do mind when it comes really late. The other day it came after 4:30. I leave at 5. I stayed 10 minutes over because I wanted to get it done for the morning and there wasn’t that much there. Today was building up to be the same way.

I go down at 4:30, and lo and behold, there is the mailman. I ask if he has done our mail yet. The normal reply I get when asking this question is “No, but here you go” and all is well. Today, however, New Replacement Mailman says “If it’s not in your box then I haven’t done it.” Of course it wasn’t in the box. There are various piles of mail strewn about the floor, so I flip one over that looks promising. “Miss – don’t touch that. If it’s not in your box then I haven’t done it.” Ouch. It’s not like I want to steal someone else’s mail. Sure, it’s a federal offense, but I’m sure we’ll get their mail anyway. The Replacement Mailmen are that good.

I hang around for a second, deciding what to hit him with because he was rude to me (another federal offense) and realize that he is not working as long as I am waiting. So if I want my mail, I’ll have to go back upstairs, wait a bit, and come back down to get it. It’s 4:30. I want to at least finish the busy work I was doing so it looks like I did something today while Boss was out. What I do instead is write Boss a little note explaining how rude New Replacement Mailman was and why both bills and checks are still sitting in the mailbox (I presume).

Who knows, I may have stayed the extra 10 minutes again, if I was allowed access to the mail. However, since that guy decided everyone had better things to do than get the mail and be niced at, he took his sweet time and snipped at people. If I knew spells or curses, I would cast one on him so we could get New New Replacement Mailman, who wouldn’t be so rude and late. So now I’m sending some bad karmic thoughts towards New Replacement Mailman. Feel free to join me.