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The Way We Work Now
Being a Mail Carrier Right Now Is Unsustainable
‘If the post office was already on fire, the pandemic threw kerosene on it’
The Way We Work Now is a series chronicling how people’s lives and careers have fundamentally changed because of the pandemic.
This 45-year-old anonymous mail carrier has been working for the United States Postal Service for more than 10 years. He spoke with Mai Tran about the mail delivery slowdowns this summer that sparked outcries nationwide.
If the post office was already on fire, the pandemic threw kerosene on it. We’ve always had a manpower issue. Mail delivery has been suspect — we had issues with our postmaster general making swift, drastic changes and giving us little information. The pandemic is just the most recent hindrance.
Out of over 100 employees, we’ve only had two to three cases of carriers contracting Covid, and they isolated, recovered, and have been back since then. We’ve never had a spreading event, and management has tried to keep us informed. When we case, or sort, mail, we’re inside of a bookshelf with two wings that separate us from the person to our left and right. If you’re in your case doing your job, you don’t have to worry about being in anybody’s face or breathing anybody’s…
