Going Postal

Last week I started a new run, well actually it’s a run I’ve filled in on in the past but now I have to do it one day a week. I hate it but it’s money.

One of the stops is at the BMC or Bulk Mail Center, which as you may have deduced is the big post office. This is where all the mail for the area comes to on big trailers and then it is sorted onto other big trailers and moved around. I don’t know exactly what they do here, what area they cover or anything like that but I would love to spend a day there to see. However this is not what this is about.

Now, I don’t want to offend any of you readers who may work for the Postal Service or who have relatives who might work for the Postal Service, or who may have friends who work for the Postal Service, but if I do, oh well, stuff happens.

Now the first thing I notice when I go into the BMC is all these trailers parked helter skelter (hey, that is the first time I have used helter skelter in a sentence). Some of them are marked with numbers some wth abbreviations of cities. For example: BUF – SPRG (Buffalo – Springfield), NSH – DET (Nashua or maybe Nashville – Detroit) etc. etc. Today I saw one that said LA – MEM, which I am assuming is Los Angeles – Memphis, and this concerns me, if this is supposed to be in either of these cities, what the hell is it doing here in Springfield? Last time I checked Springfield isn’t close to either of these fine places.

The next thing I see is a sign which states that all drivers are to stop and pick up the phone to get a dock assignment. When I pick up the phone, why does the person answering always feel so annoyed, like “why the hell are you calling me?” Hey I am just reading the sign and following orders. After backing to the dock, I go to the “Drivers Entrance” and there I am met with a sign which reads “Drivers are not to open doors”. When I go inside and wait, and wait, and wait, for someone to open the door, I am always asked the same thing, “Why don’t you open the door?” Ummm, because the sign says not to.” Can’t win for losing I guess. And then there is the whole chock block thing. There is a rule that all trucks are to be chocked, this is so if a fork lift drives into my truck it doesn’t move if the emergency brake were to release. And sure enough they always look to see if the chock block is there. The funny thing about this is they won’t drive onto the truck anyway, they bring the mail to the door and that is as far as they go.

And God forbid I actually put anything on my truck without someone touching it for me. Well unless of course there is some physical labor involved. And do you have any idea how many postal workers it takes to load one mail basket onto a truck?

I will say this about that, it certainly amazes me how we can get a letter from point A to point B for only 43 cents.