Tuesday, February 03, 2009

a fair question...

Someone at the party Saturday asked me why I left such a good job at the post office.

The property I manage is on the market and I have no promise of continued employment after transition, so the reasonable thing to do is to send out feelers re: the job market. In this economy, I've had many occasions to think of why I left the USPS, and at no time do I feel rueful or wistful about having left. By now I'd have 6 paid weeks of vacay a year, and considering I had some $50K years in my 20s there, I'd probably easily be making that much routinely without trying. Then again, I was hired before I turned 20, and if I felt burned and eaten alive by the machine at the age of 28, how do you think I'd feel now, 15 years later?

Sometime I'll give you my feelings on the APW Union, but I'm not in rant mode so I'll kick that excrescent corpse another time.

I prefer working for a smaller company, even if the money and the benefits aren't on par with top-flight corporate gigs. I prefer handling the reins a little more on my own, and I want to feel that I'm actually contributing to the success of a caring company rather than just another number on a payroll performing duties which could be aptly seen to by anyone who could fog a mirror.

I mean no slight to people who do work at the USPS-- not everyone has the same needs from a job as I. I get bored and restless. I drift. I worked in large mail processing facilities and though I landed some nicely diverting details, I generally found the atmosphere oppressive and depressing. Also, the inherent inequities in the way people are treated in that company make me marvel there are not more homicidal events in those facilities.

I would never have done such a thing. Generally, postal shootings have been a matter of a disgruntled firee coming back to give the supervisor their just desserts. I feared I'd be the first employee to be shot by a supervisor.

Srsly.

7 comments:

Rabbit said...

I thought you simply got fed up with working with alien lifeforms.

Wife's father worked for the USPS inside for a hundred years or so. She indicated he liked it, especially since he got off work by 3ish every day. I had a couple of friends who worked at the P.O. in my hometown, and they were certifiable old coots.

Regards,
Rabbit.

TOTWTYTR said...

"Rabbit said...

I thought you simply got fed up with working with alien lifeforms. "

In 2001 when the Anthrax mailings happened I was deployed to the main PO in Manhattan to help with the medical screenings and Cipro distribution for the night shift workers.

After a couple of days of seeing the menagerie of employees filing through I commented that if I was Anthrax, I'd be scared of catching postal worker.

phlegmfatale said...

Rabbit - well, there was that, too.

TOTWTYTR - You, good Sir, just won the Internets. Thanks for the hearty guffaw.

Anonymous said...

Trust me on this one, you would have been a miserable drudge by now. I see too many 30 and 40 year seniority reps at the call center and while some are happy...the drones I see trudging in and out on a daily basis is awful. I saw the light after just three years on the phones. I knew I wouldn't last with the company unless I found another position. Now, I can celebrate 14 years next week there and not feel like I am losing my ever-living mind!!! I always felt like you made the right decision by leaving when you did!

Christina RN LMT said...

We love you just as you are, Phlegmmy!

If you'd stayed, you wouldn't be YOU, and that would be sad.

Jeffro said...

I put in ten years before it was obvious that they didn't have the dream job for me. I've always said it's a great job for the right minded person - I just wasn't that person. You definitely have to leave the job behind when the door is grazing the ol' buttocks on the way out.

Yeah, and it's a wonder we all manage to get the majority of our mail, plus the APWU is more concerned with continuing it's existence than it's constituents. I couldn't stand worshiping at the altar of Moe Biller, either.

In retrospect, I wish I had quit sooner.

Assrot said...

My wife has been with the USPS for 28 years. It is without a doubt the most miserable job I have ever heard anyone talk about.

I applied for a job there and got accepted way back in the mid 70s when I got out of the Army. I didn't know what a bad place it was to work back then but my gut told me not to take the job for some reason so I turned it down. Thank God heh?

Working for a state university system run by bliss ninnies for the last 19 years has been no bed of roses either but from what I hear it's a far cry better than the post office.

I know I made the right choice by not accepting their job offer and I think you made a good choice by leaving before it made a moonbat out of you.

My poor wife is going stir crazy. If she can just hang out another 22 months, she'll have her 30 years.

Good luck in today's job market. I think you will be fine. I've found that the only people that truly can't find a job are the ones that aren't willing to do what it takes.

People that want to work always find work. It may not be the best job around but times change and anyone can take a crappy job for awhile until something better opens up.

Good Luck,
Joe