Through Rain, Sleet or Snow

By Larry Teren

Letter_Carrier_with_Mail_SackThe mail gets delivered in all types of weather as the saying goes, but maybe not always when there are vacations to negotiate. At least in my village.

The U. S. Postal Service recently announced that they were going broke within the next few months. No wonder. Recently, I walked past the lobby in my condo building toward the elevators and considered for a moment about checking to see if I had any mail that day. This was at 7:30pm. I had already checked at 4:30pm and the mail slot was empty. Before I turned the corner to the mail room entrance, I thought, “no way! If it wasn’t delivered by 4:30pm then I probably didn’t have any but others probably got theirs.” But then I remembered I had a conversation with a substitute mail carrier late one afternoon the previous week and he told me how he was exasperated because his local office was making him take care of the rounds for absent carriers after his own eight hour route. He was tired and it was unfair, although he was getting paid time-and-a-half overtime. Continue reading “Through Rain, Sleet or Snow”