Take My Job, Please Mr. Postman

by Jennifer Whiteford

I run a small after school program for children aged 6-12. If you asked me to be joyful about my job today, I would probably respond by pulling up the hood of my sweatshirt and diving under the couch cushions. That's because today was not a joyful day at the after school program. It was hectic and stressful and the kids were rude and loud and had been inside all day because of the rain. We were all stuck together in our cluttered activity room wearing our soggy socks and finding it hard to be nice to each other. On days like this, I like to think about entering the postal service.

The postal service calls to me on a regular basis. It is the antithesis of working in childcare. To be a postal carrier means long jags of time spent alone. It means walking around outside, performing repetitive actions. It means an employer who pays you a living wage and even gives you nice uniforms to wear. With matching hats. Sometimes I see the postal carriers in my neighborhood, wearing their snazzy fedoras and toting that mail from door to door, and I want to be them so badly that I'm afraid I might involuntarily run after them, trying to steal their hats.

All childcare workers have their perfect anti-job. My old Early Childhood Education professor said he used to fantasize about selling cones at Dairy Queen. And one of my current co-workers says that on hard days she looks out the window and dreams about working in a bank.

I've always had a healthy love of our postal system, even before I'd pegged it as my ideal anti-daycare job. As a suburban teenager in the pre-internet early 90's, I was a rabid mail fiend. I had a whole slew of pen pals and I spent many a dreary high school day thinking about checking the mail on my way home from school. A horrid day could be brightened by "good mail," the same way a decent day could take a nosedive when the mailbox was empty.

My favorite pen pal was a musician friend who lived in Toronto, the city on the outskirts of which my suburb hovered. The letters from Mr. Musician kept me out of the depths of teenage despair by showing me a world that existed outside the high school realm. When I saw his familiar, scratchy handwriting on an envelope in the mailbox, I would practically vibrate with joy. Our correspondence kept me from losing my mind as I slogged through my remaining years of high school. When I left for university, Mr. Musician got "discovered" and left to start what would become years of round-the-world touring. Our letters became few and far between, but at that point I was filling the mail void with Brand New Dorm Boyfriend and my desire to learn how to play every single Lemonheads song on Brand New Dorm Boyfriend's acoustic guitar. Things were looking up. I even got an e-mail account.

Skipping forward to my first year after university graduation, I was a better guitar player, with a better boyfriend but, sadly, no job. I'd chosen to stay in the small town where my school of choice was, curbing my urban urges for a year while Better Boyfriend finished his degree. My autumn days at the computerized job bank didn't yield much initially, but after a few weeks of applying for unlikely positions such as "Wedding Dress Model" I finally came across a posting for a temporary position at the local post office. I stared at the computer screen, smitten. I was going to work at the post office. I could feel it.

Sure enough, a week later I was sitting in room that smelled of sweat and stale coffee with a legion of other temp workers being taught how to count the mail. Yes, that's what my dream job entailed: counting mail. I spent my mornings in the post office's frenetic, echoing main hall, bouncing between the sorting stations of one carrier named Chip and another named Ernie. My job was to count the letters in Chip and Ernie's postal cubbie-holes and then write those totals down in the appropriate boxes of an index card. While we waited for the mail to be sorted and ready for counting I chatted with my carriers, mostly with Chip since Ernie was kind of quiet. If the wait was longer than usual they'd toss me a subscriber's People magazine from one of their cubbies and I'd read them entertaining celebrity gossip to pass the time. Sometimes, if things went quickly, I was only at the post office for one hour. I still got paid for three hours. My hourly wage was $13. It was more money than I'd ever made per hour in my life.

My job at the post office made me mad with glee. I couldn't wait to leave the house every morning and join my much more apathetic co-temps in the wonderful postal environment. I had nothing but good feelings for the mail and for the people who processed and delivered it.

Now, I'm not naïve enough to think that delivering the mail is the perfect job for me or for anyone else. I know that my love for my mail counting job would have likely faded with time. Part of the attraction of the job was the freedom of knowing that I was only spending three hours there, tops, on any given day. After a few months my contract was over and I left with my warm feelings and postal idealism still intact.

Which is why, on my way to work, I always take my headphones off and say an enthusiastic hello to the postman who I pass as I walk. He probably thinks I'm in love with him. Really I want to steal his job.

And his hat.

The Author

Jennifer Whiteford teaches, cooks, writes, and goes to rock shows in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Her first novel, Grrrl, will be published in September 2005 by Gorsky Press. She shares a shabby townhouse with two dogs, two cats, and one boy. Daily updates can be found at www.matildazine.org.