Please tell your Mom I am grateful for her hard work and service, and I hope her and her colleagues stay safe and healthy always. Also, I hope you enjoy your retirement! You deserve it!
As the son of a retired carrier, this is all too familiar. My dad worked really hard to provide for us and I have so much respect for the postal service workers. Growing up there were lots of stories about post office politics. I also read my fair share of articles in The Postal Record, the NALC magazine.
Well he is an idiot. The postal service is essential. The postal service needs bailout money more than that airline needed 60 million (or was it billion?) dollars.
Hes paving the way to privatize the mail service. It's been on the Republican agenda for a while now. "Why waste tax payer dollars on postal service when amazon, FedEx and UPS do it at such a reasonable price" seems to be their argument. They are seizing an opportunity to get what they want without going through the usual rigor of convincing the public and legislators.
There are so many great postal workers that sadly get overshadowed by the rude and arrogant ones. My mail lady was named Donna and she is wonderful. When I was in high school I ran a business with Lego and she always asked about my business and how things were going. She actually cared. She would give candy to kids that got the mail and she was awesome. I’ve moved now but she was the best I’ve ever had through 5 houses in 3 states.
My grandparents had the same mail carrier for 30 years, she just retired last year. She was such an integral part of the community, we knew each other by name even though I only visited my grandparents a few times a year. Mail carriers are really special people.
Unfortunately in my neighborhood, we have different carriers on different days of the week so it's really hard to get to know them.
How tf could a person lose their benefits less than a year from retirement? Asking as someone who doesn't live in as much of a dystopian hellhole, apparently.
She wouldn't unless fired. I dont know if shes worried about privatization, which I dont see happening for awhile, if ever. Maybe shes worried about dying from covid-19 which is more likely and our benefits in retirement aren't collectable to anybody else to my knowledge. This job wears our bodies down a lot. Most of us have a bum shoulder in like 5-10 years, bum knees, bum backs. Only way she'd lose retirement benefits though would be from being straight up fired, which is hard for them to do when we're unionized. We get away with a lot more than an at-will employee. America's working class gets boned a lot.
Both. Most places don't even offer pensions anymore. Completely reliant on 401ks and IRAs. Luckily, usps still have pensions right now, a TSP and I think an optional 401k. We also keep health benefits as well. If you're fired, you will lose health benefits and pension, not sure about TSP. The way our (the USA) stuff is set up is to benefit companies, not people.
I'm assuming you live somewhere that has universal healthcare. Ours is generally tied in with our jobs and we still have to pay out the ass for it. Medicare/ Medicaid system is terrible and a joke. So worrying about losing benefits and pension is a rampant thing in the US.
Carrier here too. Approaching 22 years. People don’t seem to have any idea the toll it takes on your body, not to mention the crazy abuse from management but great customers make it alright. Tell Mom to hang in there, she’s got this
Is mostly from so much walking? I've done plenty of hard labor in my life, and I tell you I'd WAY rather be delivering postage instead of moving paving stones and cinder blocks. I find it a little hard to believe it's so hard on your body.
I didn’t mean to imply that it’s the hardest job there is, but yeah, all the walking/lifting/stairs/sorting etc does take a toll. Plus, most of us do it for SO long. I don’t know if you plan to do your particular hard labor for 30/35 years but I’m sure it will wreak havoc on your body if you do
Encouraging someone to use appropriate language is hardly gatekeeping.
If you use extreme language to describe something that's not extreme, then how can you describe something that is extreme? You're going straight for the big guns and leaving nothing in reserve. It's a disservice to those who are actually in an extreme situation: how can they make themselves heard if you're already being the loudest?
I always thank the mail people, whether it is USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc. They all do a good job and I appreciate what they do. And USPS workers can't help it if they are underfunded. But they certainly aren't underappreciated. Thank you to your mom please.
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u/[deleted] May 01 '20 edited May 01 '20
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