Brooklyn Heights Postman Lifts With Neither Knees Nor Back
Our country's postal employees have a well-deserved day off today. However, let this New York mail carrier's mistake serve as a lesson for the Internet age: don't do anything stupid in public, ever, because someone will probably be surreptitiously filming you.
Special Delivery [Flickr] (via Brooklyn Heights Blog - thanks, Josh!)
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Newman!!
Given the state of postal delivery and post office service in New York City, this is about par for the course. I am sure there are maybe one or two competent postal employees in the city somewhere.
@I Love New Jersey: Cheap shot. Sure there are plenty of lame-o letter carriers and incompetent clerks but the majority of 'em are pretty good.
It's a crappy job and they have to deal with all kinds of bs, including unappreciative customers.
(And no, I don't work for the PO and have had plenty of less-than-stellar experiences, but "one or two competent employees" is beyond idiotic.)
@EdnaLegume: My mother worked as a mail carrier in Cooperstown NY when some mystifying illness struck her and she was unable to carry the mail bags. Lots of pain, Dr's couldn't figure it out for a while. Her postmaster denied her request for a cart, saying it would make their little touristy town look bad, that if she couldn't do the job they would find someone who could. Apparently, this was a bad bad decision on behalf of the USPS. She applied for disability when it became unbearable and her postmaster still denied her request.
Within a year, she was diagnosed with severe rhuematoid arthritis and could no longer work. Within 5 years she was getting knee replacements. She was in her mid-40's.
Be lucky your father had the option. And no not all carriers are douches like this one.
Our house is at the top of a short hill. My wife was home one day and watched as the mailman stood at the bottom of the hill and chucked a package at our front door. And he never closes the mailbox, which is fun when it rains.
Isn't there some ADA or workman's comp situation to deal with that? Your mom was injured on the job, after all, and reasonable accommodation was not made. Sounds like a real ass of a postmaster.
Also, having spent a lot of time in upstate NY, where the population is really aging fast, I was surprised that a mail cart could stand for so much anathaema. Even in Cooperstown with the major tourist draw, folks from the Leatherstocking region are usually friendlier and more understanding than that.
@verucalise: did she try to have a lawyer intervene at all? or go over her postmasters head? offer to work the counter? I'm still surprised daily the callousness of some people.
With the way that thing rolled and the way he flipped it, it doesn't even look like it was that heavy. It just looks like he was goofing off.
I collect cartoon glasses and buy a lot off of ebay. No wonder so many of them arrive in little pieces. I tell sellers to pack really well and joke that my carrier must use the boxes as soccer balls...guess I wasn't too far off.
USPS your days are numbered...
from jacking up the stamp prices every year (just raise it to 50 cents and be done with it for a while so we don't keep having quais-worthless stamps laying around)
to stealing Netflix movies, Gamefly games and this crap
So that's why we haven't seen our weekend carrier in a while -- he's in Brooklyn!
That doesn't look very heavy the way he just flips it like that. I'd think his bending over to flip it is harder on his back than actually picking it up would be.
Damn leafer.
The worst part is that, due to union contracts/membership, this jackass will be fine. This is terrible. For the most part, I've had positive experience with most of my mail carriers. Kudos to them for taking pride on their work.
@Bocachica: Have you lived in NYC? Specifically, have you lived in any part of NYC with a significant working or lower class population? Before I moved to Brooklyn, I had almost exclusively positive experiences with the USPS.
I've had more mail stolen and rifled here than anywhere else. My last zipcode (11211) was so bad that at christmas time, I told relatives not to send me anything because my PO would just steal it. At the time, I had a 60% "loss" rate for incoming packages. It was so bad that I got a PO Box in Manhattan.
Unfortunately, the E. Village wasn't a great place to do that.
-They "lose" a significant portion of my mail.
-They closed the box for 2 months (it was paid for a full year, wasn't set to expire for many months).
- They regularly return packages to senders with a notice that "This address does not exist." (ORLY? How did you charge me for the PO Box, then?)
There ARE some nice employees in there. (Jorge @ Cooper Station is THE BEST POSTAL EMPLOYEE EVER.) I always start off every transaction with a smile, but what goes on behind the scenes is awful. They have as many stickyfingers & incompetents as the TSA, except unlike air travel, there really isn't an alternative.
I saw something similar
I was at a big outdoor mall type of thing (like an indoor mall but without the roof and you have to cross a street to get from one section of stores to another) in Los Angeles. I turn and see a guy across the street kicking an open box stuffed with clothes down the sidewalk. I would have loved to see him accidentally kick the box over.
@SirNotAppearing: there are a couple houses like that here and despite them having stairs I still think the mailman does that
I am a postman. Believe me, when other carriers see sh*t like this, it makes us crazy. The vast majority of us do a good job every day. On behalf of the letter carriers' union, I apologize for this douchebag.
THIS is exactly why even though I can get very good deals online I have never and will ever buy hard drives, laptops or other sensitive electronics from newegg or anywhere else.
Packed properly, it should matter... still, Postman Newman should use a cart next time!
Hello Newman!
No disrespect to the good FedEx drivers, but that's exactly how one of them rolled a boxed transfer case up to my garage door a few years ago. I watched him from my front window as he rolled the box out the door and then did the end-over-end thing. He was almost to my front door before I made it down and outside.
Him, standing next to mauled package with bent bolts poking through: "I didn't do that."
What was he doing? Was he auditioning for the newest Ace Ventura movie?
Wouldn't it have been easier for him to kick it, or nudge it with his foot? It actually looks like he put a lot of effort into this.
Maybe he is exercising? So what if he ruins what is in the carton? It is a small price to pay to know this man is good shape! Neither rain, sleet, snow or a box will keep the mail from being pushed around.
@SasmitaScuderi: That's the problem. The guys that do do a good job every day you don't hear about. But get one lazy SOB like this and it gives you all a bad name.
I lived in the yuppie wasteland of NoVA, and one day I was at home around Xmas, when I saw this package fly over my back fence and land on a flower pot on our deck, causing it to explode. The mailman had shot it like a free-throw.
Thing is, I don't blame him one bit. I was sick of all the yuppies myself, even though I was kind of one of them. Also, my mom is a postal employee, and hearing years of her stories about all the assholes who come in and think they're the first to comment on or make a joke about the rising costs of stamps has put me firmly on the side of all postal employees. Quit complaining and just let yourself be awed at having mail delivery.
Just buy "Forever" stamps and you won't have to keep 1 and 2 cent stamps around, they cost the same as normal stamps.
@ekthesy:
RA would not be an on the job injury. Unless her job has some control over her immune system. Though their response was unnacceptable, her employer should have no culpability in her developing RA.
@kateblack: My zip code is right next to yours, and the carriers are thankfully considerate. My post office manager is another story.
Before you blast NYC area residents for complaining about their carriers, try receiving mail within the 5 boroughs. In pretty much every other area of the country, you will find smiling employees, state-of-the-art machines, and wonderful delivery service. The minute you get to an NYC post office (with one or 2 exceptions), it's as if you've stepped 30 years back in time, and often have to wait in line for 45 minutes for a simple transaction that would be easily remedied if all 10 of their machines weren't broken.
When I first moved here in the early 90s, my old post office had already installed the digital scales for package postage. That same year I stepped into the Cooper Station PO and saw a busted, Victorian-era brass scale. I swear 10 years passed before digital scales were available in most branches.
As mentioned above, you can live adjacent to an OK zip code and watch as much of your mail is stolen, especially around the holidays. I'm not going to automatically blame the carriers or employees, but it IS strange how certain zip codes have exponentially more problems than others (even if your building security is adequate).
Was he singing "3 Times A Lady" while doing this?
@JanDuKretijn: Huh. All I know is that an employee refused to let me insure a letter to my mom one time. She said, "it has to be a package." So, I proceeded to the nearby Duane Reade, purchased a padded envelope, and a box of maxi pads. I placed the letter and a few maxi pads into the package, brought it pack to the PO, and said, "THERE's your package." She had no choice but to insure it.
I think I was more in awe of the Pony Express.
Thats why the PO just raised their rates. Too many peeps like the bashing UPS does to our stuff better than the PO does.
That is very funny in a horribly ironic way.
OMG I laughed so hard I almost wet myself! This would be a glowing endorsement for UPS and FedEx.
@richcreamerybutter: Why would you insure a letter? Insurance is for the contents. You insured maxipads?
A registered letter would have most probably been what you wanted. It does provide insurance and is the most secure method of transport through the mail. Each employee that takes posession of the letter must sign for it as it travels to its destination.
A small amount of insurance $500 I believe is included with Registered mail, and more can be purchased.
Why not ask the window clerk what the options are rather than coming up with some work around to accomplish what you believe is correct. Insurance only pays for the actual value of the item. For things like stock certificates or gift cards, it only pays what it would cost to replace them - usually only ten or twenty dollars.
@SasmitaScuderi: Apology accepted. I always appreciate a hard working mail carrier, as we've all been exposed a bad one at some point in our lives.
@SpruceStreetPhil: I agree with Powerlurker here, the Forever stamps are a lifesaver. However, USPS cannot raise the rates at once- stamps are tied to inflation by the government. I agree it's a great idea, but it's not possible with the current policies.
But theft of games and movies.. that just pisses me off.
@kateblack: while i am not happy to have left NYC, the one thing I love about being back in NH is that I will not have to enter into a time vortex to do something that should take 5 minutes.
Lived in 11218, no APC, and the line was ALWAYS filled with passport people. I stopped going there and went to the post office near school on 60th b/w broadway and columbus. And I loved when the mailman decided that mail belonged on my stoop, not in my mailbox.
Lived in 11215, the APC was NEVER stocked. So a 5 minute task would end up taking 45 minutes to an hour. Not to mention mail carriers who like to SHOVE mail in the mailbox...I love broken Netflix disks. And stolen star trek magazines.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that the way a postal worker is treated by management may have prompted this very public display of what we tend to think is a "mailman not caring" when it is really more likely than not "mailman with documented back injury had to come in to work because too many carriers called out sick that day."
Of course it hasn't. You haven't been there.
As a former postal letter carrier, let me explain something: you are a machine. You are expected to get x amount of mail to its destination in y amount of hours. If x happens to be 5 times as much as the day before, you still have only y hours to deliver it. Your chances of injuring yourself increase dramatically. Also, an injury means you are now a thorn in the managers side. He or she rather not make you work but they have to meet the numbers, using the machine that is you to do just that. They will break rules and hope you don't get the union to pester them.
Quitting the postal service was one the best decisions of my life, and I was one of the better mailmen. To the public eye I was always smiling, friendly, helpful and careful to make sure nothing I delivered was damaged. To my bosses I didn't complain when they screwed me over again and again.
I wouldn't behave like this mail carrier did but I understand it completely. It is a shame that in the end all that matters is that the package arrives, which makes his boss look good on paper.
I have a great amount of respect for the postal workers out there, but they work for a very poorly run corporation, HUMAN TREATMENT WISE, that is so stuck in its ways that I don't expect it to ever change. And why should it? Every single address across the planet is it's clientèle. USPS will be around forever.
@SpruceStreetPhil: I wish their days were numbered. But it is nearly a statistical impossibility when every single address on the planet has the capacity to receive mail.
My dad was a postman for many many years and he started using a handy cart type thingy as he crept up in years. Frankly he's still running circles around me at 67. To me, seems more work to keep bending over to roll the thing than to just pick it up and carry it. I hate bending over.