As many of you know, I work for The Daily Utah Chronicle. Because the paper doesn't come out during breaks, and it's my only job, I had to look for something else before a month-long Winter Break started. In the U-BYU pre-game rivalry guide that came out as an insert in our paper, there was an ad from the United States Postal Service looking for seasonal employees. I figured, I'd work for two weeks, make some money, then sleep for two other weeks before school starts. I applied and...got the job.
I was handling Christmas gifts and other mail for almost two weeks, which seemed as two months. Although it was an exhausting job (I was on my feet all day, lifting, carrying and throwing boxes and envelopes), I was making really good money, and I received a fat check shortly after Christmas. I met lots of new people, mostly other college students (most of whom are from UVSC), and learned a lot of things. So, here's a list of what you might have not known about the post office during Christmas season.
1. The first and most important thing: SANTA DOESN'T DO JACK!!!
2. There's a lot of mail sent during a month of December. A lot! A LOT!!!
3. Do not send fragile things via USPS.
4. Even though you write "FRAGILE" all over your package, it won't make a difference in how postal workers will handle it. In fact, they will throw your package with even more force.
5. If you don't write a ZIP code on whatever you're sending, it'll be at least a day delayed.
6. Mail that goes from Austin to Dallas (both in Texas) somehow always ends up in Utah.
7. Twelve-hour work shifts with 15-minute breaks every two hours and no days off are a normal thing.
8. If you stay up making out 'til 4 a.m. the night before you work, presents for some little boy might take longer time to arrive. Sorry, little boy...whoever you were. :)
9. UVSC students are loud, have no manners but know how to make various animal sounds in different tonalities.
10. Returning missionaries (who are UVSC students) try to get you into church as soon as they find out you're not (OMG!!!) LDS, even while they're working for the post office.
11. Post office does not mail checks to its employees. We have to go to pick them up ourselves. Go figure...
When I was finally done with Santa's slave camp, I did whatever I wanted before Spring Semester...such as sleep (I slept for 15 hours after my last day there), have social life back and make out 'til 4 a.m. without falling asleep at work the following day. I've made sure your gifts from out of state were here on time.
P.S. I knew there was a reason why I didn't like Christmas...
7 comments:
I like your snapshot story quite a bit. It tells a whole story in a very interesting and unique way! A couple of suggestions would be to try and add some conversation techniques in there somewhere. A good place might be with the UVSC students. Your links are good. You might be able to give a bit more detail on a couple of your list numbers such as the poor boy who got his present delayed. :) But it was very good overall
I liked the story, and especially the list, it was a good way to tell it, and keep it readable on the web. I would have liked to see a more interesting embedded picture though. Good links.
You're the one that broke my Christmas train set?!
I love it! This cracked me up and makes me think of all the things people don't want to know about some of the jobs I've worked.
I loved the missionary link! Too bad you couldn't get a link of Santa skiing as we are in Utah and that is what Santa does around Christmas (one of the ski resorts this year even let people dressed as Santa ski for free). It would have been nice to have a few more embedded links but honestly I don't know where you'd put them. It might also have been cool to have links related to every (or every other) item on your list.
Really enjoy read!
I liked number, I thought it was funny. The list was a good way to put a lot of information in a smaller more readable space.
Oops, number 6 is the number I liked.
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