Is it the Uniform?

11-12-03

Another thing I found out while working as a letter carrier... people trust a uniform. At least that was my generalization. Oh there were those who would take the opportunity to rail against the government and it's bureaucrats, but even these felt free to rail because of the security provided by the postal uniform. Now this was back in the days before "going postal". When I worked for the post office (orifice), a supervisor was said to have turned up dead in a "pig" (cargo portion of an 18-wheeler) but I never really heard the straight of all that, and there was nothing like the berserker rampages of later years. The postal killings are long in the past now, and hopefully for good, but even when they were happening, I noticed that people still liked to talk to letter carriers.

Well, people like to talk, and people like to talk to someone as important to them as the daily message deliverer, but there's more to it than that, because people like to talk to letter carriers even if they know they are not their own personal letter carrier. I think the blue uniform is very soothing to people. It says "I am harmless - I have a steady job - it's safe to talk to me because I will soon be moving on." I believe people feel the same way about the UPS, FedEX and other couriers, but these people are in private industry and appear to be running for their lives, so there is very little time to talk. Not that the letter carrier is not often just as stressed, fleeing down the street with the hounds baying after him/her in the midst of another speedup, but some days there is a shade more time to talk.