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Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

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Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#121

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hirundo wrote: post #42
onion2k wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd started 35 years ago you could have had a decent quality of life earning a living as a mailman. If you're starting out now you'll probably need a second job to make ends meet if you're in an expensive part of the country..

Entry level mail carrier makes an average of $35k. It goes up to $55k after 20 years. That's around $17.50 to $27.50 per hour. That's not wealth, but it isn't poverty either. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Postal_Service_Mail...

My grandfather raised a family of eight kids on a mail carrier salary in Walla Walla after he got back from WW2. He sent them to private catholic school as well, I really don’t get how he did that.

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#123

Post by [deleted] »

hirundo wrote: post #42
onion2k wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd started 35 years ago you could have had a decent quality of life earning a living as a mailman. If you're starting out now you'll probably need a second job to make ends meet if you're in an expensive part of the country..

Entry level mail carrier makes an average of $35k. It goes up to $55k after 20 years. That's around $17.50 to $27.50 per hour. That's not wealth, but it isn't poverty either. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Postal_Service_Mail...

[deleted]

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#124

Post by Stratoscope »

mcflibbles wrote: post #78
decebalus1 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, your comment reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MVyQNNFobA

My 2nd ever comment on hacker news, and already someone has managed to segue from my innoncuous comment into an attack on feminism. And further more, they've done so by using a video of someone with schizophrenia, or some other serious psychological problem. People can downvote this all they like, I'm gone.

Oh, please stick around! You may note that the complaining comment (not your comment, but the one you're referring to) was not only downvoted but flagged and "dead" (hidden unless you enable "showdead" in your account settings).

I really appreciated your comments and I think a lot of other people did too.

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#125

Post by the_gastropod »

badpun wrote: post #116
the_gastropod wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of work years needed before you can retire can entirely be determined by the % of your take-home pay you save. For example, to retire in 35 years (assuming a 0 net-worth), you need to save 21.5% of your money. If you're on HackerNews, you probably have a high enough salary where that's absolutely doable. Bump it up to 35%, and you can knock another decade off of your working career. You can play around wit…

This page, like all FIRE stuff, is making rather positive assumptions about the ROI on savings (they’re assuming 5% over inflation). I, for my calculations, am personally assuming 0% growth - I just don’t want to end on a street when I’m 65 or 75.

Even if that's true, what's the best strategy? I posit that learning to live on less is a pretty good one.

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#126

Post by jcaprani »

lrem wrote: post #90
mcflibbles wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no doubt lots of people are closely connected to their local community through kids friends, their kids schools, their kids sports teams, etc. But having kids only as a means to talk to people would be a bit drastic!

Kids are definitely the ultimate cure for loneliness. A couple years in and you're likely to beg for some loneliness ;)

At least once a day

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#127

Post by rdiddly »

snarf21 wrote: post #38
nemo1618 wrote: post #4

Stories like this make you question whether it's worth being paid all this money to spend your life staring at a screen in a climate-controlled cube solving abstract problems that provide approximately zero benefit to your family, friends, and neighbors.

You need to separate your work from your purpose. Think of work as merely collecting resources to maintain life. Get a hobby or volunteer at a charity and find purpose there. I've been much happier with putting my "self" into designing and testing board games. I forget about the dumpster fire after I leave and focus my energy on something I enjoy creating.

I'll go ya one better and say maybe forget your purpose entirely. Not in a negative, nihilistic way, but in kind of a Zenny way. You think Floyd here thinks about his purpose? Well actually it seems like he has decided "my purpose is to care for these people on my route," so maybe that's a bad example for my point. Although it's worth noticing, HE decided that. Which proves, it's totally arbitrary. Meaning is wherever you ascribe it (and probably nowhere else).

Mainly the idea is not to let "purpose" be a logjam that stops you. Life will happen to you regardless. Lately I've been trying to free myself from the endless quest for (please use whiny voice, knit brow earnestly, hold upturned fists close in front of you, and wiggle them slightly while saying) meeeaning. It stymied me for a long time. But it has to be seen for the ego trip it is. It's a "get over yourself" moment. Rein in that fanciful and conceited ego that's always wondering what great and high purpose your magnificent and important soul was cut out for. All that pressure! Letting go of it is a bit of a death (ego death). But jeez what a relief. It frees you to do whatever you want, which ironically is the only way you might actually end up going on to do something worthwhile. (Worthwhile according to you.)

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#128

Post by serf »

mcflibbles wrote: post #78
decebalus1 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, your comment reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MVyQNNFobA

My 2nd ever comment on hacker news, and already someone has managed to segue from my innoncuous comment into an attack on feminism. And further more, they've done so by using a video of someone with schizophrenia, or some other serious psychological problem. People can downvote this all they like, I'm gone.

>My 2nd ever comment on hacker news, and already someone has managed to segue from my innoncuous comment into an attack on feminism.

No. They were trying to empathize with your previous point that working and dealing with the public is an exceedingly difficult thing to do.

They could have picked a better video to do so, but they picked one that was a viral meme that was everywhere a few years ago. It went viral because of the terrible behavior of the person towards the mail carrier -- feminism is only mentioned because whoever reposted the video on YouTube for the umpteenth time decided to title the video with regards to the dialog that the person is spouting towards the mail carrier -- dialog which has to do with gender, stalking, etc.

I'm not qualified to diagnose the person in the video as a schizophrenic, so I didn't. I'm not calling her a feminist, because she didn't call herself that. Some guy who posted a YouTube video inserted that narrative about feminism, and you inserted the narrative about schizophrenia.

This could have been a video of a mail carrier receiving any kind of abuse from the public and the parents post who you replied to would have had the same message as they intended with this one -- mail carriers receive a lot of abuse from the public.

With all that said : I hope you stick around. There is good discourse here.

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#129

Post by jdavis703 »

benj111 wrote: post #62
mcflibbles wrote: post #49

I worked as a postman for a bit. I'd wake up at 0430, make a short commute, then sort letters into street/house number order for something like 3 hours. After the first few days this became mindnumbingly dull. It was obvious 90% of what I was about to deliver would go straight in the bin so all this drudgery wad largely pointless. For a while I worked in a pretty rough area (by UK standards, admittedly nowhere in the…

"I don't really have anything to say for myself" Kids. It's amazing how many times people will stop to say hello when a small child says hello to them. We got invited into someone's garden last weekend to feed their chickens. Admittedly we live in a more rural area. Might not work so well on the mean streets of London.

Dog’s are also great for this, at least in the Bay Area. When I had a pup people were striking up conversations all the time.

Re: Floyd Martin retires after nearly 35 years as a mailman tomorrow

#130

Post by joshgel »

krumpet wrote: post #83
mcflibbles wrote: post #49

I worked as a postman for a bit. I'd wake up at 0430, make a short commute, then sort letters into street/house number order for something like 3 hours. After the first few days this became mindnumbingly dull. It was obvious 90% of what I was about to deliver would go straight in the bin so all this drudgery wad largely pointless. For a while I worked in a pretty rough area (by UK standards, admittedly nowhere in the…

To help foster more local connections, I've started inviting everyone I know (plus everyone they know) to Saturday morning kickball. It has been a great way to bring different groups of people together and create/strengthen bonds in our community. Plus, it starts the day with being outdoors which I think is good for the soul.

That's awesome. I played kickball in an adult league for a bit after college (on the DC mall no less) and it was great. I'd probably drink less nowadays...

I might start this up too.

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