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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

#131

Post by danso »

lupire wrote: post #105

I'm curious what sort of magic made her know it was his last day, and move her to document the day like that. Things like this are beautiful but I don't know how to create them in my life. It it down to an inherent personality type?

As a former newspaper reporter who occasionally was assigned to do these kinds of community features (though nothing this well-done), I remember that editors and reporters would frequently get pitches (by email or call) from random folks – because newspapers routinely publish these kinds of stories, and this was well before social media was a viable place for sharing stories.

The irony here is that the author is a newspaper reporter/editor at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and one of the most surprising things about this to me is how the AJC's website apparently didn't have this story in traditional article format. The only thing I see is a followup -- a recap of the original Twitter thread, with the update that Mr. Martin's GoFundMe went viral:

https://www.ajc.com/news/think-and-smile-hundreds-celebrate-...

But when I think about it, I wonder if a traditional article (full of images) would have worked as well as the Twitter thread? I'm probably more tolerant of Twitter threads as a format than most people are, but this was one time in which the Twitter format – this includes the way we interact by scrolling through Twitter threads – really seemed to strengthen the material.

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

#132

Post by VLM »

turtlebits wrote: post #81
ryandrake wrote: post #73

Happy story, but I'm also supremely jealous. The thought of retiring after only 35 years of work! That's the outstanding accomplishment here. Either he has a great pension (remember those?) or has been a terrific, disciplined saver over those years. My Boomer parents all had generous pensions and they also retired pretty early. Us younger folks are stuck with crappy 401(k)s that place our futures in the hands of Wall…

35 years of working for the Postal Service. He graduated in 1975, so thats 44 years, assuming he got a job after high school.

Or in summary, assuming he graduated at 18, he's 62.

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

#133

Post by RandomBacon »

Roritharr wrote: post #18

You don't have to be a mailman to transform your neighborhood closer to something as heartwarming as this. A good friend of mine worked as a programmer, then CEO, now Consultant... but in his spare time he'd spend all his energy on community projects, organizing everything, from Kids Halloween Tours in a small german city when that was very uncommon, to Developer Usergroups, to Startup Events to Barcamps, to TEDxs an…

Does the community have a recognition program? Key to the city?

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

#134

Post by xirdstl »

dominotw wrote: post #25
ken wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I cancel and unsubscribe from everything I can, 95% of what I receive in the mail is paper spam. If I didn't still receive paper paychecks, it'd be even higher. I recognize there's value in having a postal system, but in practice almost everything I receive goes straight in the shredder. It's been taken over by spammers. It's another system that provides real value to a lot of people, but seems to only be…

And a large portion of those spam are malicious scams. Mail that say "confidential" , "open immediately" in red ink, fake credit cards, fake checks ect.

The importance of a piece of mail is inversely proportional to its claimed importance.

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

#135

Post by formercoder »

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…

The price of sending mail must go up. It’s insane how much we subsidize junk being mailed around.

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

#136

Post by Spooky23 »

ryandrake wrote: post #73

Happy story, but I'm also supremely jealous. The thought of retiring after only 35 years of work! That's the outstanding accomplishment here. Either he has a great pension (remember those?) or has been a terrific, disciplined saver over those years. My Boomer parents all had generous pensions and they also retired pretty early. Us younger folks are stuck with crappy 401(k)s that place our futures in the hands of Wall…

The lack of pensions suck, but you can get around it. My parents were in good jobs and saved a lot. They were able to retire comfortably and young. Save, more than you can.

Don’t wait. My dad lost a lot of good times due to a medical issue.

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

#137

Post by instantwhat »

lrem wrote: post #91
kissickas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not exactly fair to throw out the population like that with no context - Atlanta is similar to LA in that it is very spread out, a bunch of "suburbs in search of a city." Friendly communities like this are rare in apartment buildings, as far as I've seen. I would love to know why or if there are any notable counterexamples - I would consider moving there!

Zurich, Switzerland. There's only one family in my building I'm not really chatting with somewhat regularly. Everyone says I'll get to know them once the weather is right for hanging out in the common grassy area anyways. And that's despite the Swiss having an opinion for being like Germans, but without the openness and legendary sense of humour ;)

> And that's despite the Swiss having an opinion for being like Germans, but without the openness and legendary sense of humour ;)

Friendly help from a native English-speaker: I think you meant "reputation" rather than "opinion." :)

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

#138

Post by lrem »

instantwhat wrote: post #137
lrem wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zurich, Switzerland. There's only one family in my building I'm not really chatting with somewhat regularly. Everyone says I'll get to know them once the weather is right for hanging out in the common grassy area anyways. And that's despite the Swiss having an opinion for being like Germans, but without the openness and legendary sense of humour ;)

> And that's despite the Swiss having an opinion for being like Germans, but without the openness and legendary sense of humour ;) Friendly help from a native English-speaker: I think you meant "reputation" rather than "opinion." :)

Indeed.

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

#139

Post by badpun »

the_gastropod wrote: post #125
badpun wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. My point is that all the FIRE crowd is quitting work way too early, due to optimistic assumptions.

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

#140

Post by pupulon9 »

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.

Any chance you're in the Seattle area? I've been looking for a local kickball game!
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