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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

#41

Post by aqme28 »

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.

Reading the replies to this is really disheartening.

I assume many of you are software engineers. The job market is _great_ for us. Please take the time to find a job that you think matters for more than just acquiring money. There are plenty out there and they're probably struggling to hire too.

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

#42

Post by hirundo »

onion2k wrote: post #33
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.

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...

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

#43

Post by mcescalante »

petra wrote: post #31
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.

It's not about the job. This guy, probably, isn't valued because he delivers packages. My guess is that he's valued because of his ability to connect with people, and his infectious happiness.

This. I was just reading some messages on the gofundme for his vacation (mentioned in thread) and one of the families on his route said that he remembers every childs names, even after they have left the house, which to me is something you would only expect of a good friend.

It seems like he is just a genuinely good guy who cares about these people and as you said, has the ability to connect with them on a level that most people don't.

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

#44

Post by mixmastamyk »

mythrwy wrote: post #28
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…

(US resident). I haven't gotten one piece of junk mail in nearly 15 years (except for a few generics addressed to "resident", but even they are uncommon). Before that it was weekly shiny newspaper type ads and letter spam by the pound with a tiny bit of real mail. It was an accident but here is how I did it. I had a temporary job back in early 2000's so I got a short term lease in a different city and opened a PO box…

So is the solution going off-grid for several years, or using the scanning service?

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

#45

Post by criddell »

dccoolgai wrote: post #10

I can't articulate exactly why, but this is beautiful. I see it as an example of what social media should have been and hopefully what it still might become some day.

It is beautiful and it I don't think social media can ever be like that.

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

#46

Post by PopeDotNinja »

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.

If your job is to sit in a dark closet & stare at a wall, is that job a waste of your life if you LOVE it? It's up to you to decide. Personally, I would hate being a mail carrier for many reasons, one of which would be thinking of myself as a 90% junk mail flinger. I love writing code, and I spend almost no time questioning the value of reimplementing a certain type of feature for the bajillionth time if that is what the job requires.

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

#48

Post by lm28469 »

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.

> Think of work as merely collecting resources to maintain life.

Work related tasks are 50%+ of you awake time so it's kind of hard to forget about it.

I could work 2 days a week while keeping my lifestyle but it's next to impossible to find a stable job allowing that schedule.

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

#49

Post by mcflibbles »

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 UK is really that dangerous compared to much of the world), and on several occasions I was harassed by members of the public. Though later I worked in a much nicer area and people were nice to me.

I suspect the main thing about the story isn't how great it is to be a mailman, but how great it is to be good at people. I work from home and live in quite a nice community, but I only know a handful of people. This is basically because unless I have a common interest with someone I don't really have anything to say for myself. Clearly not something that afflicts Floyd!

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

#50

Post by danso »

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.

When I was a residence hall advisor in college, one of my roles was sorting the mail, which has been useful experience years later: basically, you can ignore anything sent as “PRESORTED STANDARD”: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/how-to-spot-junk-mail-with...
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