Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home

Along his route, Grant often met people who were not strangers. One of the homes belonged to a woman named Amanda, who was not only Grant’s wife’s yoga instructor but also Grant’s new-age therapist for a time. Grant had anger issues that her unconventional techniques helped him to manage. One day, while delivering to Amanda’s house, Grant found it occupied by two of her friends, who were upset about a letter they were waiting for that had not arrived yet. Grant promised to ensure that it was delivered and found himself becoming a source of comfort and stability in an unpredictable world. The unexpected connection, and being useful beyond just mail delivery, made Grant feel like a true mailman for the first time.

During the early months of the pandemic, the mail system quickly became overloaded as people stayed home ordering whatever they could think of to distract themselves and pass the time. Although many had plans to learn new skills or be productive, Grant found that people were instead ordering sex toys, cannabis, and Legos. The overload meant that Grant was assigned to deliver parcels exclusively; at one point, he had to deliver an entire computer and desk to a graduate student who then expected him to set it up. Grant also delivered model trains to an elderly man who had an impressive train table.

Grant went into work on August 1 and saw more parcels stacked up than he ever had before. Apparently, Amazon and UPS were having difficulties, so Amazon had begun diverting that volume to USPS. The result of this change was an overload of parcels every day at volumes that compared to Christmas time. People who worked at the post office became visibly agitated and short-tempered. 

Though Grant enjoyed doing extra parcel runs and the freedom it brought, every day was a struggle to remain organized and calm, which Grant links to Amazon’s profit motive. He explains that the USPS is not a profit-based organization but is instead something that exists entirely for the people, and he laments the issues that profit-driven models like Amazon cause.

Grant was seeing parcels in his waking life and in his dreams, and he could tell that the other postal workers were equally overwhelmed, if not more so. He decided to count how many packages were coming in versus going out, and it occurred to him that extra parcel running shifts, along with wider routes for parcel delivery, would allow the post office to get caught up within a couple of weeks. Grant brought the idea to his supervisors and was immediately shot down and told to remember his place as a letter carrier. Grant was less than surprised by the reaction. A few weeks later, however, some higher-up officials in polo shirts arrived with a plan, and it happened to be the same plan that Grant had suggested. By September, the post office was caught up again, just as Amazon and UPS finally reached a deal. 

In reflecting on the mental and physical toll that he and his coworkers paid on behalf of Amazon and “single click” shopping, Grant points out that while this form of shopping may feel easy and simple to the consumer, the labor is always passed off somewhere—typically to lower-paid, blue-collar workers.

Grant couldn’t afford to buy a work vehicle, so rather than continuing to drive illegally, he enlisted the help of his teenage daughters. One would sit in the front or on the back bumper and put the mail into mailboxes while the other sorted in the back. This system worked well for a time and allowed Grant to spend time with his daughters while also finishing his route more efficiently. While many people along the route found it charming to see Grant with his daughters delivering mail, others did not. One woman, whom Grant dubbed “Lego Woman” because of how many Legos she sent and received, warned Grant that what he was doing was not acceptable. Grant had to stop bringing his daughters along, but he is grateful for the memory of that time together.