Going Postal

Your Mailman Did What?

Dale Duke

Copyright © 2013 by Dale Duke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 04/16/2013

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Contents

Dedication

Author Comments

Chapter 1. The Mayor’s Daughter

Chapter 2. The Good Father?

Chapter 3. To Threaten or not to Threaten

Chapter 4. Abusive Postmaster

Chapter 5. The Coffee Cup

Chapter 6. To Mace or not to Mace

Chapter 7. Union Attitude & the Challenger

Chapter 8. Postal Heroes

Chapter 9. The Bookmaker

Chapter 10. My Own Baggage

Chapter 11. The Barbecue

Chapter 12. Administrative Law Judges

Chapter 13. Sexual Harassment

Chapter 14. The Molestor

Chapter 15. Robbery Please

Chapter 16. The Fraudulent Campers

Chapter 17. The Family and Medical Leave Act

Chapter 18. The Las Vegas Lover

Chapter 19. The Tennis Shoe Bandit

Chapter 20. Drugs, Drugs, Drugs

Chapter 21. The California Lover

Dedication

To our savior, Jesus Christ. For without him, nothing else matters.

To all the people in my life, all around the world, whom I love very much.

To all the special Postal people that were a cherished part of my three decade career. You know who you are!

To my parents, Daryl & Gwen, for all they gave and tried to do for us.

Author Comments

S ince the first Postmaster General, Benjamin Franklin, the Postal Service has had a proud tradition of delivering the mail to every mailbox in the world in a reasonable timely efficient manner. In the United States alone there are over 30,000 post offices, 560,000 to 800,000 Postal employees, 260,000 vehicles, thousands of stations and associate offices, general mail facilities and bulk mail plants. The Postal Service is one of the largest corporations in the world and has the sacred trust of safely delivering your mail. To really appreciate the Postal Service just try sending a valentines or birthday card to another country. The USPS was specifically created by the United States Constitution and by the 2 nd Continental Congress in 1775.

So why the book?

Out of the countless good employees who come to work on time, deliver mail properly, are professional and courteous to the Public and in general provide the excellent service the USPS is famous for… there are the other employees, i.e., the deadbeats, rapist, druggies, malingerers, opportunist, the lover boys and thieves. This is their story all being told from first hand accounts. All of the stories in the book are absolutely true. To avoid costly lawsuits on this sensitive issue I have changed the names, dates and locations of all the incidents. Any of the persons involved in any one story who reads this book will know who they are, but their privacy will be protected. [Even if I do get sued, I won’t lose the case as everything is true anyway]. The stories are so compelling that there was no reason to embellish on any incident. Truth is stranger than fiction.

The stories cover a span of forty years, from the late 1970s to the 21st Century. The stories conveyed come from my work as a LABOR RELATIONS SPECIALIST which is a job designed to investigate naughty things Postal workers sometimes do. Also, having worked in most job positions offered by the Postal Service I have had a front row seat to the shenanigans about to be discussed. There are stories about the abuses of an occasional postmaster or manager and craft employees. (Craft employees are the carriers, clerks and mailhandlers). Enjoy the ride and learn to appreciate the GOOD mailman you have on your route.

Chapter 1

The Mayor’s Daughter

C arrier Jones had been with the Placerville, California Post Office for about ten years when his wife of four years told him she wanted a divorce. You see, Jones had a wondering eye for the ladies on his route, always watching for the next date of opportunity while pretending to faithfully deliver the mail. It made no difference that Jones’ spouse was beautiful, smart and an accomplished musician. Jones normal method of scoping out the next female conquest was to smile widely when he would come upon fresh prey at a business or someone who had just moved into a new apartment or home. The age of the lass wasn’t important to this carrier, as long as, the customer was female, cute and breathing. Normally, he would engage the young lady in a conversation about her life, her home and her family, trying to determine if she was safe to prey upon before making any moves in her direction. Jones illustrated many traits often found in ex-cons, drifters and salesman, i.e., convincing, sincere and always saying the right thing. The only difference is that ex-cons have paid their debt to society, while Jones was just beginning to build his debt.

To this point, the Postal Service had used the standard, progressive methods of discipline in an attempt to change the predator like behavior of Jones. Those normal steps included a discussion with the employee by the supervisor, a letter of warning, a 7-day suspension and then a 14-day suspension. Depending on the union contract, some suspensions were on paper only while other suspensions were without pay. You see, in the Postal Service, there have been as many as nine different unions at any given time, with contractual agreements that ran on in legalese for hundreds of pages… all written in a different manner with different ifs, ands, or buts… The net result was that supervisors, who were overwhelmed with just getting the mail processed and delivered, were always behind the eight ball when dealing with the unions and the stewards. As an example, some unions have a daily overtime desired list, other unions don’t… some have a pecking order to force employees to work overtime, others don’t… some require mandatory EAP counseling (Employee Assistance Program), others don’t, some are paid double time after ten hours, others don’t… The list just goes on and on and on. The union official has the right to spend as much time as they desire, on the clock, with pay, working on grievances either valid or contrived; while again, the supervisor is just trying to get the mail out to the customer. If a union official wants to punish the supervisor, all they need do is file grievance after grievance as this results in more work hours for the unit, more disruption and cost to the USPS. This tactic conditions the supervisors to do as the union wants, no matter what the impact on the delivery unit. Union stewards in some areas are replaced if they are not filing grievances at least 50% of their time while on the clock. It doesn’t matter if the union wins or loses the grievance, but only that management be shown who is boss. In a later chapter, I’ll describe my view of what I see on both the union side and the management perspective.

Jones was a part-time flexible employee with the Postal Service (USPS). Said differently, he was a permanent worker, often working thirty to fifty hours per week, but had no guarantee of work hours. Some days he might work just four hours and on other days twelve hours. His schedule would change frequently as would his route for delivery for the day or week. Most new employees, at the beginning of their career, are in this category. Being so assigned actually worked to Jones advantage on his quest for fresh victims as he saw a large variety of new people and often had no long-term accountability with customers as he was always being reassigned to other routes. If he made a customer mad, he just moved on to another route before he was busted.

Moving onto the story at hand, Jones was assigned a route in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Placerville. You know the look; well manicured lawns, swimming pools at every home, 3000-4000 square foot homes, all of which had a BMW or the like in the driveway. (No oil dripping in these driveways). During the day, everyone was at work, giving the neighborhood the look of a ghost-town during normal business hours. Of course, the gardeners were hard at work keeping everything beautiful. This environment was perfect for Jones’ stalking deviant behavior.

Well, on a beautiful summer day, Jones was delivering mail to a large brick home on Mulberry Street. While carrying the mail, he was contemplating his upcoming divorce, the alimony he may be expected to pay, how unfair his wife was and even how he hated his supervisor who demanded too much work. In his mind, the USPS and the wife just didn’t see Jones for the outstanding hard working person he was… he was just misunderstood. In the USPS it is not uncommon for employees to take out their frustrations on their supervisors as those folks are an easy target to vent and/or show their frustrations. After all, the employee sees the supervisor every day, is told what to do and just adds to the frustration level of the carrier.

In the midst of this self-pity was when Jones first saw her; a beautiful thirty something female, sunbathing in a small yellow bikini near her backyard pool. The lady was well tanned, strongly toned and completely filled up the sparse swimsuit she was wearing. Her hand was tucked behind her head as she stretched out on the reclining lawn chair with her glamorous look being rounded out by her long blond hair and her oversized sunglasses gently covering her small framed face. How Jones was able to spot this lady is still unclear as the pool is located at the back of the home with a large cinderblock fence surrounding the rear yard, but see her… he did! The young lady did not notice Jones as he visually groped her.

The only question that Jones had at that point was how can I get her attention?. Doesn’t she know who I am? . . . doesn’t she know how good looking I am? . . . just look at me! Jones had been occupying his off duty hours in his tiny apartment by reading a popular adult magazine, smoking a little medicinal marijuana and wallowing in his life’s plight. In that magazine, was an article that described a mailman who became enthralled with a female customer on the delivery route. To get her attention, the mailman left Frederick’s of Hollywood advertisements with the unsuspecting lass. (Frederick’s is a national company that markets sexy underwear to women). By this simple act, the customer invited the mailman into her home for coffee, conversation, kissing and well… you know the rest. Jones couldn’t wait to try this ploy as soon as possible.

Throughout the remainder of the work day, Carrier Jones found two or three magazines from Frederick’s of Hollywood, that were destined for delivery with other customers, removed the adhesive mailing label on each and was ready to push his plan into action the following day.

Carrier Jones was on time for work the next day after a sleepless night thinking of the new relationship that would develop after he delivered the sexy mail to the sunbather. As Jones entered the portion of the route that included Mulberry Street and the sweet young woman that would soon be showing him with attention, he prepared the mail for delivery. He didn’t see the woman out at the pool this time, so he gentle dropped the bills, letters and sexy magazine into the door slot. Mission accomplished! Now just sit back and wait to be invited in!

Two days later, Jones was again on the same route and saw his prey out in front of her home, cutting roses. Jones said hi, but there was nothing but a gentle smile that came from the young woman. By the way, the young woman’s name is Susan, he would later discover. Jones mind began to race… what had he done wrong, why didn’t she invite him into the house… did she not understand that she was to invite him into her home? The rest of the delivery day seemed to take forever for Carrier Jones…

One week later, Jones decided to step-up his fishing for this well shaped trout. He believed that Susan had just not gotten the point or was shy and didn’t know what to do with such a hunk of a man as himself, so he stepped up his game. Jones removed the article from the adult magazine that described the Frederick’s delivery of mail and the inevitable inviting into the home of the letter carrier. Jones placed the three page article directly on top of the mail, added a few more provocative magazines and placed it all into the delivery slot of Susan’s home.

Two days went by, but no response was forthcoming. What is wrong with that woman, he thought? How could she possibly not jump all over me?, said Jones to himself. Okay, it’s time to now pull out all the stops and show this woman what she is missing. Jones had an instamatic camera in his home and took several instant photos of his body from the neck down. That’s right, Jones took nude photos of himself, minus his face and head. He was going to clearly show Susan what he was made of. How could she resist?

To say the least, this type of behavior is