138: Thomas Birch

Postal Worker

Thomas Birch is a postal worker, and his job became incredibly overwhelming during the pandemic due to a substantial increase in his work hours. He was a postal carrier early on in the pandemic and was often uplifted by the kindness and appreciation expressed by his customers in the form of snacks or kind notes. But then Thomas was promoted to a manager when so many people retired. That transition has been a challenging one for him because the volume of mail coming through the post office rivaled the exceptional amounts usually only seen during the holidays all year round. Then during the holidays themselves, the amount of mail was easily double the normal volume for that time of year. An added stressor for Thomas and his co workers is that customers do not understand the increased workload that postal workers are facing and for how long they have had sustained these very high volumes with staff shortages. Customers are not always kind, and he finds himself talking to many disgruntled, sometimes hostile consumers. 

One thing that Thomas will never forget was the experience of delivering mail  early on in the shut down and not seeing a single person on the street, nor any cars on the roads all day. It was such an odd scene that felt to him like something from straight out of a post-apocalyptic movie. Looking forward, Thomas’s greatest wish is to be able to work less in the future. He is hoping to go back to a 40 hour work week and not the 70-80 hours he has been working. He misses his family. Not being able to spend any significant amount of time with them has been a huge emotional strain for him.