Why Do I Fantasize About Working At The Post Office?
For those of you who aren’t in the know, I work in tech. I understand the deep irony of this considering I became a micro-niche internet celebrity (or BAYmous as Mario0o0o0o0o calls it) by shitting on tech workers, but I can say this unequivocally, tech saved me from poverty.
Recently though, as I sit in my cushy office job, I find myself daydreaming about exploring the residential nooks and crannies of San Francisco on predetermined mail routes. I wonder what my life would be like if I stayed on the blue collar path that I so desperately wanted out of just a few years ago.
I respect mail carriers. I honestly think they’re the unsung heroes of the modern world. They drive a car that looks like a milk carton on wheels and wear those silly shorts as if designed by the federal government to make them look ridiculous, but without them and their dedication, many of the conveniences we associate with modern civilization would essentially cease to exist.
The world is carried by the couriers, and we should respect them. I really feel that way. I also admire the community that is built around being a civil servant at a stable government job. Startup life is a life of employment transience. One year you work at one startup, it fails, you work at another, it gets bought, and you keep moving from one failed VC-backed dream to another. It’s not a bad life, but the roots don’t run all that deep.
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I actually quite like where I currently work. My boss is chill as fuck. My coworker is this kid who is fresh out of college. He’s smart, but unsure of himself. It’s going to be interesting to see what he blossoms into. It’s weird looking at a 22 year old and feeling nostalgic. While I was a high school dropout at 22, my coworker has a tech job and a college degree, yet seems just as scared as I was at his age. It’s kind of endearing.
Then there’s the walking. I love walking around with headphones on. There’s something beautiful about blissfully observing the world while simultaneously ignoring it. Sometimes when I come home from work, I see the mailman stuffing envelopes into mailboxes while music blares from his Airpods and I think to myself, “what a lucky guy.”
I then walk into my apartment and it’s empty. Sometimes this makes me sad, other times it’s a relief. My roommate is a professional saxophone player which means he’s usually somewhere playing Jazz for rich people that we make fun of when he eventually gets home. I open the refrigerator, grab something random out of it, scarf it down before plopping on my mattress to stare at the ceiling. I might scroll on my phone, I might not. I usually just let my mind wander until it stumbles upon something worth writing or a meme worth making.
On the bad days, I wonder if this weirdly active, yet lazy ambition I have is a curse. I wonder if the social media clout and tech job salary are worthless. I wonder about things I won’t write about here.
But on the good days, I can find beauty in the silliest of things, like the imagined joys of putting mail in a mailbox, handing packages to happy people, watching bees pollinate large sunflowers sticking out of the openings of chain link fences. Even Oakland’s potholes can be pretty if you imagine their shapes weren’t the random result of natural corrosion and civic neglect, but artistic intent.
That’s the secret to life. There’s no bad or good, everything is just an aesthetic if you aren’t an asshole. And I’m not an asshole, I just pretend to be.
Shout out to the postal workers. I see you, and even if my package is late, I appreciate you for trying.
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Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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