Yeadon PO’s Jim Gray hangs it up after 38 years at the job
Yeadon Post Office’s beloved Jim Gray is hanging it up after 38 years
YEADON >> If you’ve walked into the Yeadon Post Office at all in the past 30 years, window clerk Jim Gray is more than likely the man who handled your outgoing letters and packages.
Gray has been manning that post office solo for 32 of the 38 years he has been with the United States Postal Service and he is a well-known and liked fixture of the Yeadon community. He knows his customers, and the customers know him.
During regular business hours on a fall day leading up to Thanksgiving, people come in to conduct their regular business — getting their mailed weighted and posted, buying money orders, collecting mail that has been on hold for them, and a number of other daily occurrences at the post office located on the 700 block of Church Lane in the borough.
A handful of customers that were in before Gray took his lunch break at 1 p.m. all seemed to know and have a good rapport with him. One customer noted the patience of Gray to be able to handle dealing with customers for over 30 continuous years. Another man, Phil Bonner, said he will come from his Southwest Philadelphia home to bring his mail to the Yeadon Post Office just to stop in and see Gray.
“He’s quality,” was a simple description made by Bonner about Gray, a man he and his family have known for decades. That defining characteristic that is the crux of a customer service-related job is what Bonner feels is missing in the world, from postal service to air travel.
Bonner, and the at-large community, will miss the familiar site of Gray as the man who held down the Yeadon office with the patience to go above and beyond for his customers when he retired after 38 years with the USPS on Nov. 30.
Gray, 63, of Drexel Hill, admits that this is a job he loves and that he hasn’t tired of, but he finally reached the point where he was ready to retire.
“People have been asking me, ‘When are you retiring?’
“A lot of the locals will come in just to talk. They’ll buy their one stamp to talk. They’ll come in to mail one letter even though they could put it in the box outside. I didn’t mind it. You get to know people really well that way.”
— Yeadon Post Office window clerk Jim Gray “Patience is a virtue. I have it and I’m glad I do. People will be in line and I think that they’re shocked that I’m here helping someone who doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing. I still don’t mind helping people. That’s what the post office should be about, especially today with the competition out there.”
— Yeadon Post Office window clerk Jim Gray who has been manning that post office solo for 32 of the 38 years he has been with the United States Postal Service
and I wasn’t even thinking of it,” he said. “This is the first year that I felt that I was ready. I’ll take the time off and do something else.”
The decision was made in June and he started to let his customers know. They didn’t understand how serious he was about the decision until fall rolled around and he was manipulating his vacation days for use when he would be, otherwise, working.
His wife, Barbara, though surprised by the announcement that he decided to step away from his almost 40year career, believed he was ready to move on to another chapter in his life.
“Once he made up his mind I was assured,” she said. “He deserved it and worked hard.”
Gray is an admitted energetic man who for decades would work at the post office and then help with local youth sports organizations like the 69th Street Athletic Association, volunteering extensively at the St. Cyril of Alexandria Church in East Lansdowne, and at one point having a parttime job with the Upper Darby School District helping to manage the gymnasium at Aronimink Elementary School. He would go to these extracurricular community organizations after standing at the post office counter for entire shifts without skipping a beat – he insists on standing at the counter saying he moves any chairs or stools out of the way if they’re there.
He eventually peeled back some of his involvement over the years when his days would go non-stop from 6 a.m. to past 10 p.m. every day.
But he never lost his zest for the job or helping out in the community, even during the high-volume holidays when he would have lines forming out onto the street with customers needing assistance, and, on top of that, an evolving community that includes more residents where English may not be their first language.
Being the only man at the office, he would assist every person individually and with all of the patience needed to properly help them.
“Patience is a virtue. I have it and I’m glad I do,” he said. “People will be in line and I think that they’re shocked that I’m here helping someone who doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing. I still don’t mind helping people.
“That’s what the post office should be about, especially today with the competition out there.”
His dedication to helping each customer has had a lasting effect on generations of local families.
Young children he would coach in sports have grown up to have families of their own who come to Gray at the Yeadon Post Office for their mailing needs. Customers he has assisted for decades who have moved away haven’t forgotten about him even as their relatives stay in the area.
On Nov. 20 he received a card from a former customer who moved away recently without giving him a proper goodbye.
“It was nice knowing you, take good care,” read a portion of the card. “I’m sorry I didn’t get around saying goodbye, I wish you well. Thank you for all of your kindness over the years.”
“I was shocked to get this today,” said Gray after reading the card, letting out a sense of humility that his work in the community was recognized by even one of all of the people he was met in Yeadon for over 30 years.
But admiration for Gray is nothing new.
Customers will wait in a long line just to drop off a letter that’s already stamped so they can get to the counter and say hello to Gray. Others will come in to talk about sports like Gray’s favorite team the Philadelphia Phillies-choosing to work during the 2008 World Series parade is one of his self-professed worst moments at working for USPS. A passerby will open up the door to shout-in a greeting.
These interactions helped him pass the time and made it a more interesting job for the single-man operation he runs every day.
“A lot of the locals will come in just to talk. They’ll buy their one stamp to talk. They’ll come in to mail one letter even though they could put it in the box outside. I didn’t mind it.” he said. “You get to know people really well that way.”
Admittedly, he said it would take getting used to to go from engaging daily with customers and doing his clerical duties to a more slowed-down pace. But, an immediate bonus for Gray is that he will be able to luxuriate in his first holiday season in over 30 years where he wasn’t sorting out thousands of packages and cards that filled up his time every December. He can stay home and be comfortable and keep his time occupied with holiday gatherings with friends and family.
“At first it will feel like a vacation,” he said of his retirement. “Then I’ll get a little antsy and we’ll see how that goes. I’ll know that feeling soon and I’ll start the process of checking some things out.”
Gray said he really enjoyed his decades at Yeadon and thanked everyone for their patronage in all that time.
“I’d do it all again if I could,” he said. “It’s been a great run and I swear I really did enjoy every day of it. I could really say that and the people of Yeadon have been great to me.”