Postal workers proud to keep serving Columbus
It’s 8:30 on a Wednesday morning at the post office on East Innis Avenue on the South Side. Through a door beyond the P.O. boxes and the sales counter, where the air smells like ink and metal, the station’s 31 mail carriers are preparing for their daily routes.
Even with a chill in the air, the morning
rush keeps the room humid. As a military veteran sorts envelopes for his route, a father of 15 pushes a cart stacked with packages down a ramp out the back of the post office to his postal truck, and a single dad sidesteps another package-filled cart.
Among the rumbling of the cart wheels on concrete and the whisper of bills and letters brushing against one another, Edward Medley, of Groveport, readies his workload for a job he’s been
doing for almost half of his 55 years – although it’s busier than ever.
“(It’s) nonstop movement constantly, especially since the pandemic for the last year. You can see how many packages we have. It’s just increased dramatically over the last year,” Medley said. “It was bad enough before that, but it’s just quadrupled since then.”
The past year really has been like no
other for the U.S. Postal Service. Amid funding troubles and the pandemic, the service delivered more than 1.1 billion packages during the peak holiday season in 2020 – resulting in a $2.1 billion increase in revenue compared to the previous year, according to USPS — but it has been operating at a loss since 2007, the Brookings Institute reports.
Nationwide, the USPS saw a 25% increase in the volume of packages in the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 – an increase of 435 million pieces – compared to the same quarter the previous year, according to a USPS release.
It’s been difficult keeping up with the sheer increase in mail, the local carriers said, leaving many working six or seven days a week, for as many as 12 hours a day.
Medley said his route in Obetz used to take about six hours, but now he’s in his truck at least an extra hour most days. Sometimes, he said, mail carriers have to split routes to complete their work, which is why some people might see multiple mail carriers out on one route.
He said that at the end of last year, many carriers were retiring or quitting, and Kesean Williamson, a manager for USPS’S South Columbus branch, said the overwhelming amount of mail has made it difficult to retain carriers.
Medley doesn’t mind the hectic environment or being so relied on these days.
“Prior to this, I was in the military and this is basically a step down from the military as far as my physical job and my attitude, my mindset. But I’m just glad to be here to provide a service to the public whether they appreciate it or not,” he said.
Before becoming a postal worker, Medley served more than eight years in the U.S. Army and was deployed twice – once to Bosnia – before leaving the service in 1999. He decided to get a job with the USPS, a government agency, in order to use his military time toward his retirement, he said.
With only about seven years to retirement, Medley’s wife of 30 years and three grown children frequently tell him to slow down, but Medley is passionate about his job.
“I follow rules and regulations, but I call the shots out there, I’m my own boss and as long as I’m doing what I’m supposed
to be doing, I’m doing the right thing,” he said.
Darryl Glick, 55, of Ashville in Pickaway County, also loves being among his customers along his route in the Madison Mills neighborhood on Columbus’ Southeast Side, and has been doing so for almost 27 years.
“Some people out there don’t see anybody except me all day long,” Glick said. “They look forward to it, I look forward to it.”
Being around people is something Glick is very familiar with: he and his wife have 15 children – two biological and 13 fostered or adopted – at home. He and his wife, Jodi, learned about the opportunity to be a foster parent through a Christian organization and have been participating for over 16 years, he said.
Before getting a job with the postal service, Glick worked as a carpenter and an auto mechanic. Despite what people think, being a postal worker isn’t easy, he said.
“We’re out there in 12 inches of snow or it’s 95 degrees,” Glick said.
Tony Sobony, 43, of Columbus’ South Side, said in his 21 years of service, he’s learned that there are parts of the job that aren’t listed in the job description.
“We kind of watch the neighborhood. We know when something’s out of place, we know when something’s wrong or someone isn’t there or something strange is going on, and we see that on a daily basis,” he said.
The job also takes a toll on the body. Sobony had a walking route for 20 years until landing a driving route along Alum Creek Drive on the Columbus’s South Side about eight months ago.
Medley said working a riding route comes with seniority, and walking routes usually total about nine miles of walking per day.
Sobony’s five children, ages 7 to 23, like the “cool” mail truck he drives, he said, but balancing between work and family life as a single dad has been difficult with the increased workload the past year.
“The mail and the packages, they don’t stop . ... We do sacrifice not seeing
our families as much, but at the end of the day we definitely get the job done,” he said.
Sobony said this year has been the busiest he’s ever seen, and though staffing has been slow, the increased workload adds to the overwhelm.
“This is probably the most packages and mail that I’ve seen in my 21-year career, and this season, after Christmas and even before Christmas – we’re talking about summer months in the pandemic. I would say it’s almost double to triple the amount of packages that we’ve ever had,” he said. “And you can’t go to any stores, so it’s convenient to just have it come to you. You don’t have to go out in the public and worry about contracting COVID-19.”
But while he’s out, Sobony said the best part of his day is seeing people.
“Seeing the smile on their face when we come to their business or give them a package – that’s really what the best part about this job is,” he said. @sam_raudins sraudins@gannett.com