Starting tomorrow, I’ll have eight weeks to train upwards of seventy-two people how to handle a Route Inspection, and the people coming in to evaluate them will determine whether or not they will have their mail routes adjusted. Or removed.
The projections are near ten routes in my territory. Ten jobs. Ten people’s livelihoods. Ten families that are dependent upon an income.
And it’s my responsibility to help them know how to do their jobs, then to defend them when my opposite numbers find discrepancies. Numbers, plural. Versus just me.
If I can be honest, I wish this was just some egomaniacal writing of an arrogant man. But no, that’s the reality of my next two months. I’m just thankful my carriers aren’t followers here or read my posts. I can’t have them knowing how scared I am for them, how worried. I am their Chief Steward, and I carry the name Swift, which means a lot in my area as a union man. Prior generations of my family were union representatives, and they had way more clout than I do.
They also had way more support from their coworkers than I do. For me, in my time? Everyone is either too scared to stand up for themselves or they were burned out by other reps that did not care about them.
It’s a very quiet moment, late at night, when my family is asleep and I can give voice to what goes on behind my eyes. I can admit to my own doubts, my own insecurities.
I am scared for my people. There is not enough mail coming in. It’s why I have been pushing for more lettered mail. It’s not about the postage, but rather the actual letters. We need the work, but there was so little in the past year that the higher-ups decided to evaluate all of us. They’ll determine where the work can go, and that’ll mean people will lose their jobs if I don’t fight for them.
And my people are tired. We all are. We’re always wired in and being bombarded with news, overwhelmed with situations, unable to process one thing before another thing is blaring through our phones or news feeds. I’ve frankly shut off most of my news outlets except for small windows of time each day, usually right around the morning or evening broadcasts used to be.
But I still have to motivate my people into learning things that they have not dealt with before, for the new people. For the older folks, I have to show them where they’ve been doing things wrong and help them correct their bad habits. And I won’t have anyone there standing with me while I do so, because no one else wants to do this work.
They’ll be calling for help, and it’ll be just me that stands. I won’t know if that means I’m heroic until at least May.
Granted, last time this happened, my local branch almost went defunct because no one was willing to step in and take the job of Chief Steward. It was just me back then, too. Maybe I can pull this off, too.
I honestly do not know. I’m scared, I’m worried, but I can’t have my people knowing that. So, I have to go to work tomorrow, looking confident and ready to teach, ready to make seventy-two of the most stubborn people I have ever met willing to listen to the quiet little nerd say, “you’ve been doing this wrong for years, let me show you how to properly sort the mail”.
Wish me luck?
Stay safe out there, folks.
-JB Swift
Swift's Corner 