# article: “We deliver Amazon packages until we drop dead.”



## JeanOcelot0 (Dec 30, 2020)

Confessions of a U.S. Postal Worker: “We deliver Amazon packages until we drop dead.”


How the Post Office’s deal with Amazon has made life hell for mail carriers




gen.medium.com






> “I feel like my life depends on Amazon.”





> Oh, we’re tracked by GPS the whole time. Regular days and Sundays. We have little scanners, and you have to scan every package when you deliver it. But [USPS] also tracks you the whole time you’re driving, so they’ll use it to check up on you. Also, one of our safety regulations is that we’re supposed to limit backing up, ’cause we have a lot of blind spots in our stupid, dinky trucks. They can write you up if they notice on your GPS that you backed up a certain amount during your day. You’ll get in trouble. It can track you right to your steps.





> There’s also just no limit to how much [USPS will] make us work. There’s no limit on days worked in a row with the Postal Service—for RCAs [rural carrier associates] and CCAs [city carrier assistants] at least.





> “There are people who work months in a row without a day off, especially around the holidays, with literally no day off.”





> In my office, the worst I’ve heard is 17 days in a row. But if you go on the USPS Reddit, which is really good for worker stories, there are people who work months in a row without a day off, especially around the holidays, with literally no day off.





> We have a lot of instances of heat stroke. Every morning, when it’s gonna be hot, the postmaster walks around, reads his little spiel like, “Stay hydrated. If you need to take a break, take a break in shade. Safety’s your responsibility.” But when they yell at you to your face about being faster and faster every single day—when the **** are you supposed to take a break? So it’s like, “Do you want me to be fast, or do you want me to not get heat stroke?”





> We have one of the highest rates of workplace injuries. I don’t know numbers or anything, but I have two co-workers in particular that I’m thinking of. One is an older woman, I think she’s in her sixties, and she has a knee injury that she got on the job. And she has been dealing with attempting to get workman’s comp for over a year, and she still has to come to work. So she does office duty kind of stuff; she doesn’t go out on the road, but she limps a lot.
> 
> The other day, I was asking her a little bit about it, and she was like, “You can’t even imagine how much pain I’m in every single day.”


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