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Antiwork

More pay less work

For the past 3 years I’ve been working as a mail clerk as a GS04 ($19.00 per hr) at a military fort. The job was good, the official hours were 0745 to 1630 and you had a 45 minute lunch break. We kept things in house and start at 0800, took an hour long lunch break and close at 1600. For work, I didn’t do anything from 0800 to 0900 because there would be no work. It wasn’t until 0900 that your work day really started. At 0900 we’d get mail from USPS and start sorting and pitch it (putting it in its mailbox). Sorting and pitching would take about 30-45 minutes. From 0945 to 1000 I would pull the sorted mail and prepare for a mail run. At 1000 I would go for a mail run and be finished by 1100. From 1100 to 1200 I would do minor…


For the past 3 years I’ve been working as a mail clerk as a GS04 ($19.00 per hr) at a military fort. The job was good, the official hours were 0745 to 1630 and you had a 45 minute lunch break. We kept things in house and start at 0800, took an hour long lunch break and close at 1600. For work, I didn’t do anything from 0800 to 0900 because there would be no work. It wasn’t until 0900 that your work day really started. At 0900 we’d get mail from USPS and start sorting and pitch it (putting it in its mailbox). Sorting and pitching would take about 30-45 minutes. From 0945 to 1000 I would pull the sorted mail and prepare for a mail run. At 1000 I would go for a mail run and be finished by 1100. From 1100 to 1200 I would do minor customer service which would take 3-5 minutes tops per customer. Typically we would see about 3-5 customers an hour. From 1200 to 1300 we would be closed for lunch. At 1300 to 1500 we’d do some more customer service and from 1500 to closing we’d process/apply postage to outgoing mail. Now, here’s the good part, me and my associates would stagger the duties in a way that one is us would do postage one day, a mail run the other day and customer service the next day, etc. When I think about it I really worked about 3-4 hours per day sometimes less. After 3 years working at the military post, I decided to leave. I found a mail clerk job that is a GS05 ($19.50 per hour). This job is much closer to home, it takes 20 min ride by train to get to this job vs 45 min by car previously, so I’m saving gas. Also, this new job pays for the train fare. Now, this new job gets very little incoming and outgoing mail because this place is one of the last places that still teleworks, about 90% of the people telework. Incoming mail takes about 15-20 mins to sort and pitch. Processing outgoing mail takes about 30 minutes. Also, the mail run takes about 30-40 minutes to complete. To put it bluntly, I’m only working about 2 hrs at most. Recently I’ve been told we will be moving and there will be no mail run going forward. Instead all incoming mail will be picked up and all outgoing mail dropped off at the mail room. When we move to the new building telework will end. I expect to see an increase in outgoing and incoming mail but, I’ve been told that even before telework the amount of incoming and outgoing mail has been light (1-2 tubs). The hours are a little bit more rigid 0800 to 1645 with a 45 minute lunch break vs the previous job but, I’m not complaining. I get more money ($19.50 now vs $19.00 previously) and work less (2 hrs now vs 4 hrs previous). Things are good.

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