A Day in the Life of: A Post Office Employee

The campus post office was bustling on Monday, with students buying 42 cent stamps to submit their voter registrations before the deadline.

"At first I couldn't figure out why it was so busy," post office employee Michael Hootman said, "but then

I realized the date. It was great to see so many people caring."

In his two years as an employee, Hootman had learned to expect that sort of rush on holidays and certain periods during the semester.

"Valentine's Day is always just poppin'" he said. "It's great because you get to keep all the flowers and candy that no one wants and use them to get dates."

The first weeks of the semester and before Christmas are also busy, Hootman, a senior, said.

"The post office is by far the best place on campus to work," he said. "It's a lot of work, but it's fun."

The mail is delivered early in the morning and sorted into boxes, then packages from UPS and FedEx arrive two or three hours later and package slips are written up, he said, then around lunch, students start to form lines at the windows.

The employees who worked there full-time were employed by RICOH and they distributed the mail to buildings on campus, he said.

"I really give a lot of credit to the people that work here more than six hours a week," Hootman said.

"Jodi, Brad, Robert, Dante and Fred are all amazing to work with."

His favorite thing about working at the post office was getting to see people as they collected their birthday packages, he said.

"Acceptance letters are also huge," Hootman said. "It just warms my heart to know I am the person responsible for getting that mail to them."

The most bizarre thing that has ever been delivered to the office was a crate of Canadian spiders with notable mating habits, which a biology professor had ordered, Hootman's co-worker said.

When the office wasn't busy, Hootman said it was fun to stand at the window with Keon and Lamarc and Facebook all the people who walked in, or he would catch up on his light reading.

"I'll usually flip through Dan Warhola's 'Southern Living,'" he said. "I think a lot of guys on campus would hate me if I disclosed some of the magazines they receive."

Luckily for them, mailroom security and technology had been revolutionized in his time there, he said. Packages were required to be scanned and signed for and letters were run through a new postage meter.

"This really is an amazing place to work," Hootman said. "The hours are flexible and sometimes Jodi buys us Chick-Fil-A."

Sitting in the mailroom for our interview, behind the gold-plated boxes, I began to recognize the timeless reliability of the U.S. postal service. Everything about the brown-packaged solidarity was reminiscent of Norman Rockwell's glass-bottled Coca-Cola America.

As I left, Robert, who I'd met on the way in, wished me a blessed day.

Contact staff writer Emily Viviani at emily.viviani@richmond.edu