My postal career actually started around 1990, up in St. Cloud. I worked there part-time while I was still attending college. Up there, I worked with almost every aspect of the post office--I dispatched trucks, sorted letters in a case, sorted letters with machines, dealt with bulk-mailing customers, threw parcels into pouch racks, and (once and awhile) I was put in charge of the ammunition supply. It's a small post office and you got to know everyone who worked there.

In the spring of '94, I transferred down to the St. Paul post office. Of course, I needed to move closer to the cities, so I first moved in with a family friend who kept me in a basement for a few years. Then I met my lovely wife, Chantel, at the post office and now she lets me live in the upstairs of her house. Slowly but surely, I am making my way in the world.

Anyway, I began working in St. Paul in the mail forwarding unit. That basically means I'm the guy who enters your change of address and tries to connect people with their lost mail. I can't complain about the job--especially at Christmas time. A lot of cards come through with tips inside them. That reminds me, here's a quick pointer--if you're going to include money for a postal worker, please just tape it to the outside of the envelope. That saves us the hassle of ripping open your letters, removing the money, and then trying to tape it all back together again. Thanks.

Around the summer of 1997, I began working the night shift and manually sorted the mail for all the carriers in the Apple Valley area. This involved memorizing eight million streets and their respective assigned carriers! That's quite a feat, because if you know me, you would realize that I barely know more than eleven roads in my own home town!

In the winter of 1999, I moved back to the day shift and started to actually work at the Apple Valley post office.  Now, I am a window clerk there and am also in charge of all the accountables mail.  This means that I keep track of all the special mail that comes through the Apple Valley post office--things like certifieds, registereds, express mail, business reply mail and so on.  Just before all the carriers go out on their routes, they meet with me and I hand them their "special mails" and record what they take out.  Then, when they come back, I record what was delivered and who they left notice with.  If anything happens to disappear, I am allowed one shot at the carrier from thirty paces.  They are starting to get nervous--ever since I had my laser eye surgery to correct my vision.

I'd like to show you the inside of the place, but we're not allowed to take pictures. The flash of the bulb could be mistaken as incoming fire and lead to an unfortunate incident. I've been pretty lucky so far--only one superficial bullet wound to the right shoulder. I took that one back during the Christmas rush of '94. That was a tough season. Lots of mail, lots of overtime, and lots of stress. I don't like to talk about the details... Let's move on.