LinkExchange Member

Purple Stain


A friend of mine who happens to work as a supervisor in the post office, sent me the following informative email:

Some people just don't realize what goes on in a post office. Just so you can get a glimpse, let me tell you.

Each morning, as most of the world is just getting to work, clerks and carriers are busily sorting out people's Wall Street Journals, People Magazine, Victoria's Secrets retirement checks, and TV Guides, along with various appeals for money.

You would think with such an important job these clerks and carriers would be in such focused, deep thought, concentrating on getting the right important mail to the right important address that they wouldn't talk. Well, then you would be wrong.

They talk and talk, and talk. They make their supervisors and postmasters mad with frustration.

Let me give you a sample of what they say:

Carrier #1 "I want a new nickname. Say, you're nickname is King, I want to be Prince."

Carrier #2 "How do you spell that? Is it like some squiggly lines?

Carrier #3 "No, that would be the carrier formerly known as Prince."

Carrier #1 "Yes, I'm just plain Prince."

Carrier #2 "Hey who gets 424 W Clara?"

Clerk #1 "That would be the carrier formerly known as Prince."

Supervisor "What in the world?"

Clerk #2 "Didn't Prince have that song, Purple Stain?"

Carrier #5 "Come on guys, Purple Rain. It's Purple Rain."

Carrier #1 "Yeah, Purple Stain is what you find in Prince's underwear."

Postmaster "Who wanted Clara?"

Supervisor "Don't ask. Just don't even ask."

See? That's why I take tylenol to work.

In some post offices I've seen carriers whistling in unison along with the radio, but it's the customers that can get to me.

Asking inane questions like, "If I mail this today, when does it go out?" So we tell them, "Well, lets see, its Tuesday, so probably that would got out, oh.. a week from Friday."

Or they ask, "When will this be postmarked."

"Oh… a week from Friday."

"So when you're a carrier, out on the street and people want to know why you're late you use the postal acronym, LTU. Or if they want to know why you are so early you simply say, "ETU today."

You don't get it? That's postal talk. Later than usual, earlier than usual. Honest, they send us to school for that kind of stuff.

Bless those postal workers.