Lifetime career. Retired after 30 yrs.
Pros
Great benefits and Good Pay if you are a P&DC employee. You couldn't pay me enough to be a carrier and deal with their management, dogs, 100+ degrees in vehicles without air conditioning, being out past dark in the worst parts of town because you are down 20 carriers at your station. Then you get back and management is on you because you were late for carrying 3 routes worth of mail. Stay away from being a carrier. Glad I got to retire as a clerk at the plant. Most of the Plant Managers were good managers, especially those in the last 7 yrs.
Cons
Lower and Middle management are not trained to deal with employees or payroll issues. I have over heard some of them say "I'm too pretty/handsome to deal with that" at NE station when waiting to buy stamps with one clerk at the window. And don't blame the clerk or the management there for only having one clerk at the window, that line of reasoning comes from Headquarters. They can't do anything about it locally. Thinking about being a carrier? See above. Oh and lady carriers, you think you have time to stop and potty. Wrong! Well known secret amongst lady carriers, bags of sand and kitty litter are kept in some LLVs so that the ladies can pour some in the flat tubs to take a quick pee in there without running late on their route. These LLVs get to the garage and the mechanics empty the tubs of sand and wonder why they stink. :) Dirty little secret.
