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"We need help": Real mailman shares his huge paycheck to help recruit more postal workers

The big number came as a huge surprise to viewers.

Photo credit: Canva

Mailman reveals his massive paycheck to recruit others

People often overlook the "people in our neighborhood" as Mister Rogers would call them. Their presence is so common that we don't always notice them until they're gone for a day or two. These are people like school bus drivers, sanitation workers, delivery drivers, and postal workers. Of course people know they exist and that they're there to do a job but because their presence is sort of in the background of daily life we may not give their jobs much thought.

There's the thought that "someone has to do it" when it comes to the service they provide but sometimes that "someone" is you. Or at least it could be you, especially after hearing how much one of those jobs pays. It's a common misconception that work like sanitation or postal service is menial and low paying, but the truth is that this essential work can be quite lucrative in the right circumstances.

A mailman that works for the U.S. Postal Service decided to share his paycheck with social media in an attempt to help the post office recruit more mail carriers.

The post office continues to have a shortage in mail carriers in certain areas, especially in rural settings. This shortage causes delays in receiving mail and longer hours for current mail carriers. While the post office has been working to fill in the gaps by doing more hiring, it still isn't enough with the large number of USPS workers that are nearing retirement. It seems to be a constant struggle to keep an adequate amount of mail carriers throughout the areas that need them most.

mailman paycheck, mail carriers pay, job market, job hunting, mailman shares check, pay transparency, jobs, economy The pay is good and you get to drive this sweet truck around! Photo by Joel Moysuh on Unsplash

One of the barriers to people applying to the Postal Service may be that they don't know they're hiring since some people may see mail carriers as background characters.

Another concern may be that people are not sure if they can make a livable wage working for the post office, but that's where Lukas' video can help fill in the blanks.

In response to viewers not believing he actually made six figures, the Missouri mailman and TikTok creator shares a screenshot of his paycheck showing he brings home $4,423.09 every other week, which averages out to just over $100K a year.

Being fully transparent, Lukas shares that his paycheck includes 23 hours of overtime due to the extra hours he has to work from being short staffed.

mailman paycheck, mail carriers pay, job market, job hunting, mailman shares check, pay transparency, jobs, economy Nothing warms the heart more than a mail carrier being truly embraced by their community. Giphy

"On one of my previous videos somebody said, 'prove it' on one of my checks, so here's one of my last checks. As you can see, the overtime hours, plus my normal pay all equals up to $4,423...so, and that's for two weeks of work. I'm working too much but if you were to multiply that by 26 weeks that's over $100,000. We need help and the post office pays well," he says.

Lukas reiterates throughout his video that the post office is hiring and they need help desperately but the comments were mixed on if working at the post office was a good move.

"I mean he’s technically making 25.00 hourly and $38 for each hour of OT. You’re forgetting the minimum wage in majority of states is 7.25," one person writes.

"Post office is recession safe. Been there 30 years," another commenter shares.

Someone else chimes in, "been working at the post office for 5 years just made regular. it is not easy when you start but once you know how to do it it's a BREEZE."

mailman paycheck, mail carriers pay, job market, job hunting, mailman shares check, pay transparency, jobs, economy US Mail is not for sale, says the postal workers union. Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash

A former postal worker reveals, "I worked there 6 years and had no life. Worked 12 + hrs for 7 days a week. I wasted most of my 20s working. NO THANK YOU!!!!, before adding. "When I started years ago it was $15 an hr when I left it was $25."

To be fair, while Lukas is doing well for himself (and working quite hard for the money), a lot of the mail carrier shortages are being caused in part by wages that don't cover the cost of living in certain areas. So there's definitely room for improvement, and the American Postal Workers Union is fighting for higher pay and better hours all the time.

Did you know that the postal service is a staggering 250 years old? For a good chunk of the last several of those years, politicians and corporations have been obsessed with the idea of privatizing the whole operation and siphoning as much profit out of it as possible.

Just imagine how many billions of dollars private companies could make by charging way higher prices for shipping! The idea may be salivating to investors and billionaires, but not to regular folks who just want to be able to affordably and reliably mail letters and packages.

The American Postal Workers Union has been actively and aggressively fighting against this potentially catastrophic change. Not only would it hurt regular Americans, but mail carriers like Lukas who have carved out a solid and honest career doing essential community work.

The post office seems to be much like any other job. Some people have a great experience working there while others do not, but if someone is looking for a chance at a new career that offers retirement benefits, it sounds like USPS could be a place to land.

This article originally appeared in January. It has been updated.

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mailman

Joy

Woman receives unexpected letter from her mailman of 22 years and it leaves her in tears

"He watched me grow up, and I watched him grow up, too."

sauceaccount06/TikTok & Brian Patrick Tagalog/Unsplash

Madison Vaughan has had the same mailman for 22 years, which is not uncommon. Being a mail carrier is a great, steady, and even lucrative government career — so people tend to stick around for a long while, often keeping the same route for years or even decades. Madison initially got to know her mailman, Tim, when she was a kid living with her parents. When she moved out, she didn't go far, moving into an apartment down the road that was still on Tim's route.

So when it came time for Vaughan to finally move away for good, she felt it would only be right to say goodbye to the man who had been there throughout so many big moments in her life. As a kind, simple gesture, she gave him a card and a little money for the holidays, just as a Thank You for all his years of friendly service. What she never expected was to get the response that she did.

Vaughan recently shared a video on TikTok of her opening the lengthy and heartfelt card that her mailman, Tim, left her in return.

She struggles to hold back her emotion as she shows off the card, which was left mysteriously in her mailbox with just her name on the front.

"He wrote such a thoughtful thing," she says, opening the card and holding in the tears. Inside, there's a letter several paragraphs long, and in beautiful penmanship, too!

"Good luck on your move," Madison reads from Tim's card. "I will be retiring at the end of the year anyway. ... It has been a pleasure being your mailman."

She then attempts to put into words why the gesture means so much to her. "He has watched me grow up, and I've watched him grow up, too. ... This ruined me, I'm going to keep it forever."

Watch the whole beautiful moment here.

The next thing Vaughan didn't expect was the overwhelming response to her video.

Though she only has a few hundred followers on TikTok, Vaughan's video quickly launched itself into the viral stratosphere.To date, it has over half a million views. In the comments, there was an outpouring of love from people who felt similarly about their own mail carriers, people who had been present in their lives for decades.

Here are some of the best comments and sentiments:

My childhood mailman came to my mom’s funeral and I lost it

my dad was a mailman and he used to come home and tell us about every kind person and every dog, cat etc. you'd have made his day

My mailman did something similar and wrote “from Mickey Mouse birthday cards to college acceptance letters, it’s been a pleasure to deliver them all” I cried

Grew up poor with few opportunities. Had the same mailman for 18 years. He came in my house while I opened mail from my dream college and celebrated my acceptance! Community = everything

My dad was a mailman for 20 plus years on the same route. When he died people from his route and the convenience store where he got his coffee everyday came to the funeral! Not all heroes wear capes.

My husband is a mailman and he hand writes personal thank you cards for everyone who gives him treats/cards etc for the holiday. He also gives all the doggies on his route boxes of biscuits for Xmas

Vaughan's story shines a spotlight on the importance of so-called 'background characters' in our lives.

Us postal service mail truck Photo by Joel Moysuh on Unsplash

Vaughan admits that she and Tim weren't great friends, necessarily, but that didn't make his everyday presence in her life any less meaningful. I think that's an idea we can all relate to.

If you stay in one place long enough, you start to see the same faces. I see a few of the same joggers every morning, the same cashiers at the grocery store, the same woman working the drive-through at McDonalds, the same guy walking his dog, the same dozen or so people who go to the same at the same time as me. Sometimes you chat with these folks and maybe even get to know them a little bit, sometimes there's just a silent acknowledgment, and sometimes maybe nothing at all. But regardless of how close, or not, you are, there can still be a sense of loss when it's time to say goodbye.

It also shines a light on the importance of mail carriers and the US postal service. In recent years there's been a push to get rid of the USPS and privatize the whole thing. But that idea ignores the role mail carriers play in communities, the lifesaving and important work of delivering mail every day on time, and the role the post office plays in a fair democracy. It also ignores mail carriers like Tim, who would lose their jobs and their routes, and even more importantly, all the little connections they make along the way.

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mailman

Culture

America's favorite mail carrier has a an election message for us all

PACRONYM/Twitter

As the election approaches and millions of Americans prepare to send in their ballots by mail, people might be worried about how it's going to go. Between the president's constant drum-beating about fraud with mail-in ballots (which experts still say is not the major concern that he claims it is) and the administration's ongoing attacks on the United States Postal Service, it's an understandable concern.

But never fear—America's favorite mail carrier, Newman, is here. And he has an important message for all of us regarding the postal service and the election, and a message for President Trump regarding his tax returns.

It's silly, of course. And thank goodness, because if we don't have something light to laugh at when it comes to the insanity of our current situation, we'll cry.

The battle over mail-in voting has raged for months, as it became clear early on in the pandemic that voting by mail would be safer than people physically going to the polls. While some states have had universal mail-in voting for many years without issue, other states have had to figure out the best way to orchestrate a larger-than-normal number of people wanting to send in ballots.

I live in Washington, a state that has had universal mail-in voting for a decade. And it's awesome. Our ballots are sent directly to our home address a few weeks before any election. We fill them out at home, sign our name on the included envelope—which will be checked against our signature on our voter registration file upon receipt—and either send them back by mail or drop it in a ballot drop box. The ballot drop box in our town is on a one-way street where you can drive right up to it, just like a mailbox. It's so easy. And since Washington ranks #2 in the nation for electoral integrity according to Harvard University's Electoral Integrity Project, it's clearly safe and secure. Every Washingtonian I know is quite happy with this system.

That doesn't mean there won't be issues in other states—today there was a report of a computer snafu in Ohio that resulted in nearly 50,000 wrong ballots being sent out—but I'm confident that those issues will be worked out in the end. People will use such stories to make outrageous claims about cheating and fraud and rigged elections, but we have to expect that there will be some hiccups in the voting process this year. We are, after all, in the middle of a pandemic. What would be helpful is if we had a president who would instill confidence in our bipartisan electoral boards and commissions to swiftly identify and rectify any issue that arise, rather than sow chaos and confusion and doubt in our country's ability to run a fair election.

It's not as if there have not been computer glitches or human errors in every single election that's ever been held in this country. There is also occasional incidents of fraud or cheating, but every study done on that topic has come to the same conclusion—voter fraud is extremely rare. (Voter suppression is not, however—a whole other story for a whole other article.)

Thanks, Newman, for the comic relief as we wind our way through the final weeks before election day.

Go to showuptovote.com for info on how to vote in your area.

From Your Site Articles

An 11-yr-old's daily tic-tac-toe game with her mail carrier is quietly a metaphor for America in 2020

Upworthy/Instagram, Photo by Pope Moysuh on Unsplash

The United States Postal Service has dutifully delivered mail to Americans from deep in the heart of Manhattan to deep in the heart of the rural Midwest for nearly five decades as an official entity and centuries longer than that as a service. Even as electronic communications has taken the place of handwritten letters, most of us still rely on the regularity of mail delivery as part of our daily routine.

Even this 11-year-old knows she can count on USPS delivery, as evidenced by the tic-tac-toe game she started with her delivery person. She taped the "board" to the inside of the lid and takes turns with the mail carrier each time the mail gets delivered.

"My 11 y/o daughter had insisted on checking the mail the last couple of days," wrote BallCoach79. "Today, I checked it. This is what I found."

The image is sweet. But it's also an opportunity to talk about the dire situation the USPS is currently facing—one that could drastically impact the integrity of our upcoming election.

With the coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of slowing down in the U.S., and with far too many Americans refusing to take the necessary steps to mitigating it, our fall is not looking too promising. The pandemic lull that was expected during the summer months hasn't happened, and there was already a second wave predicted as we move into the autumn months. It's quite likely that Election Day on November 3rd will coincide with an extremely dangerous time to go to the polls in person, which means millions of Americans will want to or need to vote by mail.

Despite the fearmongering from certain factions, including the president, voting by mail can be done safely and securely. Several states have voted entirely by mail for many years without any major issues. In fact, Washington state which has allowed all voters to vote by mail since 2005, and the state is ranked second in the nation for electoral integrity.

But voting by mail will only work if our mail system works. And right now, USPS is being effectively destroyed not only by the decreased business mail due to the pandemic, but also by a uniquely weighty congressional mandate to prefund all of its employee pensions, ongoing budget deficits, and demonizing attacks by the president of the United States.

The postal service is something we all take for granted. Because it's always been reliable, we assume it will just always be there. But it's in real danger of running out of money and having to shut down, which would be devastating to our elections, not to mention the other personal and business disruptions it would cause.

We can all help. Here's how:

1. Sign a petition to send to Congress and the U.S. Treasury here.

2. You can also sign a petition by texting USPS to 50409.

2. Help the USPS directly by buying stamps here. (Sales of postage and products is 100% how the USPS is funded. Despite being overseen by the government, no taxpayer funds go to funding it.)

3. No, you can't donate directly to the USPS. Seriously, commit to writing some old-fashioned letters to your loved ones and buy stamps. (Bonus: Buying a bunch of "Forever" stamps now will save you money down the road, since they never expire. And there are tons of cool designs to choose from.)

Also, make sure your order a mail-in ballot now if your state requires you to do that, and send it in at least two full weeks before election day.

Let's all show the USPS some love, both by being kind to our individual mail carriers and by supporting the work they do. The best support we can give is making sure this long-standing institution survives these tough times.

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11-yr-old letter writer receives hundreds of personal notes from grateful postal workers

Hugh Weber/Twitter

While the 245-year old U.S. postal service battles for its survival, a story of the power of a personal letter is showing us why we cannot let it fail. Not only does USPS provide mail services to rural areas that otherwise wouldn't have anyone to deliver mail or packages, but it serves the public with diligence and heart.

A story shared by a dad of a daughter who loves to write and send letters has tugged at people's heartstrings on social media. Graphic designer Hugh Weber wrote on Twitter:

"Emerson, my 11 year old, is on a bit of a wild ride with the @USPS and our local mail carrier, Doug.

And, I think there's a deeper message to it all.

First, the backstory...

Em has a serious letter writing habit. She maintains active correspondence with over a dozen of her favorite people. And, if you've been the lucky recipient of one of Em's hand decorated letters and envelopes, then you have a pretty good idea of the joy they bring.

A letter from Emerson is likely to include some art, a joke or two, a mention of her younger brother, confessions of her love for Taylor Swift and enough questions to guarantee a response.

So, when she decided to thank our mail carrier for the service he provides us, she left nothing out. In went Taylor Swift, in went the little brother, in went the jokes.

Q: Why do you never see elephants hiding in trees?
A: Because they're really good at it.

Em wrote, "I'm Emerson. You may know me as the person that lives here that writes a lot of letters & decorated the envelopes. Well, I wanted to thank you for taking my letters and delivering them. You are very important to me. I make people happy with my letters, but you do too."

She continued, "The reason you are very important in my life is because I don't have a phone so how else am I supposed to stay in touch with my friends? You make it possible!"

She put it in the box, smiled when he took it & that was enough.

The next day a package arrived with some stamps & two letters. Doug had shared Em's letter with his supervisor, Sara, and they both wanted to share how touched they were by her note.

Sara said that, as an essential worker, Doug might not be able to maintain regular correspondence, but she sure could. Em started writing that very afternoon.

This is when things get interesting. The next week, we got a letter address to 'Mr and Mrs Weber.' It seems that Sara had shared Em's note as a 'Token of Thanks' in the internal newsletter for the Western US and there were some postal folks that wanted to thank her.

Today, we saw Doug getting out of the truck with two BOXES of letters from around the country. We snapped a quick photo through the door as he and Emerson met for the first time. It was a beautiful moment on silent reciprocity.

These letters are so deeply human. They are filled with family, pets, hobbies, community and an overwhelming sense of kindness.

Because Em was fully vulnerable, they were too.

Em shared jokes, so they shared jokes.

Em share her brother, so every gift that was sent came in duplicate.

Em shared @taylorswift13 and it turns out that the US Postal service is filled with lots of undercover Swifties.

One maintenance manager from Minnesota wanted to inspire her to start collecting stamps so he sent along two stamps of his own from the bulletin board in his office to start her collection.

And, they sent stamps to be used as well. Stamps for her to write back. Stamps for her to write others. Stamps, stamps, stamps. (218 by Em's count.)

But, there was something more in these letters. People felt seen - some for the first time in a long time.

"I work alone in a small rural post office..."
"My kids all live far away..."
"Not a lot of people think about how hard we work..."

One wrote,
"I can't tell you how much it means to read your letter..."

Another,
"I have a son in Kuwait and if you have a second to send him a letter he would love it."

And another,
"I know you can't write back to all of us, but maybe I can drop you a line from time to time?"

With dozens of new pen pals, Em did what she does best.

She wrote the dad.
She wrote his son.
She assured the secret swifties not to be embarrassed because her dad likes TSwift, too.
She acknowledged that there WERE a lot of letter but that she had time.
She sees them all.

I'm not sharing this because I'm a proud dad. I'm sharing it because it is relatively easy, if we take the time, to give others the one thing they need to be well - human connection.

I have a friend that says we all just want to be seen, known and loved.

Em does this boldly.

It's #MentalHealthAwareness month and I want to be bold and brave like Em.

We're all in a moment of physical isolation that is amplifying a real epidemic of loneliness, anxiety and depression. I've been feeling it personally since long before we locked our front door.

In the second week of quarantine, I responded to hundreds of DMs from creatives who are feeling this disconnect in a significant way. I heard from college students to senior executives who personally and professionally are stressed, worried and/or afraid.

Two weeks ago, I personally started working with a @talkspace therapist for the 1st time.

For years I've travelled the country talking about relationships of influence, but I've used that travel as an excuse not to seek the support I know I need. This pause gave me time to act.

I have incredible family & friends, but the truth is that I needed more. And, sending texts via an app has been the small step I needed.

Moral of the story: it's the small things that matter most, friends.

Send a letter.
Make a call.
Practice self care.
Take a step of boldness.
For yourself or for others.

And, thank your mail carrier (from an appropriate distance.) They are working extremely hard to keep us all connected.

And, if any of you are feeling isolated, anxious, scared or depressed, those feelings are valid. I'm feeling them, too.

And, I'm here if you need me."

What a beautiful example of humans reaching out and touching other human hearts in simple yet profound ways. In a time when we are more physically isolated than ever, seeing these sincere efforts to connect are truly hopeful. And at a time when the postal service needs support, what a lovely illustration of why it's worth saving.

To support USPS, you can buy stamps on their website. ("Forever" stamps will always work for sending a letter, even if stamp prices go up. Stock up and send grandma or an old friend a card or letter in the mail. You know they'll love it.)

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postal service

"We need help": Real mailman shares his huge paycheck to help recruit more postal workers

The big number came as a huge surprise to viewers.

Woman receives unexpected letter from her mailman of 22 years and it leaves her in tears

"He watched me grow up, and I watched him grow up, too."

The next thing Vaughan didn't expect was the overwhelming response to her video.

Vaughan's story shines a spotlight on the importance of so-called 'background characters' in our lives.

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