Thursday, December 20, 2007

A day in the life: U.S. Postal Service carrier

By Chad Jones , Laura Seewoester

To FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service, Christmas is one unholy mother, the Day of Days. For seven years, USPS worker Corey Langston has traversed the D-FW network, through gridlock and midnight. Three of those years he worked on Christmas Day.

Maybe the carriers draw straws, and the shorted loser piles into the cold van? Maybe they spin a wheel, or flip a coin?

"Actually, me and my coworkers volunteer to work on Christmas," Langston said, prepping today's load. It's after noon at the Main Post Office on 401 D-FW Turnpike.

Thousands of thousands of telegrams, holiday cards, packages, parcels and presents are funneled through their centers, pumped through their hallways, loaded on their trucks, channeled through their routes, gripped with their gloved finger-tips to your doorstep, to your open hands, with a smile and a nod.

Has he ever delivered anything leaking? "No," he says. Ticking? Nope. Meowing? Not yet.

We tag along down Oak Cliff Boulevard, winding through to Marydale Drive near Plymouth. Corey hops out with a 4'' x 3'' express-speed box that could be anything. It's probably something blasé, something jewelry, but you have to wonder.

Corey rings the bell. A woman shuffles to the door with her hair up in a towel. She's intrigued by the package, but slightly more so by the camera angled toward her face. She says thanks. Corey smiles, says goodbye, in the same way he has for the countlessth time.

The next stop is downtown, in the museum-esque apartments at Gables Republic Tower on Ervay Street, where people live a skyrise life of stainless metals. Christmas music is piped through the hallways. The lucky recipient isn't home, or doesn't come to the door.

"Yes, the holiday pay is a factor," Corey explains. But, really, how many people would trade a holiday of holidays, especially a cold and probably wet one, for a bit of extra dough?

"But mainly I do it because people don't expect it," he said. "Their package is unexpected, and they give an unexpected smile. That's what makes it worthwhile."

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• Holidays

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