the initiate

but how does one get into the usps? when i began to think about it, i realised that i hadn't an idea. was it a secret society that was available by invitation only? i started asking my friends if anyone knew and the answers that i got convinced me that they hadn't an idea either of how to begin. maybe i would have to petition the grand postmaster and then if accepted, i would be asked the ages old questions... name the first pony express riders horses, what was ben franklin's motivation, if a piece of mail is delivered late to a home but no one is home, is it truly late? and finally young initiate, how much postage is enough? and if, standing in the dimly lit post office with the grand postmaster general behind his altar of a blue post box, you answered these questions truly and faithfully, you would be given a series of tasks like neatly tearing out a stamp from a block of them neatly, you would be inducted into the ranks.
i began by looking up the phone number for the local po in the yellow pages. hmmm... but wasn't this odd, there were no local numbers for the offices listed, but instead a 1 800 number for the regional centers. i called them, but got no response other than a series of increasingly complex computer generated choices in a canned voice asking me if i wanted to know where a post office was or for more detailed info to visit the post office nearest you. it led me into a circle. i hadn't the proper extension to speak to a human. i hadn't the key to become an initiate.
finally, by chance or maybe design, i was allowed to find a phone number for one of my larger local po's. i dialed it and began to ask about employment. the voice on the other end sensed that i was an outsider and determined that the safest course of events would be to lead me back to the beginning. employment? oh no, not here, you would have to dial... the 1 800 number that i had tried. who would i speak to? oh, i don't know that. ok, how do i find out about the next postal exam? the announcements are usually posted on the wall in your local po. when? whenever they come up. when is the next one coming up? when you see the exam announcement posted. where are they held? wherever the announcement schedule says they are. and i can only find this out when i read the announcement posted? yes. well, how did you get your job? i asked, thinking this would get me a more detailed response. oh, i was called up after my exam. which was when? oh, i don't know... you know that there is a 1 800 number, correct? i was told.
trying to access the information from a teller at the window was equally exasperating. i was given blank stares and the vaguest answers. look for the exam announcement that will be posted. when? no one knew. it was an open call to all apprentices who knew when and where to look for it. and you could only find it by hanging around the po and mailing things, often... the beginners were culled from the ink stained ranks of people with a permanent taste on their tongues from licking stamps and browsing the fbi's most wanted posters. i was reminded of when i was a child walking into the huge post offices with vaulted ceilings and dark cool interiors. the mysterious figures in blue behind the windows framed by bars and the distant clanking of machines postmarking letters and cancelling stamps. these people had the power to return an item to sender, to demand postage due, to bring love letters or bills and the ultimate power, the deposit something in the dead letter room, where it was to never surface from its exile and i wanted this power.