I have worked in several unfulfilling jobs in the years since I graduated from high school. A six month stint on the eleven to seven shift at the local Seven-Eleven was an exercise in receiving abusive, demeaning comments from drunken patrons, and working as a roofer was physically uncomfortable. Sometimes I still seem to feel my skin burning from the boiling pitch we used. Yet, these were but minor annoyances compared to the only job whose memories still bring teeth-clenching waves of mental nausea, that of a letter carrier in Philadelphia's Logan neighborhood.
On my first day assigned to…
