Well, when I look at this blog and see that the last post was from 2022, I'm a bit shocked. But it's not exactly a surprise:
When I started working for VMware in October 2017, the demand for working on my system and keeping my tech skills were greatly reduced. Yes, I was still maintaining everything and even implementing things on the VMware stack that I hadn't previously, but there just wasn't time or impetus to do much publishing.
Then "the Broadcom thing" happened.
I got laid off along with 4K other VMware associates.
I spent nine months trying to get back into a technical pre-sales position in the industry, and "came in second" several times. But second isn't good enough, and $2300/mo in COBRA payments wasn't going to be very good either.
On a whim, I applied to the United States Postal Service to be a letter carrier. Seemed like straightforward work, and I knew I could not just do the work from a skills perspective, but with all the bicycling I was doing I'd have no issue from the physical aspect.
I had a contingent job offer in less that 24 hours. Which was both exciting and depressing. Exciting, because working as a civil servant would give me access to great healthcare—a key reason for having a good job in the US of A—and a path forward to retirement. If I could stick it out for just over 5 years, I could "retire" at 62, keep my healthcare as a federal retiree, and get a part-time job in a bike shop to feed my passion.
Being a letter carrier is the hardest "easy job" I've ever had.
When you start, the idea is to gradually ease you into the demands of the position: you're limited in the number of hours they can work you each day, and the number of days without a break you can go. For someone who not only had worked "9 to 5" salaried jobs his whole career, but had the previous 9 months of free time, it was a shock.
Shortly after finishing the official training, I was regularly working 6 days a week--including Sundays--with no way to know if/when I was getting a day off. And each day, although I was guaranteed at least 4 hours of work if I was scheduled, I rarely worked fewer than 10h each day.
The work seems easy. You put letters, magazines, and packages into someone's mailbox or front porch. Rinse and repeat about 1000 times every day. "Anyone can do it."
I'm here to tell you now: it's exhausting, both mentally and physically—and that's without having walking routes to do! From the end of Aug 2024 until June 2025, I was stationed at an office without any walking routes; until January 2025—with few exceptions—I never knew what route I'd do when I reported. Some days, I'd get a text telling me to report to a different office; some days I'd show up and get sent elsewhere. And some days, I'd work 10+ hours, return to the station and still get sent to yet another location to help.
Such is the life of a "Part-Time Flexible" city carrier, aka "PTF."
January 2025, I was able to get a "hold down" on a route that was temporarily vacant due to the regular carrier being out on extended sick leave. That meant I couldn't be sent anywhere else at the start of the day, and I knew when my days off should fall, but otherwise I was still working 6 days a week and (usually) over 8h/day. I was promoted from PTF to "Full-time Regular" (aka "Regular") in February, and working on Sundays ended along with most of the enforced overtime; I could still be mandated to work over 8, but only under certain circumstances. Life got much better. I would still have to worry about a route when the hold-down ended, but for that winter and spring, I had felt like I'd gotten some of my life back.
The carrier on sick leave—it was his route I'd been holding for several months—decided to go ahead and retire rather than finish out his leave and come back in any limited fashion, so now the clock was ticking: the route would be declared vacant and I'd lose my hold when it was assigned to a new carrier through the bidding process. Yes, I'd request it, but my lack of seniority would be a severe limitation. So I started watching the vacancy postings, keeping an eye out for a route that I'd be able to make my own, but wasn't up for bid because it was super hard & no other carriers would want.
I made several bids that lost, but finally won one. I didn't think it seemed too bad, but several carriers told me that it "was a real hoofer," meaning a lot of hard walking.
I transferred stations and became the regular for "Route 12C035" in mid-June, 2025. It is a walking route with ~460 homes and ~52 businesses. On my first day, it took me over 10h to get everything ready that morning and deliver, walking over 12mi in the process. My legs were shattered. My feet were numb. It was all I could do to come in the next day and do it all again.
Four weeks later I had my first podiatrist appointment. I have high arches; I needed an orthotic to help with the mechanics of my walking. I needed better shoes.
I needed a different job!
The reality is that I never stopped applying for positions in technical sales. It was hard to schedule interviews amid the demands of the carrier schedule, but I made it happen. But still no job offers.
I kept getting better, faster, and stronger on the route. If I could get prepped and "on the street" within an hour of reporting, I could typically finish the route by the end of 8 hours on the clock. I learned it was a bit unprecedented: only one other carrier who had the route could do the same with regularity. And I got frustrated with co-workers who wouldn't come to work for whatever reason, so I'd also have some mandatory overtime to help cover those routes as well.
In late January of 2026, one of my IT colleagues called and let me know that a position would be opening on the enterprise infrastructure team for a private company, and would I be interested? It would be focused on "keeping the lights on" for the core systems, something I'd done before both privately and as a consulting engineer, so I reached out to the hiring manager to learn more.
Life went on with the Post Office—including a few weeks as an acting supervisor—when I got the call I'd been hoping to receive since the end of 2023: a job offer in high tech that was fair in compensation, for a good company, with a manager & team that I'd met and would be able to work with.
I resigned from the USPS the same day, working my final shift on 20-Mar-2026.
19 months. Exactly 82 weeks. For 574 days, I was a City Letter Carrier for the United States Postal Service, and I both hated and loved it.
But now I'm back in IT, and I have stuff to share again!
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