Farewell

I decided last Friday would be my last day of work, leaving me a week before school starts to get ready (and goof off a little bit).

For a time, I got to be part of the world's massive goods delivery infrastructure, an infrastructure utilizing every means of transportation—cars, tractor-trailers, trains, boats, and airplanes—and made up of national mail carriers like the U.S. Postal System, private carriers like UPS and FedEx (not to mention airlines who transport U.S. mail with their spare cargo capacity), innumerable trucking companies, and many small couriers like the one I worked for, each one filling in gaps in the others' service.

In truth, though, I'm happy to be done with this job. Aside from needing a vehicle and a driver's license, and some basic manners, this is completely unskilled labor; the only reason they need a human for it is because we don't yet have cars that can drive themselves. The work is boring, once you realize that 95% of it will be spent on the road. The pay is unimpressive; you would have to work 10-hour days regularly to make any significant money with this job. And whatever money you do make, a good chunk of it goes right back out to pay for all the gas you burn doing the job, not to mention a scheduled oil change every two or three weeks.

This was an okay way to pass the time during the summer, and keep me able to pay the bills—barely—but I won't miss it.

I was hoping it would be an interesting job to blog about, but in the end, most days were completely routine, especially after they assigned me to a couple of regular deliveries. The same stops on the same route, day after day. The only things that changed were the amount of mail I was given, and the traffic. After I talked a bit about how I go about doing my job, and the tools I use for it, I simply ran out of things to talk about. That should give you an idea of how completely routine and uninteresting this work it.

So, it's been fun—sort of—but this is the end.

Mississippi

On my last day of work, I got an out-of-state rush delivery to Mississippi.

(I nearly got one earlier in the week, to Washington, D.C., but we're pretty sure that when the customer found out that it would be $930, they changed their mind about needing their item there by exactly 9 a.m. the next day.)

Honestly, doing a 400-mile drive and back by yourself really isn't much to write about. The route was I-20 to Tuscaloosa, then US-82 to I-55, and then a little ways to the delivery point. Then turn around and come back home.

US-82 is nicer than most of the US Highways I've been on. There aren't many lights or stops, and a long chunk of it in Mississippi is built to freeway standards, with controlled access. It made for a very uninteresting drive.