Death, Sex & Money - "They Rely On Me": An Update From A USPS Mail Carrier
Death, Sex & Money
Slate Audio
4.6 • 7.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2020
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the USPS finds itself at the center of a political divide, we check in with a mail carrier who wrote to us earlier this year about being an essential worker at the height of the pandemic.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, Anna. My name's Beth. I'm a mail carrier. I work in rural Maine. |
| 0:11.1 | This is death, sex, and money. And four months ago, this listener, Beth, was among the essential workers who got in touch to tell us what it was like reporting to work when most of the rest of the country was shutting down. |
| 0:22.7 | I don't know if this virus is on the mail, the packages, the mailboxes. |
| 0:33.9 | I touch everything. |
| 0:37.9 | And... I touch everything. And I wonder if I am carrying this virus in my truck. |
| 0:49.9 | I wonder if I'm leaving it as somebody's house for somebody else to get. |
| 0:56.3 | It's scary. |
| 1:03.3 | Hello? |
| 1:04.6 | Hi, Beth. |
| 1:05.9 | Hi. |
| 1:06.5 | Hey, it's Anna Seale. |
| 1:08.3 | How are you? |
| 1:10.0 | Beth lives with her eight-year-old daughter and boyfriend in Maine. |
| 1:13.4 | Her boyfriend works in IT and has had to keep going into work, too. |
| 1:17.2 | Since Beth wrote to us in March, her state has kept COVID cases fairly low. |
| 1:21.5 | It has one of the lowest infection rates in the country. |
| 1:24.3 | I definitely don't feel as scared, you know, with more information that's coming out about |
| 1:29.1 | COVID-19. And we've since gotten gloves at work, and now we have masks, and now we have |
| 1:35.8 | hand sanitizer. The Postal Service has been in the news lately, not because of health and safety there, |
| 1:42.3 | but because of the way it's being managed. |
| 1:45.0 | There was national outrage this week about budget cuts and slowdowns at the post office, |
| 1:49.8 | potentially undermining mail-in voting this fall. |
... |
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