Mailboxes

Let's take a moment to discuss something we see every day but rarely think about.

A large part of my job involves delivering flyers. Once or twice a week I am out there with one or two of the individuals I support, and we're going door-to-door dropping off real estate advertisements and sometimes free magazines. Altogether on flyer days, we're doing this for anywhere between four and six hours. As for myself, I've been supporting in this fashion for over a year and a half. Therefore I can boldly claim that I am a mailbox expert, and for the rest of this post I will tell you which mailboxes suck (and why), which ones rock, and something else which may be controversial.

First, the sucky ones. Picture this: it's -34 with the windchill and you're bundled up nicely. Everything is actually pretty toasty on you except for your dripping nose and your fingertips which you can barely feel regardless of the thick mitts you put on a couple hours earlier. Everything's going along fine, until...crap! There's another one. Another one of those flat mail slots that's half an inch high, three inches long, and covered by a ten-pound metal flap. If you're coordinated enough to lift the flap (or push it in) with thick mitts on, good for you! Now, let's see you slip a piece of paper through the nonexistent space left in the slot. Oh, there isn't any space left? That sucks. Well, just take your mitt off so there's room to slip the flyer in. BRRRR!! That's cold, isn't it? Deep freeze temperature metal doesn't feel so good on those poor little red fingertips, does it? But don't rush! If you let the flap down too fast, the paper will get stuck halfway throught the slot. And this just doesn't cut it for the guys I support. They believe in a job well done (most of the time), so if the flyer isn't all the way through, they're not satisfied. And sometimes those slots are thick. Half of your hand disappears into the slot before the flyer drifts down to the floor on the other side. By this time your flesh is screaming for warmth, but once you put it back into your mitt it's going to take five minutes to feel even a little bit better. And chances are, you're going to be finding another mailbox like this one within those five minutes.
I might also mention that this style of mailbox was responsible for the loss of a work friend's fingertip a couple of years before I started with SAI. Kind of funny in a sadistic way, but I'm sure it wasn't funny to my friend at the time when blood was gushing down his hand! He still sometimes yells at that style of mailbox when he has to put a flyer in one.

Okay, blood pressure down.
The best kind of mailbox is a normal one. Just a good old run-of-the-mill mailbox, stuck on the wall beside the door or on a post. And it's always fun to see creative ones, like different shapes and ones that are painted or somehow personalized. I love normal mailboxes. Ones that don't bite.

And now for my last point: people, I'm all for the environment and I want to save the trees too. I personally believe that most flyers are a waste of advertising energy. But I'm out there with guys who get paid to deliver these things, and they most often enjoy doing so. They're doing their job, and they're good at it and they know they're accomplishing something. So my main focus is on them, not on the environment. Yes, if I see a "no flyers" sign, I do my best to get my friend(s) to skip that house. But sometimes these signs are super tiny or faded, or I simply see them too late and by then my friend is halfway up the doorsteps. I apologize for the irritation of having to recycle these unwanted papers, but a couple of my friends are hearing impaired, so unless they turn around to see my waving arms, they won't get the message and they'll disobey your request. And most days I just don't care to have them turn back and take the flyer out. (Requiring this of one of my friends can be downright upsetting for him.) Yes, I respect what your mailbox says. I just don't always care enough.

Let's start a revolution: mail slots, be gone! Normal mailboxes, be on every house in plain sight! "No flyer" signs, be big and bold and unmistakeably present so that every person will see it and skip your house without confusion! Then we'll all be much happier and there'll be world peace.