Australia comes to me, part 1

[gerisullivan]

I arrived back home last night after a quick overnight jaunt to debgeisler and benveniste's home where I took advantage of their FIOS connection to ftp 3 gigs of data to Hong Kong for a large book project John D. Berry and I just had the pleasure of finishing for Ellen Franklin.

A voice mail message from Jan Motyka, the Best Postmaster in the World, let me know a large package had arrived for me from Australia, and that it needed my signature.

The article I linked to for Jan profiles 3 women in the area in unconventional jobs. As Jan said, she's not sure why she was chosen; "historically, the job of being a female Postmaster is not that uncommon."

All I can say is that Jan Motyka is great at it. She welcomed me to Wales even before I moved here, and is absolutely marvelous not just at being a friendly, familiar face when I go in to ask for my mail to be held, but also at knowing and explaining various obscure postal services I sometimes need, managing the challenges inherent in the Postmaster job (especially in a small town where resources are thin), and taking those extra steps like calling to let me know about packages from Australia. I'm glad to see her get the publicity and recognition in the local press. And, hey, it's a nice picture, too.

Comments

I like my own, urban post office

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

(formerly at the old post office that is now part of the IRS complex, now at Union Station, which is happier because I don't have to go up the mountainous front steps....) quite a bit.

It worried me when they moved but the people I had the most contact with, the PO Box service folks, assured me they'd be there.

The place where both my old PO boxes were (first 414525 and then 414365 after my brief departure from that location) is now an archway from the new complex into the old Post Office, and houses the union offices as well as the credit union that is my Favorite Bank In the World for almost 20 years.... when our trainer took us on a tour in February, I stopped there and I guess I looked puzzled. She asked me why and i told her. I've had a PO box there since the mid-80s.

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

She's right about the job. My grandmother was Postmistress of a small town in Vermont for something like 30 years. I remember going to work with her sometimes and she'd let me stamp the mail with the postmark.