Longtime postman Greg Podsiki has a few parcels of wisdom to share about cheerfulness and joy after his nearly “32 years and one day” working as a window clerk at the Haines Post office-but first, he offered a few practical matters to address:
“It is so important to put your box number on your mail,” Podsiki told the CVN on Monday, five days before retiring.
As he was being interviewed, he read from a list of notes and advice that he wanted to ensure residents take heed of. When ordering from companies that don’t deliver to post office boxes, he said, most residents know to address their package to 55 Haines Highway, but not all know to put their post office box number in their address line or apartment number to clue postal workers in on their post office box, he said.
“We’re going to have two new people when I leave,” Podsiki said. “They’re not going to know who lives here and what box they are. It gets set aside. It really slows us down and slows the customer down from getting their package.”
After three decades, he knows where people’s boxes are.
“I can’t tell you how many times somebody would send something to my name, but they didn’t have a PO box, just my name and Haines, Alaska and sure enough it found its way into my PO box,” said longtime resident J.R. Churchill. “Greg has always gone the extra mile.”
Podsiki knows some post office boxes so well he can’t help but attach sentimental value to them, especially to those that belonged to people who died or moved away.
“Every once in a while, I’ll think of that person, like Hazel Englund who I was real close to, who died. It just kills me to give that box to somebody else,” he said. “I think about the people who have passed, or the oldtimers or the people who are oldtimers now. They’re not forgotten when you work at the post office.”
But on to more practical matters: Don’t order baby chicks before May 15.
One of the most delightful experiences of postal work, Podsiki said, is getting “happy, live baby chicks in the mail in spring time.”
“But it bums us out terribly when they come dead,” he said.
The chicks die from being too cold or from lack of water. Bad spring weather can keep them in Juneau for more than two days, the minimum time needed for the babies to survive without water and heat.
And although he didn’t state the following advice explicitly, it appears practicing civil disobedience is, in some circumstances, warranted, such as the need to keep fledgling life going. To save the chicks from certain doom, Podsiki admitted to violating United States Postal Service policy, presumably a Cardinal Postal Sin-opening someone else’s mail.
“The chicks were on their deathbed and I hand watered them,” he said. “We’re not supposed to do it, but gosh you just can’t let the things die.”
It’s not the only time he’s broken postal service policy. Because he views his role at the post office as not just a job, but as a duty to the community, he’s come to work after hours to look for an elderly person’s medication. And while he also advises customers to practice patience, a task made more difficult in recent years since the ability to track packages has made it easier for customers to wait in anticipation, he knows there are some things people need that only the post office can provide.
“They really want it. They really, really, really want it,” Podsiki said of impatient customers. “Sometimes they really need it. There are diabetics in town, old people that need their heart medicine. You can’t help but be sentimental about it and worried about people. Like I always say, ‘I’m employed by the U.S. Postal Service, but I work for my community.'”
Lynette Campbell said she recalled a time Podsiki stayed at work after hours searching for her wedding ring. “He found it in the nick of time, just in time for the ceremony,” Campbell said.
Podsiki also understands that receiving a package, whether needed or wanted, simply makes people happy. He dedicates himself to manifesting “cheerfulness and joy” in the workplace and for customers. To that end, he creates and solicits colorful artistic banners and displays throughout the year not only at the public-facing counter but in the back room where the physically demanding job of sorting mail and heavy packages occurs.
Last year, he encouraged children to create paper-plate art they could display in the post office. Students turned the flimsy white plates into suns, stars and other vibrant images that now hang on the wall on the opposite end of residents’ post office boxes.
“Those were (on display) last year, but we had them sitting back here,” Podsiki said. “Why throw them out? About a month ago I put them all up.”
Third grade teacher Kristin White and her students made him a retirement chain this month. It’s constructed of paper links for each day he has left to work with inspiring quotes written on them that he has since unfurled and taped up around the post office.
“My students and my own children have taken in artwork, and they’re always so excited to see it on display,” White said. “The Iditarod map has always been one of my favorites, and I’m pretty sure he’s handwritten hundreds of letters back to children who sent Santa a letter at Christmas.”
Podsiki brightens up his workplace on his own time. It all started when he first got the job in 1990 and his fellow employees failed to get along. The post office, he said, was not a pleasant place to be until one day he brought in a birthday cake for a fellow employee. From then on, they always celebrated birthdays. Years later, after a postal service policy change prohibited the display of art from professional artists, he made his own Christmas decorations.
“Why did I start it? Because we just need some cheerfulness,” Podsiki said. “The walls were blank and white and sterile.”
For Podsiki, spreading that joy goes beyond aesthetics. It’s also manifested in how the post office workers treat each other and their customers. Podsiki says when it comes to creating goodwill and joy, “It’s about the little things.” From saying “good morning postal family” when he walks in the door in the mornings, to appreciating when his boss thanks her employees for a good day’s work.
“No matter where you work, no matter how old you are or what your seniority is or what your gender is, you can make your workplace a happy place to be where you look forward to coming to work and have a pleasant day,” he said. “It’s contagious. If you’re a happy person and cheerful, eventually it passes on to everybody and this place is proof of it.”
Fellow postal worker Aimee Jacobson agrees. She’s worked with Podsiki for the past seven years and said during that time he has “roped her into” helping him create art displays and that she’s even “actually enjoyed it a little bit.” She decorated a banner at the front counter this week inviting the public to celebrate Podsiki’s last day at work.
“He’s always said ‘It’s about the little things.’ And it’s true. It really is about the little things in life,” Jacobson said. “He’s got this young heart and this full heart. Just getting to know him over the last seven years has been a real gift to me. I’m going to miss working with him for sure.”
Podsiki, who turned 70 last month, says his decision to retire comes after the physical demands of the job have grown to the point where it’s difficult to do the work. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer last year and was medevaced several months ago because of a heart complication. Although he said he’s recovering from both ailments, the demands of the job have become too much. As the ability to consume has increased via companies like Amazon, Podsiki estimates the number of packages arriving in Haines has more than doubled since he started.
“I’m getting older and the last couple years have been hard on me. The weight of packages has increased,” he said. “The number of heavy packages has increased. It’s been hard for me as a man, a big strong man all my life, to let the ladies help me. I do sometimes ask, ‘Will you help me pick this up?'”
After he retires, he said he plans to work on his house and take road trips in Alaska, Canada and the Western United States. He also wants to visit Costa Rica.
On Monday, the postal workers were waiting for 3,000 pounds of mail to arrive, roughly 700 packages for a town of about 2,600. There’s very little downtime working for the post office, Podsiki said. Workers will handle each of those 700 packages three times, once unloading them from delivery vans, again loading them onto shelves and a third time delivering them to customers. On Monday, he was the “day maker,” the employee responsible for serving customers at the window.
“I think working on the window is the hardest, physically, because when you’re not up front, you’re back here lifting boxes. You’re busy all the time,” Podsiki said. “They call it a ‘day maker’ if you’re on the window because you’re the one who presents to the people and you try to be cheerful and happy. I’m the day maker today.”
Podsiki, it appears, bears that responsibility every day.