TACOMA — On any given day Jim Schultz makes over 500 stops around Lakewood in his boxy red-white-and-blue mail truck.
Some days are busier than others. When he’s on a residential route delivering mail to houses and apartments, Schultz can easily make more than 1,000 daily deliveries. Other times, like Thursday when he let The News Tribune shadow his route, he snakes around the city’s business district depositing and gathering an assortment of mail, bills, small packages dubbed “chunks” and larger envelopes called “flats.”
Schultz, 70, has been a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service for 45 years, 36 of them in Lakewood. To his knowledge he’s one of the longest-serving letter carriers in the city. It’s likely Schultz personally delivered your mail in Lakewood at some point or another in his career, he said.
Thus far, Schultz has logged more than 1 million miles in his truck without a single accident, a postal service news release said. That’s the equivalent of driving 40 laps around the Earth.
In that time Schultz said he’s only been bitten by a dog once and knows Lakewood like the back of his hand — even more than his own neighborhood of University Place.
Schultz got his start as a postal worker when he was 25. He had recently graduated college and hated his job as a factory worker in California when he was offered the gig. Schultz said he hasn’t looked back.
“I get out of the house, get exercise, stay busy,” he said. “I feel like I thrive in that kind of environment. There is a rush all the time, there’s a bit of pressure, but it keeps me busy, keeps me motivated.”
Usually the job is uneventful. But one time when he lived in California, Schultz said he saw a bank robbery on his route and watched the culprit climb up a tree to hide from police.
Over the decades Schultz said he’s seen the industry change. He delivers fewer letters now, but more packages. Machines sort the mail by address and name before he picks up his morning deliveries, so he sorts less by hand than he once did. He also has a scanner he uses in the truck to track the pick-up and delivery of packages.
Opening the back of his truck Thursday, Schultz pointed out trays with bundles of mail sorted by type. Already halfway through his route, Schultz said it was a light mail day. Sometimes the truck is filled to the top with parcels.
Schultz works a different route every weekday and said although there’s some social aspect to it, he enjoys the solitude and quiet that comes with the task at hand.
“When you deliver a route for a while, you know every name on every street,” Schultz said. “I don’t have any date set for retirement. I’m going to be working for a few more years at least. I like what I do. My next goal is 50 years.”
The USPS is experiencing a shortage of mail carriers and actively hiring full time, part-time and seasonal workers. Starting wages for carriers in Washington are $22.13 an hour, according to job postings on the USPS website.
