Opportunities

One of the reasons I applied to the Postal Service and became an employee was because they had to pay me the same they had to pay a man. I live in the Midwest, and I had applied at a bank. And here, all-I had a friend who was a teller and she would train all these nice young men, and then they would go ahead and become vice presidents of the bank and she would stay a teller. So, I went to the bank president, and I asked to be interviewed and to have a job there, and he told me that I ha-had a job- I had two young children at home. So, I thanked him and promptly went out and found myself a job where they-they didn’t tell you those kind of things <Abbey: laughter> and you could, uh, pretty much do and get paid equal pay. And it helped me a great deal with my children, ‘cause I have a very independent young woman for a daughter, who is a career woman. And, my son is a forester in Kentucky. And, their views have been very well shaped by their mother and having to deal with the “Good ‘Ol Boys’” Network.

Linda Rumney: The Postal Service has just opened doors for me that I would never have been allowed to go through being a female in-in the place that I live, because it’s, um, a beautiful place, but there’s just not-there’s not a lot of opportunity here.

Mary Johnson: The Postal Inspection Service does a good job at not necessarily making an issue of gender. I’m really lucky because I work with all men and they’re fantastic, um, guys and they teach me something new every single day. But, there’s really not an issue of my gender. Um, it’s kind of acknowledged and respected that a female’s brain, you know, will bring a different background to the table as an asset. And you learn how to work with it and if there’s something that isn’t, you know, size wise, or whatever, if you’re going up against someone bigger than you, you learn how to compensate for that. Um, and the inspection service has been great at teaching us how to do that and how to enhance everybody’s assets, whether it’s male or female. And, uh, it comes basically down to a personal thing. Um, so, uh, the Inspector’s Service is actually very good at both upholding the fact that each inspector brings quality to the table and enhancing that quality and building on those skills and compensating for anywhere that-that you may feel you need improvement in.