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My entire day consists of interactions. Well, I suppose everyone’s day consists of interactions, really, but when you are a mailman on a small downtown business route, they’re certainly more accentuated. All day long, it’s a random ‘hello’ to a passerby that I may or may not know, then directions to a hard-to-find cafe, and after that, an extended conversation with a customer that continues from the previous day.

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So it’s probably a good thing that I’m an ‘ambivert with extrovert tendencies’, according to a webpage that even knows what that is. The point is, interacting with people energizes me. I’d certainly dread my job if the case were otherwise. These are just a fraction of the fantastic folks I get to talk with every day on my route.

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If I were to string together my daily conversations into one long paragraph, what would it sound like? Likely, a bit schizophrenic– a discussion about photojournalism, followed immediately by talk of raising chickens. A conversation about public school policies would transition into an ongoing joke about repetitive cable company advertising. It would be punctuated with a lot of hey-how-are-ya’s and intermittent chats about everything from ‘how about this weather’ to ‘why does this company send me the same damn catalog twice a week?’ (U-LINE, are you listening?)

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If I have my way, I’ll be on this route until I retire– hopefully with the ability to still climb a set of stairs. Without a doubt, there will be a completely different set of people that I interact with when that time comes. I’m sure I’ll be a different person as well. But hopefully, I’ll still be an ambivert with extrovert tendencies– whatever that means.

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About Author

Jeff Kelley
Jeff can usually be found roaming the streets of Northampton, Massachusetts, pretending to deliver mail. Between deliveries he takes pictures with his iPhone, always in search of new ways of interpreting the world around him. His editing style ranges from minimal to outrageous, and constant experimentation, collaboration, and inspiration from other mobile photographers keeps Jeff motivated to try new things.