Getting better and funnier.

Last week work was a lot better and easier since I started my current route. I haven't been working 11-12 hour days unless I want to and my route is finally stabilizing to the normal amount of stops.

A week or two ago I was driving to a county road called South Lake Wilson Road. The house is in West Fork, but a lot of times this area gets labeled as Fayetteville for some reason. That makes a difference to me as far as commitment times go in my job, but I'm not going to bore you all with that. You need a current 911 map to locate most of my stops in the afternoon. I have a 911 map but it is for 1998, which is a little out of date, but it does help. So I pull out my 911 map once I find the county road, which is called South Lake Wilson Road, to locate house. Shocker, it's not in there. So I look both ways and see a mailbox to my right, so I check it out and decide to go that way. After driving about a mile I notice a mailbox without a name or numbers on it and a long driveway. I decide to take it since I have driven so far and I have never been to this area before. The drive is approximately 3/4-1 mile long and uphill. I finally reach the house and I am backing my truck like I'm supposed to. I grab the box out of my truck and I am doing my thing when I hear a lady yell, "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" Of course someone is there, do you think the FedEx fairy drove the truck? So I yell to her and state that I am on way. I ask the lady, are you four thousand four hundred and sixty-one S. Lake Wilson Road? She looks at me bewildered and a little dumbfounded. She replies, "No, I am forty-four, sixty-one." I look at her dumbfounded and then I smile at her. I smile for two reasons, I found the correct house and the lady didn't know the long version of her house number. I don't normally say the long version of house numbers but I do when I am going to West Fork/Winslow area because I am mainly driving on county roads which are 3-4 digits long. This helps me keep from confusing the county road and house number.

It also amazes me how many people don't know their house number. I'll pull up and say, "Are you 3263?" The recipient will say, "I don't know. What's the name?"

One other funny thing that people ask is "Whatcha got there?" A lot of times I say, "A box or an envelope." Lately I started telling people a million dollars. They don't know what to think of that so they quickly sign the sheet and go back to work or whatever they were doing.

It's been a fun ride so far with FedEx but I am ready to find something new. I wish the company had a training position in this area but they don't.