My name is Bobby Wilkerson, and I’m a general expeditor at the Detroit Processing and Distribution Center. I help ensure mail gets to where it needs to go.
Our facility receives a lot of mail from Michigan. Once the mail is processed, I scan the mail trays, generate a profile, attach a placard to the container and send it on its way. The placards designate where the mail is headed next. I send out about 1,700 mail trays most nights on my shift, which is 3:30-11 p.m.
I’ve been an expeditor for two and a half years. Before that, I was a transfer clerk. As a transfer clerk, you see where the mail is coming from, then you direct it to where it’s going inside the plant to be processed. As an expeditor, I handle mail after it arrives here, then send it out. So now I’m on the other end of the process.
Scanning is a big part of my job. Each scan tells us how much mail is coming in. The scans also tell management how much mail we’ve processed. It’s important to the customer, too. They can track their mail just from scanning.
Before I joined the Postal Service, I was in the Army for 12 years. I served during Desert Storm and was deployed to Kuwait and later to Somalia.
The first day I got out of the military, I ran into a friend who happened to be a union representative for USPS. He suggested I get a postal job, which I did. That was in 1997.
The Postal Service is a good place to work. I like my co-workers and there’s a lot of teamwork. There’s also lots of mobility here. You can basically write your own ticket.
“On the Job,” a series on individual employees and their contributions to the Postal Service, appears regularly in Link.