US Postal Worker Punished for Not Delivering Junk Mail

Have you heard about Mailman Steve, the postal worker in North Carolina, USA, who stopped delivering junk mail to the homes on his route? Over almost ten years, Steve Padgett has been dealing with the absurd amount of junk mail by simply not delivering it--and in ten years, not a single person on his route complained.

This is one mailman who is providing people strictly with the service that they want, yet he was sentenced to three years prohibition and must pay $3,000 in restitution.

"Today you'll get credit for a life well lived," U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III told Padgett. Dever could have sent Padgett to prison under federal sentencing guidelines; instead, he put him on three years' probation, fined him $3,000 and ordered him to perform 500 hours of community service.

Check out the whole article in the Raleigh News & Observer and discuss what you think here on the Paper Planet. If you want more entertaining reading on this subject, see a longer article in Slate entitled, "The J. Crew Catalog Destroyed My Spirit: Why Mailmen Give Up.", which shows this is not an isolated incident.

Want to do something in Mailman Steve's honor? Find some resources on this topic at www.donotmail.org and www.catalogchoice.org