Jerry, Jerry, and Jerry

A recent Saturday Night Live had a skit with Jonah Hill about a person with a split personality.  It reminded me of a worker in the Atlanta Post Office, Jerry.

Jerry was an LSM (letter sorting machine) operator.  He sat at a machine and keyed destinations  as letter addresses was quickly placed in front of him.  Then a LSM operator had to do several a second for a couple hours at a time.  Jerry was a whiz.  He was the fastest person on the machines.  He had so much nervous energy at breaks and lunch he walked around and clapped his hands.

Jerry also probably had enough college degrees he could cover his apartment walls.  Jerry was single.  He had no idea how to  or the desire to communicate with humans.

Jerry also had at least three completely different personalities in his head.   The trouble is they were all dominant personalities.    Sometimes while Jerry was working his three personifies would have arguments and have a screaming fit at one another.  I remember his supervisor told me several times people have demanded to not work close to him - and a few  were just plain scared of him when his personalities started pitching fits.

I remember one time I was walking by and his supervisor motioned me over and suggested I casually walk by Jerry.  I did.  Two of Jerry's personalities were have a screaming argument at each other, each pointing out the other's faults, and the third personality singing loudly, I think the singing personality was trying to drown out the sound of the other two arguing; it was embarrassed for the two.   A girl working near was looking at him horrified.

One time his supervisor told me he didn't mind if people moved away from him or go home upset because he did the work of four people anyway.

Jerry hardly ever took time off he had more leave than he should have so they made him take off. 

He was gone either one or two weeks, I forgot how long.  I ran his annual leave in the system every day.  When he came back I asked him did he have a nice time off.   Without smiling he nodded.  I asked him where did he go and he said either Savannah or Myrtle Beach,  and it just so happened he was there  at whichever place it was during a huge hurricane, the whole city was evacuated.  I asked him about the  hurricane and he didn't know a thing about it.  It was news to him.  He stayed in his room the whole time.  He said the lights went out for a day or two but he didn't think anything about it.