The Village Postman: Social Service in Disguise

Laurent Petit has delivered mail in the Morvan region for fifteen years, covering a route that includes 247 addresses across 85 kilometers. But describing him merely as a postman misses his true role in rural social fabric. "I'm checking on elderly residents, carrying messages between neighbors, alerting services to problems," he explains, navigating narrow roads with practiced ease.

The La Poste recognized this social role, training rural postal workers to identify vulnerable residents and offer additional services. Laurent can handle basic banking, sell stamps and shipping supplies, even alert social services if he notices problems. "Madame Dubois always takes her mail by 9 AM. When she didn't answer three days running, I called the maire. She'd fallen, couldn't reach the phone. Probably saved her life."

Technology threatens this human connection. Email reduces letter volume, automated sorting eliminates jobs, GPS routing optimizes efficiency at the cost of local knowledge. "They want me to follow computer-generated routes," Laurent grumbles. "But the computer doesn't know the bridge floods in spring, that Monsieur Bernard's dog attacks strangers but knows me, that I should check on isolated farms after storms. Local knowledge can't be programmed."