The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Holding On, Digging Out & Hanging Up

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

In this hour, stories of the everyday moments that have lasting impacts. A fast-food chain giveaway, a perilous outing on the high seas and the emotional toll of being a customer care Agent for the USPS. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Director Meg Bowles. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.Angela Dohrmann goes whole-hog during a Wendy's giveaway. Lobsterman Jason Lemos fights for survival in the frigid Atlantic.Zellia Enjoli Tatiana learns something new about herself through her work as a customer care agent. 

Who are the risk takers that help reinvent and reimagine the kinds of stories we see on TV? We Disrupt This Broadcast, a brand new podcast from the Peabody Awards and the Center for Media and Social Impact, talks to creators of TV shows like Abbott Elementary, Watchmen, Black Mirror, and Better Things to explore how the most compelling shows and the creative powers behind them are upending the status quo. Listen to We Disrupt This Broadcast now, available where you get your podcasts. ["We Disrupt This Broadcast Now"] From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Meg Bowles. In this hour, we bring you three stories told live on stage in Omaha, Nebraska, Portland, Maine, and New York City. The stories may be wildly different, but they all share a common theme of how everyday events can end up being extraordinary. Our first story comes from Angela Dorman. She shared it as part of a main stage we produced in Nebraska at the Rose Theatre with support from

Omaha Public Radio, KIOS. Here's Angela live at the mall. The call that started it all was from my sister Michelle. She was calling from California, long distance, back when there was such a thing. She was telling me that she had her baby, her first, a boy named Jack. And I was hit with this overwhelming desire to be there as soon as possible. We lost our mom. Our mom died when we were kids.

I was 12 years old, Michelle was 9, and our little sister was 5 years old. And I learned that as the oldest, I was often the first to experience those times when without your mother, really sucked. And I would always make sure to warn the others. And this was a time. I had two kids of my own by then, and I knew that postpartum was one of the suckiest

without your mother. So she asks me when I'm gonna come out, and I said, as soon as I can. And we kind of both know that that's not going to be any time real soon. We just didn't have the money. We did not have the money. I would have had to put the whole thing on the credit card. And my husband and I agreed, well, I agreed, that it was for emergencies only and you know back before

I became a stay-at-home mom I had a career and I made my own money which I missed but I really miss spending my own money and charging it but now I shared that card and I decided I wasn't even going to bring it up. And I hung up the phone and I found my boys ages two and four. And I said, you got a new cousin. His name's Jack. And I'm not making lunch. We're going out for lunch. We went to Wendy's because it was Frosty's all around. I had discovered Junior Frosties were $1,

and it bought me 15 minutes apiece, uninterrupted. Now, it made a terrible mess, and I was willing to clean that up for those 15 minutes. So we go to Wendy's, and these were the drive-through days. The kids, the four-year-old, anytime he gets out of the car, he's running,, the four-year-old, anytime he gets out of the car he's running and the two-year-old is chasing him. It's winter so they're bundled up and then I got to unbundle them and bundle them up and

it's just it's it's so much to bring in. The car seat and the diaper bag. So we go through the drive-through of Wendy's and our favorite lady, drive-through lady, is there that we call her Wendy. And she hands me the tray and the three cups are there. And I'll never forget that first cup. Three of them and one of them has this writing on it. And it says, Wendy's AirTran free flight giveaway and I'm reading the rules there and it seems like it's true it's a giveaway there's no sweepstakes not a contest or trivia or game pieces all you had to do was find 64 of these promo cups, says select few, specially marked,

and they would send you a voucher for a free round-trip ticket anywhere air-transflue in the continental US. And I'm thinking, I'm looking at my tick to California right now, I'm going to California. So that night, my husband gets home from work And I tell him the good news about Jack and then I show him my cup and I say by the way I will be traveling to California this spring and he looks at it. He said, okay, honey, just

63 more and I said yeah So how can I help you and I said, all right So when you go to work tomorrow tell everybody at work to eat at Wendy's every day just for the next four weeks and bring me home those cups. He's like, well, you know, I really can't tell people where to eat for lunch. And I said, well, you can strongly urge them, Mark, if you want to help me. So after the first week, and let me tell you, that first week I am frequenting the drive-thru, and it's true, they were a select few.

After the first week I have 12 cups and this Diet Coke distended belly, and I know I've to amp up my game. So the second week, pick up the oldest from preschool and we head straight into the drive into the dining room. We go from the drive through right into the dining room. And I bring everything in. I bring crayons, little dinosaurs, Thomas the Tank Engine, everything, and we set up camp,

and I, you know, troll for cups. I might see somebody with a promo cup, like, about to throw it away, and I'll say, here, let me get that for you. And this is a small town, but even that kind of courtesy freaks people out. And also I found that when I was doing that, I might tip people off to the contest and create competition for myself. So I learned to just sit back and watch and wait.

And then I had to wait till the garbage got high enough so that when I reached in and tried to rifle through and grab those cups that I saw that I could reach them and this was going pretty well you know I was I was yielding more the second week and then I realized you know we were almost at the end of the second week and it wasn't enough I I really had to amp up my game. So I decided to lose an earring over the garbage. You're like, oh no, it's gotta be in there. And I'd be like digging through because I'd seen all these cups at the bottom that I could never get.

And it's like, oh, rifling down. Oh, it's somewhere there. And I'd push them up, those promo cups, push them up and then know that I could never get. And it's like, oh, rifling down, oh, it's somewhere there. And I'd push them up, those promo cups, push them up, and then know that I'm gonna go back for them later. And one day, I get this tap, tap, tap on my back, and I pull my head out of the garbage. And it's this skinny, pimply, nervous teenage worker. And I see behind him his manager.

Yeah, he sends a boy out to do a man's job. And he's standing behind the counter with his arms crossed. And this kid says, oh my manager says you gotta go. Okay, and like never come back? Okay. So we decamp and I pack everything up and I'm hustling this out and then of course my oldest one says, we're being kicked out aren aren't we, Mommy? I said, yeah. So we go into the car and it's freezing, so I gotta sit there and warm up the car.

And I'm sitting there thinking, forget it. I'm not gonna make it to California. I'm not gonna make it. Every day, my sister would send me another more adorable picture of little Jack. And every day, we would go to that dining room. But if I couldn't get in there anymore and we were in a small town I didn't know where the next

Wendy's was miles and I kind of released the quest and then I see them taking the trash out to the dumpster and I thinking, those things are pregnant with promo cups. So that night, Mark gets home and I said, okay, honey, me and the boys got kicked out of the dining room at Wendy's. I'm pretty sure forever we can't go back, but you could go. And I think I'm going to try to use the drive through still. But that doesn't mean anything. What I need you to do is I need you to watch the boys

because I'm going over to Wendy's and I'm casing Wendy's. His skepticism and concern is very thinly veiled at this time, which only fuels my drive to do these. So I get there, I'm sitting in the parking lot and I'm watching. I'm looking for patterns in how they take out the garbage. And I got two things going for me. One, there seems to be a bit of a pattern and two, like I said, it's freezing. Those workers, they don't have a coat. They come out, they toss the bag into the dumpster, not even paying attention and they run back inside. So the next night I go diving.

I got my own little cat suit, all black, like my black rain boots, and it is very hard work. Hard work, disgusting work, dangerous work. Hard work. Disgusting work. Dangerous work. Our little Wendy's was on a really narrow lot, so anytime somebody was waiting for the drive-thru, their headlights were, boom, on that dumpster like a spotlight. I was the show. So I had to stay stooped down the entire time. It was painful.

Because if I ever even got up to stretch, I'd be like whack-a-mole to my friends and neighbors. So I had to stay stooped. It's freezing. It's dark. It's so dark that I got used to, well, it was disgusting. First of all, the kitchen bags were the worst. It's that fryer grease.

Or as my grandma would call it, lard. All over. Then the bathroom bags were close second. But I got good at feeling and discovering the lobby bags, which was promo cup gold. Of course, I'm trying to be very fast because it is freezing and I don't care I don't care I am loving this job I'm loving it it gets me out of the house there's a clear guy bringing home tangible results from my efforts, unlike most of my work, which truly

is never done. This has an end in sight, and it's called California. So every night, I kiss my kids goodnight, and I go to my job in the dumpster. And I'm loving it. Loving it. And I even do so well that I'm devising sort of a Henry Ford processing thing at home. And every night I got to get home and Mark makes me go straight to the basement every night and change because I reek. I do not blame the man. I have got pickles in my hair

and cigarette butts stuck to me, oh yes. And so I change and then I'm able to re-enter the fold of the family and I process my cups. I dump out the cups and then soak them in a hot soapy water in the kitchen and I let them air dry and then at the very end of the night I take my cups and I go into the den and start cutting out the coupons while Mark and I watch Frontline. And it's a very satisfying work. At the end of those four weeks I fill a number 10 envelope and send it

back and that spring I walk into our airport straight for the AirTran ticket counter and hand the man my voucher and he looks at it he goes oh you're one of those yeah so you really found 64 of those things I said no and I turn and I say, no sir, 256. It felt so good to walk, lead my family onto a plane and be, sunny California, we were It felt so good to walk, lead my family onto a plane and be, sunny California, we were all gonna meet Jack. I was gonna be with Michelle and I was so proud, it felt great. You know, I was providing for us and it's just a great feeling to be the person to bring home the bacon. Even if it was in my hair.

Angela Dorman is a writer and actor. It turns out the contest was retired because the giveaway resulted in promotional cup madness and there were dumpster diving incidents reported across the country. Angela says if the contest hadn't been retired she would have done it all again but this time she'd head straight for the dumpsters. You can find out more about Angela and see pictures of her prize trip to California on our website the TheMoth.org. Coming up, a fisherman, a lobster trap, and a boat called the Nancy Jo when The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX.

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You load the box at your current home, and we store the box at one of our secure locations until your home is ready. Looking for a moving solution that feels better? Visit Big Steel Box. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles. We regularly produce a main stage event at the State Theater in Portland, Maine and for one of those shows I went on the hunt for people in the area with interesting stories to share. I found a local monthly journal called The Fisherman's Voice. Mike Crowe, the founding manager and editor, described it as news for and by fishermen. He told me about Jason Lemus, a lobster fisherman

who grew up along the New Hampshire seacoast. So I reached out, and at first Jason was like, you want me to stand up in front of how many people to tell this story? But in the end, he agreed and took the stage at the State Theater in an evening we produced with support from local public radio MBPN. Here's Jason Lemus, live at the Moth. I'm a third generation commercial lobsterman. I grew up in a large Italian family, a large Italian fishing family.

It started with my late grandfather and the arrival of his mom and dad who came over by boat from Italy to the U.S. They settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and made their home along the waterfront. My grandfather, along with his four brothers, all grew up on the water. They taught themselves all how to lobster fish and build lobster traps. In turn, they passed on that family tradition down through the many generations. You might say salt water runs through our veins. My grandmother and my grandfather ran a small grocery store called Marconi's Market. They sold live lobsters and famous lobster rolls. I can remember going out fishing with my grandfather growing up aboard his boat named the Nancy Marianne,

who was named after my mom, the first born, and my aunt Marianne, who's the second born. You see, in our family, we have a family tradition of naming lobster boats after our family members to bring us good luck while we're out in the water. I remember going out with him. He'd bring me down and sit me on a bucket on the boat and put me on the boat and keep me away from the ropes.

And as he hauled the lobster traps up, he'd hand the lobsters to me, the legal lobsters, and so I could put the lobster bands on the claws, I had to be careful not to get bit. And he taught me everything I knew about lobster fishing. He was an amazing man. Now, on any given day nowadays, there's like seven family boats out on the water at any given point. On October 31st, I steamed out. I started hauling along the beach, untangling traps.

It was a gorgeous day. It was flat calm. The seas were just like glass. You saw the sun rays reflect down off the clouds as the sun came up. I finished up hauling there and straightened some traps along the beach, and then I steamed off a ways. I was on the main New Hampshire line,

and I came upon trawl number 17. I grabbed the buoy, started hauling it aboard. Now a trawl is a buoy on each end and then there's a row of traps that are attached to the rope. As I hauled each trap up, I put the legal-sized lobsters in an orange basket, I baited each trap and then I stuck them on the trawl table. Now, a trawl table is a flat area where we store the traps that hangs inside the boat. I finished hauling the last trap and I saw my cousin Aaron fishing about a half a mile away from me. I called him on the walkie-talkie phone and we made a plan to catch up that day.

And we said, well, you know, after we get done, we'll steam in together. I hung up the phone, and I turned the boat back around. Now, you know, I fish out of a 26-foot duffy. I fish by myself. My boat name is the Nancy Jo, which is named after my mom and my grandfather. I turned the boat back around to set trawl number 17 and I lined it up and I

pushed the first trap off and with the boat going in one direction and the traps going in the opposite direction, each of them with a friction basically pulls them off in the opposite direction. The last trap went off, and just as I had done so many times before, I picked up the buoy and the coil rope to toss it overboard. Before I knew it, I was pulled and dragged to the back of the boat. I didn't have a split second to react. I didn't have time to pull the boat out of gear. I didn't have time to grab a knife off the Holland station.

At this point, I was thrown up against the back of the stern, the trawl table, and I was dragging with my pointer finger and my thumb, the rope had become cinched around and I was dragging with my pointer finger and my thumb, the rope had become cinched around and I was dragging eight traps. The boat is going in one direction and the traps are wanting to pull me overboard. I fought, fought to get that off my hand. Every time I kept moving around, I kept losing my footing. And before I knew it, I was laying up on top of the trowel table just like a trap with the tops of my feet, with my boots curled around the edge of the trowel table holding

on. I know going in that frigid Atlantic Ocean at the tight time of the year was not going to be a good situation. I wanted the tips of my fingers to come off. I couldn't hold on any longer. I had to calm myself down, and I had to not panic or I was going to drown. I said a prayer and I took a deep breath and I let go. I kicked my boots off, one came off in the boat and the other one came off as they hit the water. I got dragged down, down towards the ocean floor. I felt the traps hit. Where I became entangled in

the line was about 10 feet from the surface. It slacked. And then I was able to free my hand. I felt those traps at the bottom and was then able to free my hand. I swam like a rocket up to the surface. I popped up just like a lobster buoy. I was gasping for air. I started screaming. I grabbed that lobster buoy that I had become entangled with. I stuck it between my legs and used it as extra flotation. My grandfather always taught me, if you fall overboard, grab a buoy.

Hopefully someone will come and find you. I, grab a buoy. Hopefully someone will come find you. I screamed my head off. I thought maybe my cousin Aaron was fishing half a mile away, maybe he saw something. And there was another boat off in the distance. I said, no, maybe they saw what happened. I yelled and screamed. Nobody was coming. I split second, I left all my oil skins

and my fleece jacket on as I knew the situation I was in, I needed to keep my core body temperature as warm as I could. Before I knew it, the boat started to circle. And before I knew it, I was staring the bow of the boat down. It was coming right at me. I debated for a split second to try and say, oh, maybe I can pull myself up via the wash rail and pull myself back in, but I knew if I slipped, I would get sucked under by the prop wash and I didn't want to go that way. I kicked off that buoy and swam like hell and got away from it. I actually kicked off the side of the boat and swam about 200 yards away to another lobster buoy.

I grabbed that buoy and I put that one between my legs also. And at that point it was getting extremely cold. I'd been in the water for quite some time. And it was like millions and millions of needles sticking me all in my body all over. I said a prayer to my grandfather. I said, go tell my cousin Aaron I'm on the shoulder and tell him to come get me.

I was at peace with myself at that point. And it was just, I said a lot of prayers. And I knew I had to fight to stay alive for my family, for my mom, my brother. It was starting to really hallucinate. The fog and the haze was starting to come in. And I was trying to figure out how I could wrap that line, that buoy I was on on the line around my legs, so that if I did pass, that they would be able to find and fish my body out.

In a split second, as the fog and the haze started to come in, I thought it was a mirage. I saw this white boat coming off on the distance as I looked up. I don't know if this guy sees me or not. I started waving my arms and my hands and yelling and screaming. Then I knew he saw me. There was a puff of black smoke came out of his exhaust stack. He gave it fuel and came right over to me pulled

up beside me and this is a you know this is a short guy you know he's all by himself and he reached down and grabbed me he says I got a three count here one two three says give me anything you got at this point I was toast I had nothing left in the tank. He flopped me up over that wash rail and right into his boat just like a fish. I looked up at him and the first words out of his mouth were, man, you're not white. I said to him, I said, you've got to call my cousin Aaron on the VHF and tell him you got me.

He said he's fishing a half a mile over here. So he got on the radio and told him that he had got me and was calling the Coast Guard. He got me into the Coast Guard station pretty quick. I remember they loaded me from the boat and put me on the float and started cutting my clothes off. And I leaned over to one of the Marine Patrol officers and I said, am I going to die? And he said, no. He said, you're just really cold.

I'm going to warm you up. So they loaded me in the ambulance and they had me over the hospital pretty quick. Meanwhile, with all this playing out on the radio and how close of a knit family we are, my cousins and relatives dropped everything they were doing when they were out on the water fishing and came in to meet me over the hospital. I remember as I got to the hospital, the doctors, you know, they put blankets over me and they were blowing warm air over me, and I heard them off in the distance, and they took a core body temperature and they said it was 84 degrees.

They said, you can't believe that you're talking to us and that you're coherent. So they put IVs in me and my mom and my brother were there. And I remember my mom putting her hand on my forehead and saying, it's going to be all right. putting her hand on my forehead and saying it's gonna be alright. And meanwhile, the doctors are working on me and then I see them off on the side again and they're like they're chatting and I overhear them and they're like well you know all my cousins that have been out fishing for the day they smell like

lobster bait and they've all showed up at the ER so So let me tell you, the doctors are like, we gotta get these guys in to see him and get him the heck out of here. They were pretty ripe, so. Two by two they said, well, let's bring them in because later found out that people were coming in for medical services and they were like, we gotta get out of here, we're not even going to come in.

So they brought them in two by two and I remember looking up at my cousin, Vinny, and I said, I screwed up. And they're like no, you're here and that's all that counts. They kept me in the hospital that evening, overnight for observation, and then let me go the next day. I remember my mom coming to pick me up. I got in the car, and they were adamant. They told me to go home, and the doctors discharged me, and they said, go home and relax, and

they were adamant about not getting cold. So I leaned over to my mom and I said, we're not going home. I said, we're going to the boat. So she drove me down to the dock, the family dock. And I got out and walked across the dock. And I walked down on the float and I got on my boat. It was a cloudy day and I sat down. I thanked my grandfather for that day.

I thanked my boat for not killing me. As lobstermen, our boats are extensions of our lives. And when you go out on your boat, you come back on your boat. And the way that I came in that day is never a way that you want to come in. And that's why I'm one lucky lobstermen. Lucky Lobsterman. Thank you. That was Jason Lemus. According to the journal Fisherman's Voice, falling overboard is the leading cause of fatalities among lobstermen. Jason said that day he discovered the will to survive is a powerful instinct.

Here's Jason talking with moth host Peter Aguero. So Jason, great job tonight. How do you feel? Tonight's was kind of like stress because I've never done this before. I have never gotten up on stage. I'm a lobsterman. I have never gotten up on stage and spoke in front of, I think there was over a thousand people here.

I've never done that before. So it was just a unique and interesting experience. And I'm glad that I was here to be able to do that and tell my story. I guess one question I was gonna ask was, can you describe what a perfect moment on the boat is? If you can think of... When you steam out in the morning

and you watch the sun come up over the horizon and it reflects off the clouds down and across the water and just looks like the heavens are shining down on you and when it's calm and peaceful and it's just so real you know it's just a it's a perfect time and then also of course when we're catching lobsters is also a good moment when we haul that trawl. You never know what's going to come up in those traps. You know I had the experience last year of catching an albino lobster which is a white lobster which is one in a million chances of catching and you never know what you're going to get

or what is going to happen that day if they throw in the water. You just kind of say a prayer as you go out and you come back in and you hope your tanks are full. You can find out more about Jason and see a picture of the Nancy Jo by visiting our website. And while you're there, why not pitch us your story? You can call our pitch line and leave a two minute pitch right on the website.

But before you do, take a look at our tips and tricks for how to craft a great pitch. So I'm 11 years old and I'm standing in the middle of our kitchen at 10 minutes to midnight crying hysterically. Our new puppy had woken me up by chewing up a special doll my grandfather had gotten me and he had recently passed away, so I was a mess. Next to me was my cousin, Allison, who was eight and was sleeping over, also crying hysterically. My crying had woken her up and reminded her

of her father who had also recently passed away, and she was now inconsolable. Next to her are my two younger brothers, Michael and Jonathan, and her younger brother, David, who are now all crying because we're crying. And then there's my mother mother standing in front of us, who's basically by herself because my father had recently left her.

Needless to say, not a super happy time period for my family in general. And she looked at all of us and made one of those inspired parenting decisions. She said, wait, do you know what time it is? It's time for midnight madness. Quick! Gather all the sugar foods you can find and bring them to the picnic table in the backyard. Hurry, hurry! Before midnight. And we did. We grabbed Captain Crunch and Ringdings and ice cream and Chips Ahoy and we went

in the backyard and sat in our holly hoppy nightgowns and Tom and Jerry pajamas and ate all of it. It's like we were suddenly transported to a magical land in some kids movie where anything can happen. We all still talk about Midnight Madness, all five of us, and not only because of the sugar. because in one moment, my mother transported us from profound sadness to absolute magic. She showed us that in the midst of hard times, there's still room for sitting under the stars at midnight and having a picnic in your pajamas. Remember you can pitch us your story on our website, TheMoth.org.

Coming up, venturing into the wild world of customer care at the United States Postal The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the public radio exchange prx.org. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles and our last story comes from Zilia Anjali Tatiana, but most people who know her just call her Z. I first met Z through the Moth's Open Mike StorySlam event in Detroit where she lives. I called her up and as we were talking she started telling me about how her job as a customer care agent at the United States Postal Service taught her something about herself

she never knew. Here's Zelia Angelie Tatiana live at the Aaron Davis Hall in New York City. I've been a male clerk for five years and I wanted to try something new. And so I took a test to become a mechanic and I passed, but there were no open positions. And so I thought I'd try my hand at being a customer care agent at the National Call Center for the United States Postal Service. My first week of training, the hardest thing for me to

master was the greeting. Thank you for calling your United States Postal Service. My name is Zee. To better assist you, may I have your name and zip code, please? And I was so used to saying, hello. I had to break out of that. And there were two rules. One, you had to say your United States Postal Service, not the or USPS. And two, you had to repeat everything back.

Say for example, the caller says, hey, my name is Michael Greenlee, my zip code's 48215. I have to say, thanks Michael, first name only, and no, ma'am or sir, you might get it wrong. That was 48215, thanks, and how can I help? After four weeks of training, I get introduced to the workroom floor. And I'm anxious, I'm nervous, I'm just a baby dragon.

As we go out, I notice that there are carpeted floors, and there are about 200 cubicle desks spread about with matching chairs. There are no windows. There's no paper allowed. It's a paperless environment for security purposes. And as you look about there are TVs mounted on the wall that show the call queue. When you get a call there's a very high-pitched ding in your headset. There are two main reasons why people dial the National Call Center. That's complaints or compliments. Complaints or compliments.

And guess which I got the most of? You guessed it, complaints. And mostly because America is a little impatient, a tad bit rude, might be selfish, may be entitled. One day, I took a call from a woman and her complaint is that her carrier refuses to bring a 40-pound bag of cat litter to her six-floor apartment bi-weekly.

I gladly document her concern, give her a confirmation number, and send her on her way. Another day I take a call from a man and I start with my greeting most politely. Thank you for calling your United States Postal Service. My name, and he cuts me off, and so I know right off the bat that he's upset. He's been on hold for an hour, maybe more. Our whole music is the wackest. And so I hear him out. I take some notes. And when he's done, I explain to him,

I'll be helping you document what you've told me so that we can forward it to your LPO local post office It'll be addressed and resolved. I said spell your first and last name for me, please He huffs Yeah, P, you know like pterodactyl So I paused for a moment. Okay that was P as in pneumonia, correct? Okay guys this guy's testing my competency. I can hear him sort of chuckling under his breath. I'm smarter than you guy. So imagine getting calls like that and then getting calls where there are these long sequences of tracking numbers all day and people have

no sense of cadence on top of that. One day I took a call from a woman, and her complaint is that her mail is being misdelivered. And as I'm documenting her issues, she starts to tell me some personal things from her life. She told me about how her doctor of over 30 years had ignored her complaint about a lump that formed at the top of her hairline. And she starts to get emotional as she says that that lump now weighs five pounds down her face.

And I'm the type of person, if I see someone cry, I cry. And so on this call, I'm emotional too. And by the end of it, I try to regroup and gather myself. And it was just ding, no time. There was the next call. And that wasn't the only call I got like that. I got a lot of calls like that from people who were ill or ailing, from people who were elderly, from people who were lonely and needed someone to

talk to. And for me that was the most difficult kind of call. And I would look around at these other 199 desks and everyone else, this is a breeze. I mean, they're just shooting through it, everything's fine and not for me. It feels like I'm leaving work with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I can't just leave this here at work. And after about four days, I felt a bit bogged down.

I felt a little depressed depressed like maybe this baby dragon needs somebody to talk to. And so I saw a lot of therapists and she was super cool. She was down to earth. She had a brilliant sense of humor like moi. She listened to me intently for some time and then she says, you know, you're an empath. And I say, okay. Well, she says, well, what that means is that other person's emotions,

you experience them exactly, identically. And I think back to work, they're crying, I'm crying. I'm like, yeah, I do. She says, yes, I'm crying. I'm like yeah I do. She says yes I know and maybe this just isn't the best position for you and I think who would have thought working at customer care could be so difficult and for me it was. I'm back at work and I'm checking my emails before the ship starts. And we get what's called a flagship message. And it can contain any number of things like system updates or software changes.

It can tell you weather alerts. And this particular day, it says that there's severe weather headed toward Texas and there are two impending storms headed toward the lower United States and Puerto Rico. I read it. Take a moment. It was September 20th when both those storms slammed into Puerto Rico. And immediately the calcu bursts at the seams for international and domestic calls. And I wasn't the only person that felt the gloom. When I looked around, everybody else was sad too. And the calls just kept coming.

It was ding after ding. I took a call from a woman in Puerto Rico, and she said she was in the line at the grocery store. And so I listened, I take some notes. She says, I finally reached the front of the line and I'm hopeful. And she says, but there's no food. There's no water.

The entire store is empty. I think, oh God, what can I do? I'm at my desk at the National Call Center and my job is to document. But what do you do when someone's concerned is staying alive to the next day? It was ding, after ding, after ding. People were calling for batteries.

People were calling for water, for food, for clothes, for medicine. It was just ding after ding. It was like people were calling 911 almost. It was 631 evening. And I took my last call of the day. It was from a woman in Puerto Rico and she wanted to track a package and I think easy, long sequences of tracking numbers. And so I track it for her.

And in the background, very distinctly, I can hear a man's voice. And he's moaning. He's groaning in pain. And the woman explains to me that package, the package she's calling for, that's his medication, she says. He needs it to survive. I'm heartbroken. I'm entirely helpless. And all I can do is document what's happening. And all I can do is document what's happening. And so I do.

And after so long, we couldn't even do that because the entire electrical grid in Puerto Rico failed. It failed leaving 3.4 million people without power. And it was devastating. So many people died. So many people died. I get home after a long week and I throw my keys on the counter and I think about how my therapist is because I'm so emotional. Maybe this job just isn't the best fit because I'm internalizing. I'm going home with these people in my thoughts and in my heart, which isn't bad, she said, you know,

just maybe a bit much for full-time work. And I noticed there's a letter on the table as I throw my keys down, and it has the Blue Eagle logo on it. So I know it's from work and I run over snatch it off the table and there's a letter about the mechanic position and it asks me you know will I accept and I think God has hurt my postal cries God has hurt my postal cries of course I'll accept of course and so I leave I leave the National Call Center to become a God, it's hurt my postal cries. Of course I'll accept, of course.

And so I leave, I leave the National Call Center to become a maintenance mechanic, where I have tools and I identify a problem, and I fix it, and I see it work immediately, which is a total switch up from being a customer care agent. And just like there are people that can laugh their way through haunted houses, there are people that can work at call centers and let all the difficult interactions slide off their backs, like water off a duck.

And I'm not one of those people. There's no amount of training or scripting that can prepare you for a natural disaster. Or for any stranger that decides to dial 1-800-AX-USPS. I think best of all, what I've learned about myself is that I'm so empathetic. It's almost pathetic. Applause That was Zilia Angelie Tatiana. In addition to being a master problem solver mechanic, Z is also a writer. You can find out more about Z and her newest book of poetry entitled Whatever on our website,

TheMoth.org. Zee feels she has a better understanding of her emotions having been a call agent. She says, I've learned there's no such thing as too sensitive. There's just me being exactly who I am. That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us again next time for the Moth Radio Hour. Your host this hour was Meg Volz. Meg also directed the stories in the show along with Michelle Jalowski. The rest of the Moss directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Giness,

and Jennifer Hickson. Production support from Emily Couch. Moss stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our pitch came from Laura Bailey in Los Angeles. Our theme music is by The Drift, other music in this hour from John Scofield, Bill Frazel, Stellwagen Symphonette and the Urie-Honing Acoustic Quartet. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange prx.org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, thumboff.org.