Space Postie - Tales from the Mailroom

As some of you may know, our esteemed leader/Adult Swim’s Mack Daddy Mike Lazzo started out back in the day in the mailrooms of Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta. One day, when we probably should have been rendering or something, we decided to find out if there was anyone working in the London postroom who might be the ‘next’ Mike Lazzo.

As experiments go, it’s not exactly scientific – but we had a bit of an explore and this is what we found – a Yorkshireman with a drama degree, an aspiring cartoonist with an eye for caricature and a pie. A pie smoking a fag. These things have their own internal logic, we’re sure. We asked them to show us what they’ve got, and tell us how they got here – this is the result. For the record, the following piece wasn’t written by the pie, but by one Christian Darwood. Illustrations by his comrade-in-arms, Jim Pateman, pie portrait by Ben Masson…

If I were to liken working in a mailroom to any TV or movie opening credit sequence I would liken it to Cheers. To me, it perfectly encapsulates the sense of friendship and camaraderie that makes working in the mailroom such a joy. For nearly three years now it has been my honour to work alongside people of intelligence, wit and integrity; hard working people that rarely get the credit they deserve. (Ed’s note – he’s not being sarcastic, by the way. This is what our postie is really like – also, we agree - the guys in our mailroom are dead sound).

Providing I don’t fall victim to dementia, I shall never forget the bold adventures we’ve shared; harrowing times that have tested the steel of the mailroom heart. Whether it be the two-day quest for our missing incoming couriers clipboard or that dark day when we ran out of K/7 jiffy bags on the eve of a huge mailout. Together as a team, we pulled through.

If I may, I would like to take you way back in time to a different place. To when I was but a miserable, dreary, pathetic waste of space. It was 2007. My life seemed to be plastered to the inside wall of Satan’s thickly soiled latrine. I’d moved from the small Yorkshire fishing town of Grimsby to the formidable City of London and it was proving to be a difficult transition. I was jobless and penniless. A jar of beef paste washed down with the condensation from my bedroom window were the only sustenance I could afford. Rent was due, bills were due and to top it off, I was alone in a foreign land; a foreign land where people rarely say “thank you” after you’ve mustered up your limited strength to open a door for them.

Now that I‘ve mentioned it, and if you don’t mind, I’ll digress briefly. Some people think it’s their God-given right to have doors opened for them. Well it’s not. Next time you open the door for somebody and they just rudely bolster through, don’t react. Don’t get angry. Don’t rise to their lack of dignity. Just smile politely and say nothing. These people are vile, filthy scumbags and you’re a better human being for opening that door than they are for silently walking through it. 

Having a degree is an excellent thing to display on a CV when you’re looking for a job, unless of course it’s a drama degree, in which case, it’s an unparalleled hindrance. Possible employers would ask about my degree and immediately conclude that I wasn’t serious about the job I was there for. Total nonsense of course; if I wasn’t serious about the job I’d have worn a poncho to the interview instead of a suit. Although I don’t regret the degree I chose, I was learning the hard way that Chekov doesn’t bring in the money. I’d become genuinely miserable. It seemed an unending tale of desperation and hopelessness. But then, out of the blue a lifeline was thrust into the ocean of self-pity in which I sank;

   “A job? Of course I’ll take it! What is it?... a mailroom?...and it’s for a broadcasting company? I love TV! Sign me up, sign me up... for the mailroom!”

My official job title is ‘Mailroom Clerk’ and it’s something that I’m fiercely proud of. After all, it’s been a starting block for so many successful people. Take for example David Geffen who began his career in a mailroom and now not only has a net worth of $4.6 billion but has also fulfilled one of my own life goals - he’s appeared on a Barbara Streisand record! One day, so shall I! If you’re reading Barbara, please get in touch. Please.

Adult Swim’s very own senior executive vice president Mike Lazzo started in the mailroom at TBS. From such humble beginnings he’s helped to create a global phenomenon that’s led way to the creation of an almost endless list of excellent programmes: Robot Chicken, The Venture Bros, Perfect Hair Forever, Sealab 2021 et al.

In short, what I’m saying is that I may work in the mailroom now but watch out, because some day I shall rule the world and look down on the Earth from my very own space-castle amidst these stars. On that note, a warning: those who have wronged me in the past shall be rounded up, manacled and forced to balance mugs of acid on their heads for my pleasure. It is the future as I’ve foreseen it. The proles shall rise up against their oppressors. I read it in a play. Or Das Kapital maybe…

Working in the mailroom, I expected to be working alongside crass, sweaty blokes who sat around picking their noses and listening to Rod Stewart records all day. Fine by me, I’m a firm supporter of nose-picking when necessary and I‘ve always had a penchant for the husky tones of Rod. This ignorant misconception of mine as to what the mailroom staff do all day couldn’t have been more wrong. On my first day, I entered a hive of activity - people rushing around to get through the morning deliveries, the phone constantly ringing. Dear God, that phone never stops ringing! Oh, and the door! First thing in the morning that bloody door! It’s busier than the pearly gates after a natural disaster.

Naturally, my views on the job are completely biased – it was inevitable that this blog post would consist of self-important romanticising and sheer delusion. I’ve compared the mailroom to the opening credit sequence of Cheers, when in reality it’s more like the opening credit sequence from the On The Buses movie. I might also have mistaken the word camaraderie with the word melancholy. Not that it matters. I’m just glad to have a job that I don’t dread turning up to each day. If I choose to see my job through rose-tinted glasses it’s because like how they look on me. Through these glasses I see the mailroom as a greenhouse. Adult Swim itself was once a bud in this fertile environment and now it’s blossomed, basking high in the glorious sunlight, like a triffid or summat. With the right fertiliser, so might we all.