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My father was a postal delivery worker for some 35+ years (with a law degree, LOL) and I distinctly recall him loving his "LLV". He maybe took it a bit too se

My father was a postal delivery worker for some 35+ years (with a law degree, LOL) and I distinctly recall him loving his "LLV". He maybe took it a bit too seriously, but I also recall him occasionally getting "new" test vehicles and hating them compared to his trusty LLV (and it makes me chuckle to recall him often saying 'LLV' out loud & quite proudly; we just thought he was geeky, even if technically accurate). He absolutely loved these vehicles though. The only consistent complaint he had was their winter performance -- they would get stuck extremely easily, and my recollection was that he'd have to be "pulled out" 1-3 times during most winters. We were in the midwest, so typically somewhat moderate winters (perhaps a bit less so 20-30 years ago now), but just a bit of snow or ice and they could get hung up pretty easily. I recall the wheels being tiny, and the tires tending towards the bald side, so maybe was preventable but nonetheless they would quite quickly send someone to pull LLVs out any time they got hung up! Edit -- They also have an incredibly distinct 'whir' sound when in reverse; it's truly unmistakable and 20+ years later I can still identify one by that sound. My father's route included our neighborhood so he'd have a "cookie break" when he dropped our mail off & take his lunch at home, too; the unique reverse sound was an instant giveaway that the LLV was backing into the driveway. Good memories. :)

pm90 8y ago
Why did your father become a postal delivery worker if he had a law degree? Its a rather personal question so please don't feel like you have to answer, but it seems like a non-traditional career path.
- michaelchisari 8y ago
  I can't speak for his father, but knowing both lawyers and postal workers, I can say that the postal workers are infinitely more satisfied with their careers, hands down.
  - drdeadringer 8y ago
    A cousin of mine went to school to become a patent lawyer. He couldn't land a job to save his life. He's now a stay-at-home father whilst his medical-doctor spouse pads the bank account [all of which is fine, I'm talking only to the law-degree-job points here]. Your favorite person can get the best most awesome degree possible and still work in the mail room. By hook or by crook, that may just be what they enjoy [and in "current year", what that job requires].
- seibelj 8y ago
  I know a woman who graduated from Stanford law about 5 years ago who accomplished her dream by getting a job in environmental law. She despised the work, made too little money relative to her debt, and now works as an advisor at a law school specializing in helping graduates reduce and manage their debt through all means possible. She regularly posts links to things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE
  - acjohnson55 8y ago
    A friend of mine practiced law as a public defender before leaving the profession and becoming an inner-city pizza delivery man.
    - wyclif 8y ago
      It's fairly common for people with law degrees to either never use the degree, or quit law after a short time because they hate the work, just like it's common for people with humanities education to go into technology and engineering. One of my fave guitarists, Robert Quine (Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Matthew Sweet) was arguably the first punk rock lead guitar player. But before that he had passed the bar in Missouri and got a job writing tax law articles for Prentice Hall in NJ while commuting to Manhattan to play with the Voidoids on nights and weekends. After a few years, he hated working in law and eventually quit. He looked like a college professor, but he was a total animal on guitar (listen to the two solos he plays on the Voidoids' "Blank Generation" single). He talks about all that in this interview: http://www.furious.com/perfect//quine.html http://www.furious.com/perfect//quine.html
- ghaff 8y ago
  I have no idea about this specific case, but at least historically it was a degree a lot of people fell into. Father and grandfather were lawyers at white shoe firm. Seems like a decent middle-class job. That undergrad classics degree only got them a low-level job at a publishing house. Maybe law's the way to monetize that degree. Or it just seems really interesting. Then a lot of people discover they don't like actually being lawyers because associates at big firms work long hours and a lot of the work is very tedious. At least that's what I've seen with people I know. I'm sure the majority with law degrees don't actually practice law.
- adanto6840 8y ago
  It's a good question, and one that I probably asked him on many multiple occasions. His answer was always multi-pronged, but the main points were approximately (in order of importance, as I perceived it): 1) Law = Higher stress career. 2) Office vs Outdoors; he loved being outdoors every day, especially loved talking to people -- most everyone on his route knew him by name and he strongly believed in [perhaps incorrectly, as things have changed dramatically] in mail carriers being very 'customer/service oriented'. He loved talking to people, he'd bring mail up to elder-aged peoples homes every day and talk to them for a few minutes, etc. Perhaps a bit Mayberry-esque, even. ;) 3) Moral reasons; a general dislike of bureaucracy (though plenty of that at USPS, and more towards end of his career, which we heard about over dinner ~nightly!); generally a preference for meritocracy (his 'sorting speed' was N times faster than the 'baseline', he would tell us); an extreme disdain for "schmoozing" for lack of a better term. He never even took the bar exam, which actually surprises me a bit even today. As a young teenager I found it borderline insane, selfishly of course -- I can remember thinking "we'd be in the nicer neighborhood if Dad would just go be a lawyer!", and I remember wondering if my grandfather was upset by it but I was a bit surprised to not really get the impression that it was an issue. He also had owned & sold a bar in his 30s, had the only home we lived in my entire life paid off in his ~50s, the USPS insurance & pension plans were great, and we lived quite frugally -- so he was comfortable, he carried our own route so he was home 2x each day, the rotating schedule was nice to get Saturdays off occasionally, and he was off work by ~3-4PM every day (except near holiday times when they'd have 20ft of mail and tons of parcels). I actually believe he initially began carrying mail just as a summer job while in college, and then probably kept at it simply because it was fulfilling for him. He retired a bit early, with >2 years of PTO & Sick Leave time saved up; proceeded to get hip replacement surgery almost immediately -- likely somewhat attributable to walking up/down ~100 flights of stairs each for a nearby apartment complex on his route. Unfortunately he passed away just 6 weeks after retiring. The funeral procession had ~50 (ish) LLVs in it, and I think he'd have liked it. It made me smile, on what was an otherwise cold day both literally & figuratively speaking. :) I miss his advice tremendously, he was a very smart person and I often reflect on his decision to become a mailman, despite having a law degree. I have but a [honors!] GED, though more philosophically sometimes I wonder if more succinct & 'adventurous' job -- and a more frugal lifestyle -- might be more fulfilling. I respected his decision though, and as I've aged I definitely feel that I better understand it, as well.
- DavidSJ 8y ago
  Perhaps the stress of law made him go postal.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I think a lot of people do law degrees as a not-quite-sure-what-else-to-do professional degree, so they then go into very diverse things afterwards.
- yellowapple 8y ago
  My uncle was a lawyer up until he decided he'd rather do cattle ranching. Seems like he wasn't the only one to reconsider a career in law. I don't know why he quit being a lawyer, though. Maybe the stress?
  - sys_64738 8y ago
    I once hired a lawyer who turned out to be a right cowboy!
village-idiot 8y ago
The "whir" in reverse for most vehicles is caused by the reverse gear having different types of teeth than the forward gears. These gears (spur instead of the normal helical) are much easier to get into place, but distribute the stress less evenly, causing more noise and wear. Since most vehicles don't back up a lot, this is an acceptable trade-off.
- adanto6840 8y ago
  Makes sense! I've definitely heard similar "whir" on many (most?) vehicles when reversing, but not quite the same as the incredibly distinctive sound an LLV makes. It's really an identifiable & unique sound on them specifically, probably just a certain gear/mechanical that's use for LLVs I figure. Funny what sticks out so bluntly in one's memory, though! :)
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Sounds tend to anchor pretty strongly in people’s memory, I think only smells have a tighter bond. The cut of the gears could be a factor here, but the (lack) of sound insulation could be it too. Cars have aimed for a “refined” feel for decades, with minimization of unwanted noise being part of that. There are many words one could use to describe the LLV, but “refined” probably isn’t one of them.
- userbinator 8y ago
  According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV the LLV has a THM180 (3-speed automatic --- one of the lightest duty ones in the range, so a bit surprising to find it used here, but then again the engine isn't all that powerful either) which has a compound helical-cut planetary set, so it wouldn't have the characteristic straight-cut whine and only in reverse. Do the other cars on this list have the same reverse sound? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Hydramatic_180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Hydramatic_180 I suspect, as another commenter here remarks, that it's mostly due to a lack of noise dampening. Also, straight-cut gears are better at basically everything except noise, which is why large truck transmissions, racing, and off-road heavy equipment still use them. They have no side-thrust unlike helicals, and can take far more torque; the only disadvantage is the noise (which some car fans admittedly like --- including me. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFeLvlzBwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFeLvlzBwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-k3YAjIQzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-k3YAjIQzI (much higher-revving engine and less sound dampening)
spricket 8y ago
The whirr is likely straight cut reverse gear in a manual transmission. Used to be common ages ago but cars have moved to "helical cut" for noise reasons. The straight gears survived a fair bit longer for reverse since they're cheaper to make. They're still around in racecars since they're stronger. My 98 saturn still made that cool sound, but my 2012 doesn't :'(
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Straight-cut gears aren't really stronger, but that's close enough for most people to understand, I'd say. The downside of helical gears is they transfer some of the load axially, which transfers stress to other components down the line (bearings, for example) that will then fail faster than they would otherwise. Helical gears are easier to shift and, of course, much quieter, so at the loads that a street-driven car produces the additional axial loading isn't too hard to engineer around.
  - TylerE 8y ago
    > Helical gears are easier to shift Automotive transmissions are constant-mesh. The gears don't "shift" at all. Instead the shifter moves the locking collars that lock various gears to the shafts - but all forward gears are meshed all the time. (Yes, this means that when you're cruising down the highway in 6th, 1st gear is happily spinning along at X0,000RPM.
nikkwong 8y ago
The career choice is not so surprising from the POV of my family. Several of my uncles went to MIT and ended up working at USPS in delivery as well. They were intelligent, motivated people; but, as immigrants, integrating into culture and climbing a corporate ladder was not really in the equation.
whitexn--g28h 8y ago
Does HN do comment of the year awards? I nominate this along with the reply about the LLVs at his funeral. Thanks for sharing, this is the best part of the HN experience.

pm90 8y ago

Why did your father become a postal delivery worker if he had a law degree? Its a rather personal question so please don't feel like you have to answer, but it seems like a non-traditional career path.

michaelchisari 8y ago
I can't speak for his father, but knowing both lawyers and postal workers, I can say that the postal workers are infinitely more satisfied with their careers, hands down.
- drdeadringer 8y ago
  A cousin of mine went to school to become a patent lawyer. He couldn't land a job to save his life. He's now a stay-at-home father whilst his medical-doctor spouse pads the bank account [all of which is fine, I'm talking only to the law-degree-job points here]. Your favorite person can get the best most awesome degree possible and still work in the mail room. By hook or by crook, that may just be what they enjoy [and in "current year", what that job requires].
seibelj 8y ago
I know a woman who graduated from Stanford law about 5 years ago who accomplished her dream by getting a job in environmental law. She despised the work, made too little money relative to her debt, and now works as an advisor at a law school specializing in helping graduates reduce and manage their debt through all means possible. She regularly posts links to things like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  A friend of mine practiced law as a public defender before leaving the profession and becoming an inner-city pizza delivery man.
  - wyclif 8y ago
    It's fairly common for people with law degrees to either never use the degree, or quit law after a short time because they hate the work, just like it's common for people with humanities education to go into technology and engineering. One of my fave guitarists, Robert Quine (Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Matthew Sweet) was arguably the first punk rock lead guitar player. But before that he had passed the bar in Missouri and got a job writing tax law articles for Prentice Hall in NJ while commuting to Manhattan to play with the Voidoids on nights and weekends. After a few years, he hated working in law and eventually quit. He looked like a college professor, but he was a total animal on guitar (listen to the two solos he plays on the Voidoids' "Blank Generation" single). He talks about all that in this interview: http://www.furious.com/perfect//quine.html http://www.furious.com/perfect//quine.html
ghaff 8y ago
I have no idea about this specific case, but at least historically it was a degree a lot of people fell into. Father and grandfather were lawyers at white shoe firm. Seems like a decent middle-class job. That undergrad classics degree only got them a low-level job at a publishing house. Maybe law's the way to monetize that degree. Or it just seems really interesting. Then a lot of people discover they don't like actually being lawyers because associates at big firms work long hours and a lot of the work is very tedious. At least that's what I've seen with people I know. I'm sure the majority with law degrees don't actually practice law.
adanto6840 8y ago
It's a good question, and one that I probably asked him on many multiple occasions. His answer was always multi-pronged, but the main points were approximately (in order of importance, as I perceived it): 1) Law = Higher stress career. 2) Office vs Outdoors; he loved being outdoors every day, especially loved talking to people -- most everyone on his route knew him by name and he strongly believed in [perhaps incorrectly, as things have changed dramatically] in mail carriers being very 'customer/service oriented'. He loved talking to people, he'd bring mail up to elder-aged peoples homes every day and talk to them for a few minutes, etc. Perhaps a bit Mayberry-esque, even. ;) 3) Moral reasons; a general dislike of bureaucracy (though plenty of that at USPS, and more towards end of his career, which we heard about over dinner ~nightly!); generally a preference for meritocracy (his 'sorting speed' was N times faster than the 'baseline', he would tell us); an extreme disdain for "schmoozing" for lack of a better term. He never even took the bar exam, which actually surprises me a bit even today. As a young teenager I found it borderline insane, selfishly of course -- I can remember thinking "we'd be in the nicer neighborhood if Dad would just go be a lawyer!", and I remember wondering if my grandfather was upset by it but I was a bit surprised to not really get the impression that it was an issue. He also had owned & sold a bar in his 30s, had the only home we lived in my entire life paid off in his ~50s, the USPS insurance & pension plans were great, and we lived quite frugally -- so he was comfortable, he carried our own route so he was home 2x each day, the rotating schedule was nice to get Saturdays off occasionally, and he was off work by ~3-4PM every day (except near holiday times when they'd have 20ft of mail and tons of parcels). I actually believe he initially began carrying mail just as a summer job while in college, and then probably kept at it simply because it was fulfilling for him. He retired a bit early, with >2 years of PTO & Sick Leave time saved up; proceeded to get hip replacement surgery almost immediately -- likely somewhat attributable to walking up/down ~100 flights of stairs each for a nearby apartment complex on his route. Unfortunately he passed away just 6 weeks after retiring. The funeral procession had ~50 (ish) LLVs in it, and I think he'd have liked it. It made me smile, on what was an otherwise cold day both literally & figuratively speaking. :) I miss his advice tremendously, he was a very smart person and I often reflect on his decision to become a mailman, despite having a law degree. I have but a [honors!] GED, though more philosophically sometimes I wonder if more succinct & 'adventurous' job -- and a more frugal lifestyle -- might be more fulfilling. I respected his decision though, and as I've aged I definitely feel that I better understand it, as well.
DavidSJ 8y ago
Perhaps the stress of law made him go postal.
chrisseaton 8y ago
I think a lot of people do law degrees as a not-quite-sure-what-else-to-do professional degree, so they then go into very diverse things afterwards.
yellowapple 8y ago
My uncle was a lawyer up until he decided he'd rather do cattle ranching. Seems like he wasn't the only one to reconsider a career in law. I don't know why he quit being a lawyer, though. Maybe the stress?
- sys_64738 8y ago
  I once hired a lawyer who turned out to be a right cowboy!

village-idiot 8y ago

The "whir" in reverse for most vehicles is caused by the reverse gear having different types of teeth than the forward gears. These gears (spur instead of the normal helical) are much easier to get into place, but distribute the stress less evenly, causing more noise and wear. Since most vehicles don't back up a lot, this is an acceptable trade-off.

adanto6840 8y ago
Makes sense! I've definitely heard similar "whir" on many (most?) vehicles when reversing, but not quite the same as the incredibly distinctive sound an LLV makes. It's really an identifiable & unique sound on them specifically, probably just a certain gear/mechanical that's use for LLVs I figure. Funny what sticks out so bluntly in one's memory, though! :)
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Sounds tend to anchor pretty strongly in people’s memory, I think only smells have a tighter bond. The cut of the gears could be a factor here, but the (lack) of sound insulation could be it too. Cars have aimed for a “refined” feel for decades, with minimization of unwanted noise being part of that. There are many words one could use to describe the LLV, but “refined” probably isn’t one of them.
userbinator 8y ago
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_LLV the LLV has a THM180 (3-speed automatic --- one of the lightest duty ones in the range, so a bit surprising to find it used here, but then again the engine isn't all that powerful either) which has a compound helical-cut planetary set, so it wouldn't have the characteristic straight-cut whine and only in reverse. Do the other cars on this list have the same reverse sound? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Hydramatic_180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-Hydramatic_180 I suspect, as another commenter here remarks, that it's mostly due to a lack of noise dampening. Also, straight-cut gears are better at basically everything except noise, which is why large truck transmissions, racing, and off-road heavy equipment still use them. They have no side-thrust unlike helicals, and can take far more torque; the only disadvantage is the noise (which some car fans admittedly like --- including me. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFeLvlzBwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFeLvlzBwc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-k3YAjIQzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-k3YAjIQzI (much higher-revving engine and less sound dampening)

spricket 8y ago

The whirr is likely straight cut reverse gear in a manual transmission. Used to be common ages ago but cars have moved to "helical cut" for noise reasons. The straight gears survived a fair bit longer for reverse since they're cheaper to make. They're still around in racecars since they're stronger. My 98 saturn still made that cool sound, but my 2012 doesn't :'(

rootusrootus 8y ago
Straight-cut gears aren't really stronger, but that's close enough for most people to understand, I'd say. The downside of helical gears is they transfer some of the load axially, which transfers stress to other components down the line (bearings, for example) that will then fail faster than they would otherwise. Helical gears are easier to shift and, of course, much quieter, so at the loads that a street-driven car produces the additional axial loading isn't too hard to engineer around.
- TylerE 8y ago
  > Helical gears are easier to shift Automotive transmissions are constant-mesh. The gears don't "shift" at all. Instead the shifter moves the locking collars that lock various gears to the shafts - but all forward gears are meshed all the time. (Yes, this means that when you're cruising down the highway in 6th, 1st gear is happily spinning along at X0,000RPM.

nikkwong 8y ago

The career choice is not so surprising from the POV of my family. Several of my uncles went to MIT and ended up working at USPS in delivery as well. They were intelligent, motivated people; but, as immigrants, integrating into culture and climbing a corporate ladder was not really in the equation.

whitexn--g28h 8y ago

Does HN do comment of the year awards? I nominate this along with the reply about the LLVs at his funeral. Thanks for sharing, this is the best part of the HN experience.