I think it’s always fascinating to find out what people are really up to at work.

In Postman’s Death, A Mystery of Mail Left Behind, we learn of a mail carrier in Brookline, Massachusetts, whose death revealed that he stole circulars and mostly undeliverable mail from people for more than two decades. But I was struck by one thing.

Circulars?

He stole circulars? There may be no greater sign of mental illness than stealing a circular.

Opinions of the mail carrier varied greatly from laudable:

Neighbors said Mr. Gagne was somewhat of an enigma on his street, barely looking people in the eye but seemingly obsessed with getting the mail to them properly and on time, leaving them all the more baffled as to how and why he took the mail.

“When you went away on vacation he would leave photocopied notes in his unusual, hard-to-read scrawl that you should check your mail carefully because there might be a problem,” said Jonathan Sandler, 35, who was walking by Mr. Gagne’s Linden Street apartment with his wife and 20-month-old son. He said Mr. Gagne was the best, most thorough mailman he had ever had. “Al was the mail.”

to downright creepy:

Rebecca Scudiere, 25, a medical student who lives in the street’s only large apartment building, said she and her roommates often found that their mail was late and, on Thursday, had received a large bundle of unsorted mail. She said she had been “creeped out” by a conversation with Mr. Gagne, whom she saw every day but only acknowledged her once.

“I was getting my mail at the same time he came and he said, ‘Who’s your mail from, your boyfriend? I’d take you out,’ ” she said. “Aside from that he was never friendly.”

I always think how these sorts of descriptions could be used on everyone, including myself. Just change the job and the wording slightly.

We might have: “She did a great job editing,”

and then “She was always very awkward on the phone. She could barely get a sentence out.”