“No matter what your job is, you always do your best. You give 150 per- cent,” said Scott Stevens, the beloved UPS deliveryman of Sayville and West Sayville for the past 30 years.
Upon retiring this fall, Stevens was overwhelmed with the appreciation shown to him by his coverage area. Gift cards, cakes, banners, and his most prized reaction, genuine, heartfelt “thank yous” for a job consistently well done.
It was by chance that Stevens joined UPS as a young college student, but
he found the work and the environment to be satisfying. “I love being outdoors. I love having a physical job,” said Stevens, “I couldn’t work at a desk 9 to 5 every day.”
Despite UPS being notorious for delivery metrics and a near-military time breakdown, Stevens has been able to work within the parameters and main- tain a Mayberry-esque persona as the friendly deliveryman.
“I may only have a minute to speak, but I make that minute count,” said Ste- vens. “It could be a simple, ‘What a beau- tiful day,’ but those minutes and those conversations add up, and you build an entire relationship with someone.”
A master at the finesse of small talk, Stevens has watched families grow and takes delight in seeing the young chil- dren from his earlier days become adults with children of their own.
“It really is a beautiful thing to watch the circle complete,” said Stevens. “I grew up in Sayville, my wife is from Sayville, and this is just the best com- munity.”
Over the past nearly three decades, Stevens has amassed a treasure trove of personal information, from garage door codes, to specific delivery times to avoid spousal ire, and online shopping habits.
This trust is something that Stevens values as a testament to his professional- ism and courtesy throughout the years. “I always treat it like, how would I want an important parcel delivered to me?”
Developing a distinctive knock (part musical, part jingle), Stevens’s custom- ers have come to know his deliveries because of the extra care taken to ensure the integrity of the package, whether it was a plastic bag in the rain, or carefully placed in the garage, and a favorite of those on his route, the ubiquitous dog biscuits Stevens would leave on top of parcels.
Although eschewing a large celebra- tion of his retirement (Sept. 18), Ste- vens’s family surprised him with dozens of well-wishers at his dinner in The Shed. People from as far as Massapequa and Huntington (who own businesses in Sayville) came by to let Stevens know just how reliable and comforting he had been the past few years.
With the pandemic this year, Stevens’s role became even more important as one of the few semblances of socializing nor- mality for many people. “I used to joke with people that they were trying to kill me because they would order these 100, 150-pound weight sets to make up for the lack of a gym!” said Stevens.
Stevens hopes to spend his retirement enjoying tennis and staying more attune to his children and wife, who have often had to wait until late in the evening for him to return from his long day of deliv- eries.
“I cannot thank the people of Sayville and West Sayville enough for their gen- erosity,” said Stevens. “I couldn’t have served a better neighborhood.”
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