The subs themselves made Jonstone possible by obeying his impossible orders.

Chinaski has described substitute mail carriers obeying Jonstone’s punishing schedules and impossible deadlines. He files a lengthy complaint, but the official who receives it angrily defends the supervisor’s long service instead of examining his conduct. Chinaski gives up the confrontation and takes the next day off without pay.

The narrator argues that obedience helps sustain the supervisor’s abusive power.

Detached from the scene, this can sound like Bukowski’s general political doctrine or an assertion that the workers alone are responsible. It is Chinaski’s judgment in a novel; the failed complaint immediately shows that the institution also protects the supervisor.

Work, Power, Evil

• This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” Martin Luther King Jr.
• The musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra. (misattributed) Steve Jobs
• the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; Martin Luther King Jr.
• That old saying, how you always kill the one you love, well, look, it works both ways. Chuck Palahniuk
• Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. Fyodor Dostoevsky

Charles Bukowski, Post Office (1971), ‘Chapter Three’ in the licensed publisher excerpt, opening sentence. Spoken by Henry Chinaski. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/the-subs-themselves-made-jonstone-possible/ (24 October 2026).

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