June 20, 2007— Today’s environment is dominated by electronic mail, but the mail carrier is not about to become an extinct species – not at the World Bank..
Ratna Hapangama and his colleagues in the ground-floor mailroom of the World Bank’s J-Building, across the street from the Main Complex in downtown Washington, D.C.,, are as busy as ever. Their workday starts early, 7:00 a.m., when they pick up mail and newspapers from the Main Complex mailroom. They sort and deliver the newspapers to the J and G buildings – all the floors – and return to the mailroom to sort and deliver hundreds of regular pieces of mail. This routine, with breaks in between, sometimes interrupted by requests for special deliveries, is repeated throughout the day.
Ratna Hapangama
Cheerful Service
Hapangama, a Sri Lankan national, drew the attention of those he serves because of his tranquil and pleasant disposition. “To everyone I give the gift of a smile,” he confirmed, smiling. “Most people call me sweetheart and are very friendly,” he said of his clients. Even toward the less-than-friendly or grumpy clients he maintains a gracious outlook. “The work is hard and it involves a lot of legwork but in many ways it is rewarding,” he said. His simple job description: to deliver mail as fast and efficiently as possible.
Hapangama has not always been a mailman. He arrived in the United States some 35 years ago to work at his country’s mission in Washington. In 1974, he joined the Bank as a computer operator, a job he performed for the next 22 years, when he retired. He says he had to return to the job market because he had a young family and his pension was not sufficient. “I simply had to work,” he says. He and his colleagues work for a contactor to the Bank.
Dedicated to Community Service
Hapangama with his mailroom colleagues
When he’s not running the World Bank’s mail operation, Hapangama is often engaged in charitable work. He has made numerous visits to Sri Lanka to initiate and support charity. He sponsored the purchase of eyeglasses to many poor – 500 people on one occasion in his home region, and he was involved in several other charitable activities.
Hapangama has extended his concern for the poor and disadvantaged to his adopted homeland, the U.S. He and others feed the homeless around the Bank twice every month. Sharing with others is something Hapangama strongly believes in.
Hapangama is aggrieved by the violence in his country and he hopes that the peace the he knew and experienced while growing up will return to his island nation. “Violence and rancor are never the answer,” he says. “I pray for peace and reconciliation everyday.”
Family Man
All in a day's work
The 62-year-old working-retiree has a daughter, an A student who graduated from George Washington University, and a son, who is still an undergraduate at the same university. “I stressed to my children that discipline and hard work are key to achievement and that is how I have brought them up.”
Asked if he would he like to share the secrets to happiness and serenity, he said, “Happiness comes from kindness and appreciation that there is good in everything and everybody.” says. This philosophy guides his life, and others appear to have noticed.
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