The Bitterest Pill

Royal Mail Success - This Letter Reached the Right Person, Neil Boyd, 2009

I've been working at Royal Mail for nearly three years now, but I've never really written about the job. I could swear like a sailor about management and the way RM is being intentionally driven into the ground, but I really like the job and wouldn't want to risk it over a bunch of rants - hard to believe this is from the man who wrote this at school and deliberately got suspended twice.

Actually, when I say I like the job what I mean is my walk, and the reason I'm writing this is because I've been moved off that delivery after 21 months and today was my last day on it. If I sound bitter it's not only because of my reputed early finishes (during the summer! Was I the only one who had a lull during the summer?), but because I had actually got to know a lot of people in the area. I greet the same faces each morning, residents say hi to me in the streets, one lady gives me an apple and a mars bar every Saturday, I see Mrs ABC nearly everyday for her sign-for packets, and so on. In fact, so long was I on that walk that I became less focused on finishing as early as possible and began to chat with Granny Smith.

Granny Smith is a term that's only recently made it to our office, but has been used in RM for quite a while. Roy Mayall explains: "[Granny Smith is] the little old lady who lives alone and for whom the mail service is a lifeline". I use it in a more broader sense of anyone who is actually at home when we're out there between 1030 and 1400 - ie., pensioners male or female. And this isn't a case of losing a good tipping-relationship I've built-up with 556 doors over two Christmases - I'm moving onto a much richer walk, if that matters. It was about me and the customers. It's no the first time I've been moved off a walk after a good run either: a month before being put on Gaudy Ranch I did an 8 week stretch on Hallmark Fount after the duty holder left, only to be removed by "summer lapsing" after residents had just learnt my name. Though in hindsight, being knocked off that duty turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

For those who have never done this job it may be hard to understand why I'm moaning about not being able to chat to the same people when I should be walking faster. It's just that after all that time and effort I lose the walk because the duties are assigned by seniority and I'm out of luck since I've only been working there 2 years and 9 months. But the more I read about the daily horror stories in other offices, the less worse it all seems. I suppose I'll get over it and I'll eventually forget all about the non-stop torrential rain on December 21st 2008 when I was stuck out there with the Christmas post for over four hours, or the blizzard this February when I barely made it out there and took everything to residents' surprise. Or when I arrived at Mr and Mrs XYZ's house to find the fire brigade had saved it from burning to the ground - the closest I've come to having one of those 'postman saves pensioner' stories from Courier. 

It's so clear that all we have now are our thoughts of yesterday

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