Postal Workers - A User's Guide

HERE ARE SOME of the most common questions received from members of the public about their local postal service:

The postman never closes my garden gate. Surely he should be sacked or, at the very least, prosecuted and jailed for this?
First of all, you have to remember that you are not actually a customer of the Royal Mail. Our customers are the people and businesses who buy our stamps. Therefore, unlike the customer, you are NEVER right. You have not paid for the postman to deliver your mail every day, come rain, shine, snow, fog or ankle-deep dogshit, so therefore his obligation is exclusively to the person who paid for the stamps on the letters you are receiving, and extends no further that putting said letters through your letterbox. Posties are inherently polite and courteous people and will always try to avoid walking on your lawn or leaving your gate open, but sometimes, after having turned up for work at 5.30 am that day and been confronted by several hundredweight of Ikea catalogues and Sky magazines, they suffer fatigue and stress. If they should leave your gate open, is it really such a heinous offence? Is it beyond the bounds of reason that you, as someone who is at home during working hours and probably overweight or very old, could actually benefit from the exercise of walking the length of your garden path now and then?

My postman regularly leans his bike against my garden wall whilst delivering my mail. I'm concerned his thoughtless action will chip the brickwork. Can I have him deported?

First, consider this. Royal Mail-issue equipment is usually rubbish. The buttons on the shirts and zips on the stormcoats are about as useful as Jade Goody's gynaecologist. The bikes are no exception. The parking stands they are fitted with are useless, and these bikes are not designed to cope with the weight of hundreds of copies of Ceramic Figurines Weekly. So a responsible postie will always seek to lean his bike against a wall or hedge, rather than risk having it topple over onto someone's cat whilst he is delivering letters. Rather than displaying your small-minded and selfish materialism, why not thank your postie for the free and reliable daily service he provides you with?

As a council worker/bus driver/school teacher, I was given several days off work when we had all that snow recently. What I find unacceptable is that my postman was at least half-an-hour late on each of those days. What's the world coming to?

Unlike people in your own profession, postal workers have a great sense of responsibility and collective pride in the service they offer. The world will still revolve whilst a lardy-arsed council worker/bus driver/school teacher spends the day sledging, but it will cease to function the day the mail stops.

What is the correct procedure in the case of my dog biting the postman? Is there a liklihood of adverse reaction in my Doberman?

Even though as a dog-owner you are probably sad, selfish and friendless, and even though British law provides you with complete immunity to prosecution as long as your dog attacks the postman on your own property, it is always appreciated if you could provide the victim with some soothing words of comfort and a tourniquet to stem any arterial spurting. Don't worry, you will not be liable for any injuries caused to the postman, as the Royal Mail is too spineless to prosecute for damages.(Nor will it pay the postie his wages for any days work lost as a result of the attack)
I never receive my mail until as late as 1 pm, yet I know of other people who receive their mail as early as 9.30 am. Doesn’t this prove that my postie is a bone idle bastard who should be severely reprimanded ?
Not at all. Not everyone can get their mail at 9.30 am. A typical postie’s walk lasts three and a half hours and consists of 600 addresses. Someone has to be at the end of the walk. Have you ever considered that you might be your postie’s last address? And be honest – does not receiving your Grattan and Argos mailorder catalogues until lunchtime really affect the quality of your life that much?
Why do postmen/women deliver so much junk through my letterbox? Surely I am entitled to be surly and indifferent to them for having the effrontery to deliver so much useless, printed material to me?
Contrary to popular belief, your postman does not take perverse pleasure from carrying around hundreds of kilos of clothing catalogues or mobile phone brochures. You only receive these because, at some point in your empty and desolate life, you have ticked the box that says “I agree to be sent loads of rubbish through the post. Please pass on my address to anyone else who’d like to send me loads of worthless shit as the more junkmail I receive makes me feel incredibly popular.”
I received a letter from a long-lost friend that was simply addressed: “Sarah Smith, London.” But it took three days to reach me. Surely this shoddy service is justification for the Royal Mail to be privatised and thousands of posties made redundant?
Postmen and women don’t just deliver the mail. When some illiterate halfwit such as your friend posts a letter with an incomplete address or the wrong house number/street/city/country, a good postie will become detective. We will cross-reference as many details from the incomplete address with addresses on neighbouring walks in a bid to get the letter to the correct recipient. We don’t get paid any extra for this service.
Surely if I have a letter that needs posting, and I’ve put a stamp on it, but it’s a bit wet outside, the postman is obliged to take it from me and post it at the nearest post box?
Fuck off you cunt.

*ALL THE ABOVE QUESTIONS ARE BASED ON REAL INCIDENTS THAT HAPPENED TO ME IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS.

Postman To The Living Dead

Residents eagerly anticpate the arrival of the postman.

I’VE BEEN working as a postie in Zombietown*, aka Dogshit City, since last summer. I deliver around 100 kilos of junk mail, gas bills and Amazon parcels to 600 addresses, many of which are up several flights of stairs or at the end of dimly-lit, foul-smelling, piss-stained closes(the Scottish equivalent of entries, alleys or ginnels in England). I deliver to houses, shops, factories, garages, high-rise flats, amusement arcades, pubs, churches and even a football stadium. The recipients of the mail – they are NOT customers, they are receiving a free service from us posties, it’s the people who buy the stamps who are our customers(this is an important distinction, thought admittedly lost on my bosses) – include pensioners, students, businessmen, single-parents and drug fiends. There’s also a high percentage of foreign, usually East European-sounding, names, which makes me wonder how fucking terrible things must be in their own countries for them to end up living at the top of a crumbling, dogshit-spattered stairwell in Zombietown.
The Royal Mail are rubbish employers. When I was attacked by a Doberman in my first week and needed three days off work after receiving stitches in the back of my calf, they refused to pay me my wages. It took a letter to Adam Crozier threatening court action and embarrassing press coverage before they finally – two months later – paid me my lost wages. The Royal Mail also took no interest in supporting me in legal action against the dog owner.(I eventuallly received £100 in compensation from him without any help at all from my employer, whose duty I had been carrying out when the attack happened) Posties have no say in when they take their holidays – their annual leave is pre-assigned to them. And, because we work Saturdays, we are lucky to ever get two consecutive days off, even though we are – allegedly – entitled to one in every six Saturdays.
The people we deliver to are, generally, a bunch of halfwits. They are the living dead. Their brain cells - in this part of the world anyway - have been eroded by too much alcohol or drugs, or crushed beneath the burden of living in such a blighted shithole. Of the thousands of addresses I have delivered to since last summer, I cannot think of any where the occupant has had a genuinely warm word or gesture for me, or shown even the merest hint of respect. (At Christmas, my “tips” came to the grand total of two boxes of Cadbury’s Roses) They view me almost with suspicion bordering on distaste. If these people were my customers, who had paid for the service I was providing, I honestly wouldn’t give a shit. But they are not my customers. They are the lucky recipients of a unique, universal and free mail delivery service and should be fucking grateful for it. But they are not. They blame me for the wads of junk mail they receive, as if I personally filled in those coupons in the back of the Sunday Post for a Damart catalogue; as if I personally called all those freephone numbers asking to receive all the latest product news and special offers.
We posties are fucking brilliant. Nothing stops us delivering the mail, even though we know it’s 98 per cent junkmail and maybe 0.05 per cent handwritten, well-spelled, beautifully-punctuated letters. Our (average) five bags a day are supposed to weigh no more than 16 kilos, but by the time you’ve included your door-to-doors(those leaflets advertising the latest offers at Somerfield or night classes at your local college) and parcels – yes, we deliver parcels up to the size of small items of bedside furniture too – your bag will be bursting at the seams and weighing easily more than 20 kilos. But it all gets delivered. Heredotus, the Greek historian from 2,000 years ago, was a fan: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”
Today, I delivered a letter to a terraced house with a small garden. I pulled the gate shut behind me, but it must have bounced back open – hey, shit happens – because as I was climbing back on my bike I saw the elderly female occupant come bounding after me. She was about 70, stooped and toothless. And came out with the following: “Can’t you close the bloody gate?” Can’t you close the bloody gate? As if I’d just pissed over her rhododendrons and trampled her cat to death. I was too shocked to respond. She was the same age as my mother. Mothers don’t speak to postmen like that. So I ignored her and finished my walk(duty). But half-an-hour later, after the final letter from Sky advertising their HD box had been delivered, I decided I deserved an apology. So I returned to the address, knocked on the door, and the following conversation ensued:
Me: Hi, I'm your postie. I couldn't help but notice you used some abusive language when I delivered your mail earlier and wondered if you'd care to apologise?
Elderly toothless hag: What, you mean, 'could you close the gate.'?
Me: I think you're missing a word. You used the world 'bloody'.
Decrepit geriatric: So what? You should have closed the gate.
Me: I pulled it shut behind me. It must have bounced back open. But there was no excuse for your language. I don't have to put up with abusive language. If you're not prepared to apologise, then you may not be getting your mail in future. Will you apologise?
Musty-smelling old bag: No. See if I care.
Me: You are not prepared to apologise?
Withered, incontinent witch: No
At which point I turned and left. Without closing her gate.
Back at the office, I left a note for my boss saying I shouldn’t have to put up with abusive language from members of the public, and that he should send the foul-mouthed old bat a letter warning her that if she repeated her behaviour, mail deliveries to her address would be suspended. After all, our office is plastered with anti-bullying, diversity and “Dignity in the Workplace” posters.
I look forward to his reponse.
*Name has been changed.

Job Search Optimisation

ANOTHER WEEK, another job applied for, another employer taking the piss....

I'm currently earning just over £7 an hour as a postman. It was a summer job that has turned into a permanent position. Far from being a custodian of people's hopes, dreams and love letters, I shove junkmail through 600 doors a day. A handwritten letter stands out like a beacon amongst all the dreary catalogues and pre-printed matter. I always had - and continue to have - the utmost respect for postal workers, but it is a soul-numbing job. So I continue scouring the classifieds and internet in the hope of finding something a bit more stimulating.

A Dundee company called MediaCo who specialise in internet copy writing were advertising for a copy writer/sub editor. It was the same position they'd advertised 14 months earlier. I'd sent in my CV then and didn't even receive an acknowledgement. So this time I telephoned them - the number on their website is an 0870 number which meant it cost me somewhere between 6 and 10 pence a minute from my non-BT landline - and spoke to the MD David Mills. Understandably, he couldn't recall my CV from 14 months earlier, but when I mentioned a couple of bullet points, such as my Daily Record connection, it seemed to ring some distant bells. But he still didn't seem very keen to welcome an application from me. Eventually, with the cost of our telephone conversation now well over a pound, I got him to agree to look at my CV (again) and, if he decided it didn't merit inviting me in for an interview, then he would offer me some constructive feedback. So I duly emailed my CV which, since I last posted here, now includes not just my stint as a postman but also a stretch working as an Assistant Producer on an episode of Sky TV's Ross Kemp on Gangs.(See for yourself by clicking on the link on the right)

Later that day, David sent me this email :

Thanks for calling and sending your CV.

I confess to being somewhat puzzled by your background. For example, one minute an adventure tour guide and next Features Editor of the Daily Record.

Can you fill in the blanks and clarify how things link together?

So not a very promising start. I sent this reply:

The "blanks" have been periods of either voluntary or involuntary unemployment(usually the former) during which I have either:
(a) travelled abroad
(b) written my autobiography
As for clarifying how things link together, I'm afraid the best I can come up with is Alan Bennett's definition of history: "It's just one [..] thing after another." No links, no five-year plans, just me working to live rather than living to work.....
Here, it seemed, was yet another small-minded, unimaginative employer who, if they weren't shocked by the inclusion of a photograph with my CV, seemed slightly traumatised by the fact my periods of employment didn't flow seamlessly together and that I'd once decided to travel abroad. So it was a pleasant surprise when later that day David emailed me to invite me in for a chat.

In a run-down part of Dundee - and trust me, that's saying something -MediaCo's office is the top floor of an unprepossessing former warehouse now grandly titled "Manhattan Works". There was no reception, never mind a receptionist, and after opening a door marked "Entrance" I found myself in a grey and noiseless open plan office peopled by earnest young men hunched in front of computer terminals. David emerged from his own glass office at the back and led me through another, similarly characterless and silent office(this one populated by even younger-looking staff) to a small conference room dominated by a whiteboard containing a spaghetti of hieroglyphics which apparently revealed some distant, dark secret of search engine optimisation(MediaCo's major USP).

The chat was amicable enough, with David even claiming the reason for his company's non-geographic phone number(i.e. 0870) was purely to prevent prospective clients being prejudiced by its Dundee location. There was no mention of the 1.5 p per minute profit 0870 numbers usually generate. He begrudgingly admitted he was impressed with my CV, but added cryptically that he thought I came across better in the flesh than on paper. He also seemed concerned that my "larger than life" character might clash with the sedate atmosphere of his office. I assured him that I could be as loud or quiet as the situation dictated, and was equally at home working in my own personal bubble as I was being the life and soul of the office. Then we talked about the kind of copy I'd be writing which was every bit as boring as I'd expected. We spent a lot of time discussing sheepskin coats on sale at the House of Bruar. Finally, despite acknowledging my experience as the Features Editor of a national newspaper and my stints as an English language teacher, he gave me a grammar and punctuation test.(The same thing happened when I went for an interview for a journalist's job at the Dundee Courier last year. I was eventually offered the job, but when I asked if I could think about it overnight, the Managing Editor looked as though I'd just called his mother a pox-ridden whore and said: "In 40 years, no-one's ever asked me if they could think about it." So the next day I decided to decline the offer.)

Meanwhile, back at MediaCo, David delivered the punchline: the job on offer paid £18,000. The hours were 9 to 6, Mon to Fri, with half an hour for lunch. There was the option of flexitime, i.e. starting at 8.30, 9 or 9.30 and finishing accordingly. And David went to great lengths to explain that if I was due to start at 9 but arrived at 9.05, I wouldn't be five minutes late, I'd be "25 minutes early". And there were strict controls on personal email and internet use.

So, just to clarify, the position was 45 hours a week in a drab, lifeless office without personal email or internet access in a shitty part of Dundee where there was nowhere to go for lunch and where all the shops had metal shutters. And I'd be writing mainly about sheepskin coats. And all this for less money than I was currently earning as a postman......