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.