I’m beginning the morning with a weak cup of tea and a bit of an asthmatic cough. I’m finally over the cold that dogged me for ten days or so but the cough is just a left over that I’m hoping will clear up soon enough. As for the weak cup of tea, I’m hoping to clear that up too and will try to get a stronger hit from a cup of coffee shortly!
It was back to work yesterday after the Canberra Day long weekend and we were soon back in familiar territory.
As the roster went up I saw that I was on the Barcode Sorter and I knew it would be two hours of boredom watching small letters slam into hundreds of stackers at a rate of knots.
Then, not long after we started, the manager turns up and begins micro-managing the section which seems to be his way.
We are sequencing some mail for Wagga Wagga because of the recent floods and there were six rounds that needed to be put aside so we could run them through the Mars machine and deep sort them to their destinations in Wagga itself.
The manager wanted to make sure that I knew that these six boxes had to be put aside, in fact he asked me twice if I knew what I was doing and once he was convinced I was he said to make sure anyone else coming onto the machine knows too. Yeah, like it’s my job to tell people what to do!
There is nothing more annoying to a mail officer than being told what to do by someone other than a supervisor. I’m not directing anyone to do anything I can assure you!
We got to 3.30pm and tie down time when we have to clear all the Wagga and Albury mail completely and restack the machine with bins and label them and send the mail on it’s way which takes another twenty minutes or so. Usually all this is like marching to Calvary such is the monotony of the job but yesterday the time passed quickly but why I couldn’t tell you.
Our 4pm break was soon upon us and for fifteen minutes we can forget about our woes as lowly mail sorters, eat drink and prepare ourselves for the two hour stint sorting large parcels which we know is next on the agenda.
Yesterday however our parcel sorting was broken up by a safety briefing by the manager. I tell you, this guy really loves to hear the sound of his own voice and his own ego is such that he makes sure we hear it often.
The trouble is when he gets a roll on I can barely understand what he is saying. It is akin to flying through a fog and only emerging after a couple of minutes and then trying to figure out what just went down.
After an excruciating 20 minutes of nonsense which was mainly spent by the manager mouthing platitudes which must be rehearsed ad-nauseum in manager school, just so they can be used in such a scenario, we managed to escape back to the relative safety of the parcel area.
Unfortunately, after the 6pm tea break I was assigned to tipping mail bags for two hours and my two associates weren’t too keen on keeping a responsible pace and we were in danger of leaving quite a bit of mail to be done in the last hour.
I asked our supervisor if he had any WD40 as these two I was working with were about to rust up and, realising what I was getting at, he began to help cull the mail and our clearance rate miraculously increased and we finished the job more or less on time with a respectable sort rate.
The last hour of the day was spent sitting down sorting small letters which is a relatively relaxing job as the pressure of the day recedes, all of our despatches are done and we can just count down the clock.
Last night this period was spent, as it usually is, bitching about the lack of competency we perceive in AP management and the illogical decisions they seem to make on most occasions. All of this of course is amplified by boredom and the fact that we have all worked there far too long and are over the silliness that pervades the place.
We surmise that only if we ran the place, surely it would be better than what it is. Of course that’s very easy to do when you have no intention of entering the halls of power. It’s always easier to criticise.
So, that is a small snapshot of an evening spent sorting mail. A vital yet undervalued service in the world. And today I’m lucky enough to be able to go back and do it all again! Lucky me!
It was back to work yesterday after the Canberra Day long weekend and we were soon back in familiar territory.
As the roster went up I saw that I was on the Barcode Sorter and I knew it would be two hours of boredom watching small letters slam into hundreds of stackers at a rate of knots.
Then, not long after we started, the manager turns up and begins micro-managing the section which seems to be his way.
We are sequencing some mail for Wagga Wagga because of the recent floods and there were six rounds that needed to be put aside so we could run them through the Mars machine and deep sort them to their destinations in Wagga itself.
The manager wanted to make sure that I knew that these six boxes had to be put aside, in fact he asked me twice if I knew what I was doing and once he was convinced I was he said to make sure anyone else coming onto the machine knows too. Yeah, like it’s my job to tell people what to do!
There is nothing more annoying to a mail officer than being told what to do by someone other than a supervisor. I’m not directing anyone to do anything I can assure you!
We got to 3.30pm and tie down time when we have to clear all the Wagga and Albury mail completely and restack the machine with bins and label them and send the mail on it’s way which takes another twenty minutes or so. Usually all this is like marching to Calvary such is the monotony of the job but yesterday the time passed quickly but why I couldn’t tell you.
Our 4pm break was soon upon us and for fifteen minutes we can forget about our woes as lowly mail sorters, eat drink and prepare ourselves for the two hour stint sorting large parcels which we know is next on the agenda.
Yesterday however our parcel sorting was broken up by a safety briefing by the manager. I tell you, this guy really loves to hear the sound of his own voice and his own ego is such that he makes sure we hear it often.
The trouble is when he gets a roll on I can barely understand what he is saying. It is akin to flying through a fog and only emerging after a couple of minutes and then trying to figure out what just went down.
After an excruciating 20 minutes of nonsense which was mainly spent by the manager mouthing platitudes which must be rehearsed ad-nauseum in manager school, just so they can be used in such a scenario, we managed to escape back to the relative safety of the parcel area.
Unfortunately, after the 6pm tea break I was assigned to tipping mail bags for two hours and my two associates weren’t too keen on keeping a responsible pace and we were in danger of leaving quite a bit of mail to be done in the last hour.
I asked our supervisor if he had any WD40 as these two I was working with were about to rust up and, realising what I was getting at, he began to help cull the mail and our clearance rate miraculously increased and we finished the job more or less on time with a respectable sort rate.
The last hour of the day was spent sitting down sorting small letters which is a relatively relaxing job as the pressure of the day recedes, all of our despatches are done and we can just count down the clock.
Last night this period was spent, as it usually is, bitching about the lack of competency we perceive in AP management and the illogical decisions they seem to make on most occasions. All of this of course is amplified by boredom and the fact that we have all worked there far too long and are over the silliness that pervades the place.
We surmise that only if we ran the place, surely it would be better than what it is. Of course that’s very easy to do when you have no intention of entering the halls of power. It’s always easier to criticise.
So, that is a small snapshot of an evening spent sorting mail. A vital yet undervalued service in the world. And today I’m lucky enough to be able to go back and do it all again! Lucky me!
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 