Thursday. 9.00pm. Believe it or not I am crouched in a bathroom cubicle at work writing this entry down on the back of a safety bulletin whilst leaning on the closed lid of a toilet!
There are no seats to be had on small letter sorting, large letters are full, small parcels are finished as is the culling machine where I worked for two hours before my last break at 8.30pm. The face-up area is being well handled by light duties and part-timers, the BCS is being run by night shift thus leaving me at a rather loose end.
In a pinch, if I was really desperate, I could go to the large parcels but they have just finished the originating product, that is mail which has been posted in Canberra, and begun the terminating stuff which are parcels posted outside our network but are to be delivered locally.
There are a couple of reasons I won’t go there but mainly because it is a job the nightshift does and I would hate to embarrass myself in a section I rarely venture into in front of people I barely know, namely the night shift!
Which really leaves me a bit lost.
Before you start shaking your head in disbelief, if you haven’t already begun, I need to declare that this turn of events has in no way been influenced by me.
Now I must adhere to my oft stated goal of not commentating on decisions made by those in command but let me just say that taking away sorting frames for who knows what reason and leaving a quarter of one of your shifts with an hour or so to burn without having anywhere to go or anything to do is not a model of efficiency for others to follow.
Plus the fact that many of my shift “reserve” seats in the small letter area before they go on their last break and an early finish to originating parcels sees refugees from there seeking chairs plus odds and ends from other shifts with nothing to do taking up residence then it is easy to see why we have a problem.
So I find myself in a ridiculous situation, writing a blog entry on the back of a toilet seat, patiently counting down the minutes until the end of the shift, occasionally leaving my cubicle to do a “sweep”, hoping a seat my have freed up in my absence enabling me to take the weight off my aching feet, even if it is only for a short while.
It sticks in my craw that people who have been standing all day, working solidly in most cases are denied the chance to “warm down” so to speak, that is being able to sit for the last hour and sort small letters, a fairly relaxing way to finish another tedious day.
Now I have probably once again written too much about work practices and it is more than likely a post such as this would be frowned upon when superimposed on the much prophesised “Code of Ethics” but I am not criticising, simply observing practices which I feel are inefficient and could be supervised in a much better way. I’m sure anyone reading this can keep my thoughts to themselves, can’t you?
So another day rolls to a close. I can hear people coming and going through the corridor past the toilet blocks which leads to the locker room. In fact it is like Pitt Street but it is no wonder when there are too many people on the floor and not enough space for all of them. Where else can you hide, out of the glare of those who seem to enjoy spying on others and are more concerned about the work habits of their fellow man than they are of their own performance.
As I leave my “office”, I bump into my friend Dave, caught in the same dilemma as myself, wandering up and down with nowhere to go until a space is freed up by another shift going on a break. He seems to delight in doing a “Tour de Toilet”,as he calls it, stealthily moving from one toilet block to another, lest someone suspects that there is something amiss due to the amount of time he spends in one particular cubicle. Rather amusing really.
Now I hear the chimes which indicate the departure of a later shift on a break and the freeing up of a space on small letters or large letters and I will leave my safe haven and return to the real world and try to make up for lost time and do my share before I go home.
Then I will return tomorrow and the same routine will be put into action and the treadmill will keep turning. It’s tough but someone has to do it. Take care.
There are no seats to be had on small letter sorting, large letters are full, small parcels are finished as is the culling machine where I worked for two hours before my last break at 8.30pm. The face-up area is being well handled by light duties and part-timers, the BCS is being run by night shift thus leaving me at a rather loose end.
In a pinch, if I was really desperate, I could go to the large parcels but they have just finished the originating product, that is mail which has been posted in Canberra, and begun the terminating stuff which are parcels posted outside our network but are to be delivered locally.
There are a couple of reasons I won’t go there but mainly because it is a job the nightshift does and I would hate to embarrass myself in a section I rarely venture into in front of people I barely know, namely the night shift!
Which really leaves me a bit lost.
Before you start shaking your head in disbelief, if you haven’t already begun, I need to declare that this turn of events has in no way been influenced by me.
Now I must adhere to my oft stated goal of not commentating on decisions made by those in command but let me just say that taking away sorting frames for who knows what reason and leaving a quarter of one of your shifts with an hour or so to burn without having anywhere to go or anything to do is not a model of efficiency for others to follow.
Plus the fact that many of my shift “reserve” seats in the small letter area before they go on their last break and an early finish to originating parcels sees refugees from there seeking chairs plus odds and ends from other shifts with nothing to do taking up residence then it is easy to see why we have a problem.
So I find myself in a ridiculous situation, writing a blog entry on the back of a toilet seat, patiently counting down the minutes until the end of the shift, occasionally leaving my cubicle to do a “sweep”, hoping a seat my have freed up in my absence enabling me to take the weight off my aching feet, even if it is only for a short while.
It sticks in my craw that people who have been standing all day, working solidly in most cases are denied the chance to “warm down” so to speak, that is being able to sit for the last hour and sort small letters, a fairly relaxing way to finish another tedious day.
Now I have probably once again written too much about work practices and it is more than likely a post such as this would be frowned upon when superimposed on the much prophesised “Code of Ethics” but I am not criticising, simply observing practices which I feel are inefficient and could be supervised in a much better way. I’m sure anyone reading this can keep my thoughts to themselves, can’t you?
So another day rolls to a close. I can hear people coming and going through the corridor past the toilet blocks which leads to the locker room. In fact it is like Pitt Street but it is no wonder when there are too many people on the floor and not enough space for all of them. Where else can you hide, out of the glare of those who seem to enjoy spying on others and are more concerned about the work habits of their fellow man than they are of their own performance.
As I leave my “office”, I bump into my friend Dave, caught in the same dilemma as myself, wandering up and down with nowhere to go until a space is freed up by another shift going on a break. He seems to delight in doing a “Tour de Toilet”,as he calls it, stealthily moving from one toilet block to another, lest someone suspects that there is something amiss due to the amount of time he spends in one particular cubicle. Rather amusing really.
Now I hear the chimes which indicate the departure of a later shift on a break and the freeing up of a space on small letters or large letters and I will leave my safe haven and return to the real world and try to make up for lost time and do my share before I go home.
Then I will return tomorrow and the same routine will be put into action and the treadmill will keep turning. It’s tough but someone has to do it. Take care.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 