Still struggling with this slight cold I’ve had for a week or so. I have an annoying little cough, you know, the type that leaves a tickle in your chest and throat and causes you to purge your lungs at inopportune times, triggering a asthmatic incident and making everyone unfortunate enough to be in your vicinity think that you are about to keel over.
On top of that I am slightly stuffed up in the head. Nothing bad but it’s just knocking the top off my health and with my predisposition for watching television for a little while when I get home in the evening and waking up early I am struggling to get motivated these mornings due to a lingering fatigue.
I haven’t ridden my bike for a few days which is annoying me but I just haven’t had the stimulus to get moving. Perhaps today is the day to reignite my passion for the bike.
The weather hasn’t been good this last week. It started on Thursday with high winds which scared me away from getting out on my velocipede and continued through the weekend with days that turned quite cold. Even today is drab but the meteorological experts have expressed their view that precipitation will not be evident in these parts. More’s the pity. We could do with some rain.
The assault has begun at the “Happiness Factory”. Like a besieged garrison hunkering down as enemy forces assail us from all sides, we have been taking all the general public can throw at us and although there was quite a bit of work around yesterday I managed to slip through the waking hours without too much hassle.
I began the day in the Large Letter section and was joined in my small cubicle by a rather ethereal Vietnamese lady who can be a bit of trial to work with as she is always waxing lyrical about life and love and asking questions about my own when I am unlucky enough to be in her direct vicinity.
Now don’t get me wrong, she is quite a nice woman, just a bit of hard work especially when you are struggling to understand what she is saying through her thick accent.
Being released from the section in order to tie down some mail for dispatch from the bar code sorter was a welcome relief and as I cantered gaily away from the large letters I felt as if I was returning to the world after a one week stint on Mariah Island, sunshine and hope returning to my life, the probing questions pointed at me by my inquisitor left behind, my ambiguous answers left for her to ponder.
After the first break at 4pm it is on to parcels which I breezed through without managing to extend myself. After dinner I had two hours sitting down sorting small letters which is unusual as I was supposed to be culling mail being tipped from bags into the letter cancelling machine but as several casuals have been employed for the duration of the Christmas period it was left to them to do the hard manual labour involved in that particular task and the old hands were given a rare treat.
The last hour was spent running the cancelling machine but after a fairly relaxing day I couldn’t complain and the minutes slipped by quite quickly as I collected the cancelled mail from the stackers and loaded it into bins and on to a trolley for delivery to it’s next processing point. Then it is home free. No overtime for me.
This two week period leading up to Christmas is obviously very busy and it does seem that patience is tried in many people and with resources being stretched there is a fight for machinery and trolleys and such among staff in different sections and the place is bulging with people and mail and some do seem to get a little precious and whinge about co-workers.
There is a fellow on the later shifts who I don’t particularly like at the best of times but he came in early yesterday and managed to sneak into the small letter sorting area away from the larger hubbub where he was required. His direct superior eventually found him and from what I could overhear from muffled conversation he was railing at a request to go to the parcel section and was inquiring in a tone which could only be described as irritating as to why the day shift overtime staff or the afternoon shift could not be sent there instead of him, blissfully ignorant that we had already done our stint there and day shift overtime were in fact already doing their bit in that section.
The 6pm shift supervisor obviously could not get him to budge,an act of insolence which could lead to disciplinary measures but the supervisor concerned simply got the main supervisor to come over and direct him to go to parcels and there was no further argument and he somewhat begrudgingly complied although I hear he was still complaining about others as he whiled away his time sorting parcels.
There is another small group of precious ones who run another machine and seem to think they are an elite group within the centre. They have come over from Mitchell and take their job very seriously, far more seriously than us “Happiness Factory” veterans like or intend to do and they have been the butt of a few jokes in regard to their misguided dedication to duty and belief in their own superiority.
One of these fellows was looking for trolleys to place his mail trays on and was bewailing loudly to our supervisor about the lack of availability of such, conveying his belief that his section was far more important than any other and needed those trolleys more than any other. He obviously hadn’t had a look at what was going on around him!
My mate Dave who was working in the small parcel section and had conveniently hoarded two of the said trolleys announced that the bedraggled fellow could have had one of his except that he was acting like such a twerp. I’m not sure where they get these blokes from.
But that is just the first day of the rush and things will get more antsy from here to be sure. But for me it was a reasonable day and I can’t see that things will go too awry from here in my camp.
So, I will enjoy the rest of my morning, pray that the temperature lifts and try to get out on my bike before heading to work and dipping my toe in the maelstrom again.
From me to you, have a nice day.
On top of that I am slightly stuffed up in the head. Nothing bad but it’s just knocking the top off my health and with my predisposition for watching television for a little while when I get home in the evening and waking up early I am struggling to get motivated these mornings due to a lingering fatigue.
I haven’t ridden my bike for a few days which is annoying me but I just haven’t had the stimulus to get moving. Perhaps today is the day to reignite my passion for the bike.
The weather hasn’t been good this last week. It started on Thursday with high winds which scared me away from getting out on my velocipede and continued through the weekend with days that turned quite cold. Even today is drab but the meteorological experts have expressed their view that precipitation will not be evident in these parts. More’s the pity. We could do with some rain.
The assault has begun at the “Happiness Factory”. Like a besieged garrison hunkering down as enemy forces assail us from all sides, we have been taking all the general public can throw at us and although there was quite a bit of work around yesterday I managed to slip through the waking hours without too much hassle.
I began the day in the Large Letter section and was joined in my small cubicle by a rather ethereal Vietnamese lady who can be a bit of trial to work with as she is always waxing lyrical about life and love and asking questions about my own when I am unlucky enough to be in her direct vicinity.
Now don’t get me wrong, she is quite a nice woman, just a bit of hard work especially when you are struggling to understand what she is saying through her thick accent.
Being released from the section in order to tie down some mail for dispatch from the bar code sorter was a welcome relief and as I cantered gaily away from the large letters I felt as if I was returning to the world after a one week stint on Mariah Island, sunshine and hope returning to my life, the probing questions pointed at me by my inquisitor left behind, my ambiguous answers left for her to ponder.
After the first break at 4pm it is on to parcels which I breezed through without managing to extend myself. After dinner I had two hours sitting down sorting small letters which is unusual as I was supposed to be culling mail being tipped from bags into the letter cancelling machine but as several casuals have been employed for the duration of the Christmas period it was left to them to do the hard manual labour involved in that particular task and the old hands were given a rare treat.
The last hour was spent running the cancelling machine but after a fairly relaxing day I couldn’t complain and the minutes slipped by quite quickly as I collected the cancelled mail from the stackers and loaded it into bins and on to a trolley for delivery to it’s next processing point. Then it is home free. No overtime for me.
This two week period leading up to Christmas is obviously very busy and it does seem that patience is tried in many people and with resources being stretched there is a fight for machinery and trolleys and such among staff in different sections and the place is bulging with people and mail and some do seem to get a little precious and whinge about co-workers.
There is a fellow on the later shifts who I don’t particularly like at the best of times but he came in early yesterday and managed to sneak into the small letter sorting area away from the larger hubbub where he was required. His direct superior eventually found him and from what I could overhear from muffled conversation he was railing at a request to go to the parcel section and was inquiring in a tone which could only be described as irritating as to why the day shift overtime staff or the afternoon shift could not be sent there instead of him, blissfully ignorant that we had already done our stint there and day shift overtime were in fact already doing their bit in that section.
The 6pm shift supervisor obviously could not get him to budge,an act of insolence which could lead to disciplinary measures but the supervisor concerned simply got the main supervisor to come over and direct him to go to parcels and there was no further argument and he somewhat begrudgingly complied although I hear he was still complaining about others as he whiled away his time sorting parcels.
There is another small group of precious ones who run another machine and seem to think they are an elite group within the centre. They have come over from Mitchell and take their job very seriously, far more seriously than us “Happiness Factory” veterans like or intend to do and they have been the butt of a few jokes in regard to their misguided dedication to duty and belief in their own superiority.
One of these fellows was looking for trolleys to place his mail trays on and was bewailing loudly to our supervisor about the lack of availability of such, conveying his belief that his section was far more important than any other and needed those trolleys more than any other. He obviously hadn’t had a look at what was going on around him!
My mate Dave who was working in the small parcel section and had conveniently hoarded two of the said trolleys announced that the bedraggled fellow could have had one of his except that he was acting like such a twerp. I’m not sure where they get these blokes from.
But that is just the first day of the rush and things will get more antsy from here to be sure. But for me it was a reasonable day and I can’t see that things will go too awry from here in my camp.
So, I will enjoy the rest of my morning, pray that the temperature lifts and try to get out on my bike before heading to work and dipping my toe in the maelstrom again.
From me to you, have a nice day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 