I prefer to put my head down and slog away, pretending I am in a little bubble which no one can penetrate. Alas, I can not escape for too long before the world comes knocking. Unfortunately.
The tedium is driving me crazy. It is like a long march across a barren land everyday from two o’clock. A constant tale of peering at the clock, counting down the hours moment by moment. The place is a shambles because the replacement supervisors don’t have a handle on our regular dispositions and we are short of staff, causing members of later shifts to fill in on jobs that are nominally ours much to their chagrin.
The mail system is dying a slow but certain death and I wonder where I will be at in another five years. Kids today don’t write letters and the numbers of adults doing so is also falling. When I began working for the mail service 26 years ago we would start our letter cancelling machine at 2pm and it wouldn’t finish, bar a couple of short interludes, until after 9pm. Sometimes it would be later than that. Now we start it at 6.30pm and it is always finished within two hours. Gives some idea about how the flow of mail is bottoming out. And it is not going to get any better.
Strangely enough, the section where I work for ninety percent of the time has actually increased it’s load. The powers that be have decided to give their posties more to do by getting them to deliver parcels which weigh up to two kilograms. These parcels no longer go to the parcel sorting facility up the road, they come through our centre, increasing the volume three-fold, a fact our managers seem to ignore which makes the workload between 6.30pm and 9.00pm barely manageable for two people. We are handling it. But only just.
For the first time in a number of years I am getting out of bed in the mornings feeling fatigued from the effort I have given the night before as a result of rising volumes in my particular area. I run around and keep our mail flow turning over because it is like the tide. Never turn your back on it or it will overwhelm you.
It has been so busy, especially in that crunch two hour period after dinner, that I have considered blowing off work for a day just to get away from it as I am nearly always asked to do the job or help out later in the day and with my regular mate on holiday I generally have to work with someone who is far from being as conscientious as he is. It has been a battle.
However, as I said, we are short on staff and others at work for the most part don’t like doing that particular job so I will do the right thing and struggle in yet again and go through the motions and dig in late in the day and get the job done. Groundhog day again.
It’s a constant battle. Without our regular supervisor to impose some authority, things go to pieces. Trolleys on which we place mail in order to transport it to various sections for processing are hoarded and jealously guarded by their keepers making it difficult to find a spare when you need it. Bins in which we place mail and process from, particularly important in my regular section, are also hard to find. It’s hassle and I am heartily sick of it. Of course the mess created by the absence of our supervisor won’t be appreciated by anyone upstairs. They have their lackeys in place for the moment. That makes them proud.
There is nothing for me to do but tough it out. As I said the mail system is in dire straights and I don’t know where the road leads from here. It is not a pretty picture emanating from afar and I am sure my future lies on a different path. I just have to find it!
Have a nice day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 