Boy, I’m tired. That isn’t me in the photo at the top of the page but it could be. I’m working hard. Only eight hour days a day, nothing like some of the more proactive members of our community but work, at least the section I prowl each day, is busier than ever. Bending over into bins and trying hard leaves me exhausted and sore the next day. I work in the postal industry and I have a good little job sorting what are called “small parcels”. Small parcels, as opposed to large parcels, are packages that are small enough for a postman to deliver as opposed to a contractor delivering larger fare although there is a blurry line between the two. Consequently, the parcel centre down the road from us sends us plenty of what I believe should be considered “large” but we sort it anyway. I have always figured that if they don’t want to get the credit for it then I am happy to take it. Getting parcels that are larger than average must drive the posties crazy.
Of course at the end of the day it’s a cost saving measure. The more parcels you can shove off to a postie means less you have to pay a contractor. I imagine the people at the parcel centre have been told to send as much as they can down to us. Unfortunately it means that life gets more hectic in my little cockpit.
I have made the job my own and I don’t think anyone minds that. My once numerically mighty shift which starts at 2pm has been whittled down to just five mail officers yet we still run on a very slight job roster although it is thinning still. Small parcels is still our responsibility at this time of the day and as it is seen as a hard job no one from later shifts is putting their hand up to do it. I like it.
The real catcher for me in sorting small parcels is that I do it by myself. I am not trying to blow my own trumpet but they tell me when I am not there that three people often have to be placed in the section to complete it. I think it has more to do with the fact that others aren’t as experienced as me rather than any special ability on my part but I do try to get it done quickly. I like to work alone. That’s why I go hard.
Company is great of course but I am use to doing things my own way and on the occasions I do need help my companions invariably are not as quick or need to ask questions or, God forbid, do things without asking me! Haha.
I have been in this job for 31 years (not doing the same duties that whole time mind you) and I used to laugh at the old timers who would covet the positions they had made their own, Priority Paid, as our express service used to be called, Airmail and other sections which, although on a job roster had quickly become specialised as those who were marked for duty that week but didn’t like it swapped off with people who did and regularly performed those required duties becoming experts. These people of course had their own methods and if you did something different when helping them out than how they did you were soon told and sent to Coventry. It was with sudden alacrity some time ago that I realised that long years with the corporation and my recent specialisation in this single job had caused me to morph into one of those I use to snigger at!
I do think the time is coming that the section will need another hand. It is busier than ever, work streams in from about 4.30pm and Mondays and Tuesdays after a public holiday are killers. The mail use to ease off as the week progressed and by Friday it use to be that you could have an easy day but no more. Whilst the product certainly still diminishes as the week progresses there is still much more of it. No rest for the wicked so it seems.
All this is on top of running a Bar Code Sorting machine for two hours at the start of the shift and often being required to drive a forklift to unload a big truck from Sydney which may arrive anytime between 3 and 4pm. It’s work I dread but can’t dodge.
So, I’m tired. I think it’s a combination of increased workload and of course, advancing age. I’m still pretty healthy but of course you don’t bounce back as well nearing fifty as you did twenty years ago. Late nights and poor sleeping habits sure don’t help. It seems all the television shows I like to watch don’t start until after 11.30pm! I really have to force myself to turn off the television sometimes.
That’s me and my work life-for the moment. Change is in the air at though. Whispers of timetable variations and redundancies blow through the work floor but until something concrete happens such rumors are just a nuisance. I guess I can do nothing but continue on for the present. My days of sorting small parcels by myself are numbered. But I’m just waiting to see which way the axe falls first.
Have a nice day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 