Tuesday: the supposedly quieter day thus staff are reluctantly manhandled upstairs for the weekly 'work time learning' session. An opportunity for us to 'have our say' and hear the latest management doctrine. It's usually a nervous line manager reading from a head office email: "we are investing millions of pounds towards a better future" "be sure to wear shoes in the winter" and so forth. Staff shuffle uneasily, glancing furtively at the clock. "any questions?" followed by a pregnant silence. We rush back downstairs like kids at the school bell.
The latest mantra from head Office is "mail volumes have dropped 10%" thus justifying various cutbacks/savings. It's hard to believe. Voume may have dropped but weight cerainly hasn't. People love their tat catalogues.
Considering we all work for the same company it's amazing the gulf between management and workers...'them and us' is prevalent. It puzzles me somewhat. All the managers are ex-postmen/women (at least the majority are). I considered this option after a particularly grim Winter: 'going to the dark side' . The opportunity was there, what could I lose? Mother would be proud, more money, stuck in a warm, dry environment...there was no interview as such, an informal chat with a grim faced manger from Kendal. He just wanted to know if I'd be prepared to travel, 'yes' I lied. "Ok, turn up at 4.30am, here's a memory stick". Quite what the memory stick was for I've still no idea though it comes in useful. 4.30 A.M...that's in the night. Hmmm. Plus travelling time meant I had to get up at 3am (half an hour before going to bed). Fucking hell. Every morning taxis racing past in the dark wet streets. I get to the office and have to shadow another line manager for a week. This basically involves dumping mail out of crates and then stand for 6 hours watching people sort it, trying to look like I'm interested. Now and then you have to count things, trolleys, Yorke's etc and input the data into a computer..that's 5 minutes gone, memory stick not needed. So I stand there for a week, bored, humiliated, tired. The staff are very friendly (mostly, there's the odd mouthy psycho) but this isn't worth it. Dan, my shadow, is ok but he knows these people and larks around. He also has 4 kids so he needs the money/escape. He stands over me as I type numbers into an Excel programme, cheering me on. My sleeves are filthy from the crates and I'm aching from the lack of sleep and idle standing Lynne, the other line manager is something else. She's stern and po-faced. She LOVES her job and would happily gouge out my heart with a blunt memory stick if it as soon as look at me. She watches the postmen sorting. "look at them" she hisses. "talking and sorting, that's no good. Are you going to tell them or am I?" "'Cause if they don't get it delivered then WE have to do it, you do realise that??!" She's twitching now. Driven by a fear of physical labour. She tells them. She's not popular but she doesn't care. My heart sinks. By the end of the week I'm seriously doubting all this. I envy the postmen and women, coming in at 7, left to their own devices, chatting...an easy camaraderie. Saturday, the manager sends me to Grange. They're understaffed and desperate. At 5am I'm driving, for the first time, to Grange, hand-drawn map on the passenger seat. Fucking hell. The manager at Grange is, like most managers, looking stressed and vastly overweight. His worst nightmare has come true and he has to get out and deliver, with me helping him. I'm dropped off with a bag of mail and told to follow the road, Phil the manager will meet me in his car..somewhere. I'd never been to Grange before. I was smitten. It was a glorious morning, crisp and sunny. I was lost but I didn't care. The postmen in Grange must have legs like mountain goats 'cos boy is it hilly. I huffed and puffed my way around a leafy estate perched on a hillside. The view was breathtaking. Lakeland mountains, the sweep of the bay. The houses had no number, only names. Normally this would drive me insane but I didn't care. I loved it here, outside. Phil eventually found me and carted me to another part of Grange in his stinking (dogs) car. His car was fucked really. The handbrake was broken so he had to park with the front wheels jammed into the kerb...not ideal in Grange. I fell in love with Grange and realised I'd miss all this, being outdoors...I quit the management training the following week. No regrets.
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