the splurge of spring

there's no time anymore. Christmas madness has seamlessly morphed into snow and ice sheer fucking terror. I fell at Christmas, not in snow or particularly thick ice, just a thin layer of frost on a smooth stone slab. But boy did I fall, a classic legs in the air whoops a daisy. One minute there, the next 'whoosh!', lying on the gutter under a scattering of mail...flushed and shaken. Buster Keaton would be proud.
Well that made me wary and it wasn't even that cold. Christmas cheer was still in the air to warm the coldest heart. Lovely old ladies (well, two) rushed to their front doors to drop three shiny pound coins in my blue numb hand. 'I know it's not a lot but I know it all goes into one pot' the first one said. Deluded obviously. She obviously pictured us rosy cheeked posties living in a giant Dr Marten boot, distributing scented letters by plump breasted bluebirds. Nah. I wished it DID go in one big pot but it's every fucker for himself these days. Christmas week, the busiest time of year and out come thousands of free light bulb boxes, piling up around the office...providing extra stress and headaches for our bulging sacks. On a busy day I get one and a half, maybe two sacks of packets to sort and deliver...this week FIVE. That's how manic it got so the last thing I needed were awkward little boxes of bulbs tormenting my every day. How could managers allow this? Well, they don't really manage anymore, just cope..marginally. Every Christmas special dockets are printed for customers picking up parcels etc..last year they ran out after one day due to ordering only one box. So this year they ordered one box again and ran out after, er, one day...that's management. Understaffed doesn't begin to describe it. Much is made of the fall in letter volumes and the rise in packets, it's become a mantra. Cue thousands of undelivered packets at Christmas...yorkes (large metal cages on wheels) full and bursting with nowhere to go. They got delivered of course, eventually, weeks late. Nobody knew, blame Christmas. On Saturday I counted 4o or so yorkes full of packets..the backlog has grown to epic proportions. The floorspace is covered by cages of weeks old packets waiting for someone to deliver them. Much has been made last week in the local rags of mail being undelivered on hilly roads due to the ice and snow. Too right, it was hell and dangerous...posties are limping around the office sporting bandaged arms, gashed faces, sore arses...squinting from staring intently at the ground for 4 hours...but if only the papers knew of the packet situation. Birthday present? tough shit mate, we've cut staff so you can fuck off. The Daily Mail would have a field day. I ordered a book on amazon and I know it's in that mountain of books. Managers haven't a clue anymore and it's ultimately demoralizing. They're not trained just told to get that days mail out at all costs or do it yourself. A colleague last week heard that his wife , who is 7 months pregnant, had fallen on the ice and had been taken to the infirmary. He, obviously distressed, went straight to the Manager to say he had to go at once, only to be told 'you can't go, you have a job to do' (they're so short of staff that sickness and absence are incomprehensible) . See what I mean? They've become Darth Vader. The postman in question went anyway but I wonder if Dave actually thought about what he'd said? I doubt it.