We Are Royal Mail

Jan Parfitt is part of the broker’s team at Cardiff mail centre, where she is responsible for handling undeliverable mail. She first joined Royal Mail 20 years ago in Porth, South Wales.

‘Whether it’s wrongly addressed or badly packaged, I amend it and make it mail-worthy,’ said Jan.

From returning lost passports to famous footballers, to handling illegal items, Jan never knows what her day will entail. ‘We have some weird and wonderful things,’ she said. ‘It’s just nice to help somebody, if you can, along the way.’

Jan uses a postal address finder to enter information about poorly addressed items and work out where they need to be sent. However, with years of experience in the role, she will often recognise addresses without its help.

Jan says the role can be quite challenging, depending on the weather and time of year. ‘If there’s a lot of rain, then more things get damaged, so the job is different,’ she said.

Reuniting customers with their lost items can be difficult, and Jan has been recognised in our colleague magazine, Courier, for going above and beyond to assist an elderly customer. ‘An old lady mistakenly posted all of her Christmas money that she’d taken out of the bank to put into cards for her family,’ explained Jan. ‘I sent it all back to her, and she was so impressed that she got in touch with Royal Mail.’

Organisation, common sense and teamwork are the main skills that Jan says she relies on for ‘making an undeliverable piece of mail deliverable’.

Jan is part of We Are Royal Mail, our campaign to showcase the different people and roles that make up our unique operation. See more profiles here.