The final link

‘Hey there, it’s Chris again. Your friendly, scribbling postman. This week, I want to talk about the job.

‘As you know, we’re the final link in the almighty chain that is Royal Mail. Customers’ letters get sent, collected, processed and sorted. Then they get delivered – and that’s where we come in. We tend to take on the bulk of the workload because, well, there’s no one else to delegate the workload to. We’re the final link in the chain For the most part, we do this with a smile on our face because, generally, we all enjoy the job.

‘Now, I won’t sugarcoat it. I don’t wake up every morning giddy at the prospect of delivering mail to my loving customers while dancing on a rainbow of letters and parcels, because that’s simply not the case. We take the rough with the smooth.

‘Most of my customers are friendly and polite. And as I’m a loveable chatterbox (self-proclaimed), I’m happy to oblige in conversation with them. Time allowing, that is. I say that because our rounds are only getting longer. I do miss the old days where there wasn’t so much focus on getting it done. But with more mail comes more responsibility.

‘I will say this...The camaraderie that I share with my colleagues is second to none.

‘But I’ve not yet scratched the surface of the issues we tackle every day, nor have I mentioned many of the wonderful aspects of the job that I do. My main goal in writing this blog was not to educate readers on what it’s like to work for Royal Mail – most readers are posties, after all. But I guess I’m hoping this blog offers an opportunity to ramble and a platform to make suggestions.

‘To my postal brothers and sisters out there fighting the good fight, I salute you.’