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MEREDITH BECOMES A POSTIE |
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the next adventure by Meredith
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MEREDITH BECOMES A POSTIE |
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the next adventure by Meredith
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While traveling around Australia, alone in my helmet, I did lots of thinking about life, the universe and everything. I came up with a thousand great plans, many of which I can’t even remember now. I decided that I would get some chooks, plant a herb garden, do Tai Chi and get a more physical job, like being a postie. My programming job has been great but is just way too static for my poor ageing body! I figured that if I got a part time position I would be able to keep up with the programming and juxtapose it with something completely different, and being a postie seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
Sometime in November I logged in to the Australia Post website and located an application form which I started to fill in. I didn’t submit it because there were some bits I had yet to complete. But low and behold, the next day I had a call from Australia Post to see if I was interested in a part-time position. I had to laugh, I’d heard they were very short of staff and the proof was now before me. I undertook an initial interview on the phone (questions like, ‘Can you ride a motorbike?’ and, ‘Do you have a license?’ and, ‘You do realize that you will get wet if it rains?’) and only a short time after this I was contacted for an interview at my local distribution centre (‘DC’ for those of us in the industry!).
The Coorparoo DC looked really interesting. Out the back were all the posties working hard sorting letters (or ‘throwing’ them, as we in the industry call it) and there were trucks coming and going and little postie bikes nipping in and out of the bike shed. It was a hive of activity with lots of friendly banter and off tune singing to accompany the work. I was a bit surprised how few women there were, I’d sort of expected close to half but it is more like one in five or six. Nonetheless, it looked like a good work place and I was keen to give it a whirl. The position I was interviewed for was as a Dedicated Delivery Officer (or ‘dodo’ as we in the industry call them) working 10am until 2pm five days a week. That seemed like a fine idea as it would fit in neatly with my programming work. After passing the medical I was formally offered the job, which I accepted.
Right about the time they wanted me to start I was to be in Perth for a wedding and to catch up with family and friends, but because I’m that sort of committed employee, I changed the airfares and got back in time to attend the two day bike training course out at Pro Honda on the Thursday and Friday.
On the Wednesday before I had to pop into the DC to fill out a pile of forms and pick up all my safety gear. It was like Christmas come early. I went down to the storeroom where I was issued with a show bag full of goodies. I got a helmet, Rossi boots, a glow-in-the-dark postie vest and wet weather gear, safety glasses, a helmet flap thingy to keep the sun off my neck and a water bottle with Australia Post stamped on it. The only thing I wasn’t given was any clothes. Until I finish the three month probation I have to provide my own long pants and long sleeved shirts.
You’d think long sleeve shirts wouldn’t be too big an ask, but being summer in hazy, humid Brisbane their was nothing to be had anywhere, or not that I could find anyway. I looked through all the op shops, I looked through K-Mart and Target, I even went to the work wear shops, but there was nothing to be had. In desperation I rang the DC and was given a second hand Australia Post shirt they had stashed in a corner somewhere. I was thinking that I would have to wash it everyday for three months when my sister turned up with some long sleeved shirts she’d found at a discount shop. They were ideal for the job and only cost $2.00 each! I was now set for my new endeavor.
I set out bright and early for the training course on the old red V7. I had figured every one else attending the course would be turning up on their favourite bike, so I’d better not turn up in the car. That was my first surprise. Of the eight of us attending the course, I was the only one who’d turned up on a bike, and in fact some of the others didn’t own a bike at all and some were very inexperienced riders who’d just gotten their license. One of the attendees had been a postie for a year, but hadn’t done the course, so was doing it now (better late than never).
Like most of these courses, the first thing we did was to go around the circle and introduce ourselves and give pertinent details including our riding experience. I was pleased and proud to be able to say that I’d just returned from three and half months around Oz on the old girl. However, as the course progressed I rued that truthful statement and wished I’d said that I’d never ridden before!
The course started with some interesting theory before we were let out on to the range to have a go on the postie bikes. The first day we went through a series of basic skills, like braking and turning and slow speed maneuvers. I thought that I would have some transferable skills from all my big bike riding onto these little buzz bikes, but I found that other than traveling in straight lines and using the indicators, I did everything wrong!
On the first day, the worst bit was that I couldn’t do some of the slow speed maneuvers because I was useless at counter balancing. That’s where you lean in one direction while turning the bike in the other direction so that you can get a tight little turn at low speed. I was ok at the uies and the slaloms but we had this tricky figure of eight where I just kept running over all the witches hats. The witches hats had been set up in two tight circles and you had to enter one and do one and half circles then go through to the other and do the same in the opposite direction before exiting. I just couldn’t get the circle tight enough! A lot of the newies were breezily looping through and that just made me feel worse. But I was determined! And by the end of the day I finally did the whole thing properly. I went home with my confidence in tatters but hopeful that now that I’d done the whole thing properly, I would be ok the next day.
The next day we had one new instructor and one continuing from the day before. The first thing we had to do on the range was to give the bikes their daily check. I was attempting to get my bike on the centre stand when the old instructor saw me and said that I should have the side stand up when I did it otherwise it could crack me in the shins. ‘Here, let me show you,’ he said, and he quickly put the bike up on the centre stand. He then dropped it back down to get me to have a go. I made sure the side stand was up, got in position and rocked the bike back on the centre stand, only to have my shin cracked by the base of the side stand which was perfectly positioned to whack me right in the leg, above the boot. It really hurt and I had a huge bruise that hurt every time I walked anywhere for the next four or so days. What a start to the day!
When we finally got out on the range, at my second go I did the figure of eight properly and was really relieved until the new instructor pulled me up and said, ‘You must make sure you always have four fingers on the brake lever.’ The day before the instructors had cheered when I finally got it so his reaction left me really flat. Of course the new guy didn’t realise how difficult I’d found the maneuver, but nonetheless the day went down hill from there.
It didn’t matter what I was doing, nothing was right. I think some of the other people were feeling just as lousy, because when we stopped for morning tea, everyone just sat around staring into their cups for quite a while before starting to chat about other things.
I was feeling so crappy about it all that my concentration just got worse and I kept making more and more mistakes. At one point we had to deliver a letter to a mail box on one small ‘hill’ made of a pile of dirt and then ride up another one, with an instructor at each point. The first two times were ok, but not quite right, and on the third time as I was trying to concentrate on all the things I had to do to make it right, the new instructor leapt out in front of me, crying out more instructions. This completely threw me and I missed the front break, hit the throttle instead and leapt over the hill and into the fence. I thought it was very funny but the instructor didn’t seem to find it so. I then went to the next hill, where I stopped very cautiously and was told by the other instructor, ‘You didn’t go fast enough up the hill.’
After this we did another activity about braking on corners. We all went round the range having a go and, of course, not getting it right. But just as we were all pulling up to get ready for the next activity, the postie had his last go and then came riding up to the group and sang out, ‘I finally got something right!’ What a relief to realise I wasn’t the only one who had been feeling useless!
The next activity involved following the new instructor in a circle around the range, we were all zooming along quite happily when suddenly the line headed off the range, out of the premises and on to the road. I knew we were to do a road ride some time that day so figured this must have been it. When I got to the road there were a number of trucks and cars coming along and I had to wait quite a while before I could get out onto the road. There were three others behind me and we headed off when there was a break in the traffic. I expected to see a sentry somewhere to mark our route, but I couldn’t see anyone. So I zoomed off up the road figuring there’d be someone at a corner somewhere. As we came around a tight bend in the road, where vision was blocked by a big tuck, we passed a petrol station, and out of the corner my eye I noticed the others were up at the fuel bowsers. We were hurtling along so had to continue up the road a bit before finding a safe place to turn around and head back to the fuel station, where we were greeted with comments about getting lost.
At lunch time we were all relived to get off the bikes and eat our lunches – at least we could do that right!
After lunch we headed out for the road ride. We basically split into two groups, four with each instructor and took turns being in the lead with the instructor behind us while we randomly rode around the suburban streets. The instructors needed to be assured that our road riding skills were ok on unknown streets. I was hopeful that I would at least get this bit right. None of us knew the area and we’d been told to stay off the main roads so when it was my turn I checked with the instructor if it was ok to go up to the T junction ahead of us. He said, ‘Yes.’ So off we went. When I got to the junction it turned out to have a school on one side with cars parked everywhere and a deli on the other with people walking everywhere, so I quickly took the first turn to get us away from the busy road. As we headed down the road the instructor zoomed up, flagged me over and said, ‘We’re not to go down main roads.’
Hooly-dooly! By the end of the course my confidence was in complete tatters. I came home feeling that, with my lack of skills, I would probably be in hospital by the end of my first week as a postie! I didn’t know how I’d managed to get around Australia without killing myself, let alone survived all the riding I’d done over the last few decades. On the positive side, I had gathered a few key techniques that I’ll need to practice and develop when riding my bikes and the postie bike too.
The position I’d been employed to undertake was as a Dedicated Delivery Officer (or ‘dodo’, as those of us in the industry call them). That means that I was to turn up at 10am, pick up the mail, shoot around delivering it and be finished by 2pm. The mail for my run would be sorted (or ‘thrown’ as those of us in the industry call it) by some other person. A new sorter for my run had started a few days before me, but he’d ended up quitting after only a couple of days so the boss asked if I’d like to do the sorting as well, starting at 5.30am until the end of the year and then moving to a 6.35am start in the new year. He also mentioned something about the finish times being later than 2pm because it was so close to Christmas. Being new, enthusiastic and having no idea what I was letting myself in for, I said, ‘Sure thing! I’ll give it a whirl.’
So on Monday I rocked up at 5.30am (My goodness! What a shock to the system that was – having to get up at 4.30am!) and was introduced to my trainer, Ryan, who started my induction into the industry. After a couple of days Ryan had to go off and do something else and I had a new trainer called Greg who stuck with me right through the next two weeks up to Christmas. Of course I knew nothing so they had to start with all the basics, and for the first few days I’m sure I was more of a hindrance than a help while Ryan showed me the ropes and I joined in where I could. Basically the first half of the day is spent sorting the mail, and the second half is spent delivering it. And there is so much to learn that I was quite bamboozled for most of the first week. Though with the positive and supportive help of my trainers, I got better quite quickly.
I have to say I have been really impressed with Australia Post’s induction program. I’ve had all the support I’ve needed throughout the first two weeks and I’ve always felt like a beginner and rarely like an idiot while I’ve been learning. When I’ve felt like an idiot it’s not been my trainer’s fault but mine – but more on the entertaining bits later!
In the morning I work at a sorting area (or ‘frames’ as those of us in the industry call it) to get the mail for my run ready for delivery. The sorting of mail is a lot more involved than I realized it would be. The sorting frames are set up in four frames with slots for each mail drop point (or ‘point’ as those of us in the industry call them). They’re sequenced in the run order and you get great piles of mail for your run and then you have to sort it (or ‘throw it’, as those of us in the industry call it) into the frames in the delivery order. First you get tray after tray (or ‘flute after flute’ as those of us in the industry call them) of standard sized letters that the computer has been able to sort. Then after that you get the flutes that have been hand sorted by the night sorters, and then you get big black trays with all the large items, like magazines and small parcels. Then in amongst all of that you also have to check and throw the express mail items and the registered mail items.
Once you’ve thrown everything and your frames are creaking at the seams with only a sliver of space left, then you have to go through and do all the redirections (or ‘re-dies’ as those of us in the industry call them) and holds. Some runs have an enormous number of both of those because the residents move house and go on holidays all the time. The re-dies are A4 pages of yellow stickers that are all kept in lever arch files in the sequence of the run. You work your way through them, putting the yellow stickers on the mail so they’ll get where they’re meant to go. In amongst all the re-dies there are notes about particular addresses, quite a number of which have their mail sent to a PO Box rather than being delivered to the street address. And some addresses only have some of the mail being re-directed.
The once you’ve done that you have to put all the mail that you couldn’t throw where it can be dealt with. It might have been incorrectly addressed and need to be ‘marked up’ (as those of us in the industry call it) so it can be returned – or sent to the dead letter office (or ‘DLO’ as those of us in the industry call it) where there is no return address. Then there are the miss-sorts which are those bits of mail that look like real addresses but don’t belong on your run, and then there is the mail to be sent directly to the local Post Offices rather than being delivered to the street address.
So once you’ve done all that, you then have to get the mail that is on your frames ready for delivery, (that's called 'stripping it down' by those of us in the industry). Your bike can only hold a maximum of 25kg of mail so the excess mail is put into bags and delivered to secure boxes (or ‘drop boxes’ as those of us in the industry call them) where you will re-load your bike at strategic points. Now, in order to get the mail ready for your bike or the bags, you have to bundle it into chunks that are no more than 4.2kg, but really it’s what you can manage in one hand. My bundles are still pretty small because I find the envelopes to be pretty slippery things, particularly when they’re interspersed with plastic covered mags and strange shaped parcels. So you bundle them up in order of your run and making sure that you start a new bundle at the appropriate point so that the right mail goes to the right drop box. Once you have all your bundles neatly arrayed across your frames, you then number them from 1 to whatever so you don’t muddle up the delivery sequence. If you’ve ever seen a big number written on one of your letters and wondered why it was there – that’s why. That piece of mail was the first item in a bundle and the number helped the postie keep everything in order.
You then ‘bag’ the excess mail, putting the bundles in two bags which will later be inserted into your panniers. So you sequence the bundles 1, 3, 5 in one side and 2, 4, 6 in the other so that you keep the weight pretty even. Then you take the bags out to the loading dock so that one of the vans can take it out to your drop boxes. You then load your bike with the mail for the first part of your run.
At some point during the morning the team leader will call their team out to the bike shed where we all do a maintenance check on our bikes. There’s a big list of things you have to check every day, like oil, tyres, fuel, chain and electrics. Each postie has a dedicated bike for which you are responsible for checking and reporting any maintenance needs as you notice them. While you are doing the bike check, the team leader tells you what is expected that day. It may be that you have household mail to deliver, like Domino’s pizza flyers (which has some acronym used by those in the industry, but I can’t remember it!). The team leader will also tell you what time you are expected on the road and what time your excess mail must be out in the bins.
Usually around the time of the bike check you go for morning tea (or ‘smoko’ as those in the industry call it) and later in the morning, once you’ve done everything and loaded you bike, you go for lunch (which is also called ‘lunch’ by those of us in the industry).
After lunch you put on your sun screen, gloves helmet and hi-vis vest and hit the road. If you need fuel you nip into a BP and fuel up, spending huge amounts like $3 or $4 to fill up the tank. The tank is so little, and shaped like a funnel, that you have to put the bike on the centre stand to fuel up otherwise you won’t get enough fuel in! (so cute!). Then you hoot off down the road to the start of your run. Then it’s up on the footpath and away you go!
As I mentioned before, everything was completely new to me when I started so it has been a huge learning curve.
Sorting the mail takes quite intense concentration, but there aren’t any good tales to tell about things that happened as I gained some basic skill in throwing mail. The only thing worth mentioning is that as part of the support for newies, each morning when I come in, part of my mail has already been thrown by the night sorters so I don’t have the full amount to do. My trainer also comes in and helps throw so that I can be out on the road early enough to do a good chunk of the run. Over the period of the first two weeks I have, of course become quicker, so I have done more and the trainer has been doing less.
On the first day after the sorting was done and we had lunch we went out on the road. That day I pretty much followed the trainer around and tried valiantly to keep up with him, even though he was scooting up to mail boxes and I was just scooting along the footpath. These posties are amazing! They have so much in-head knowledge! Trainers know about 20 runs in great detail, which is probably about 15,000 points and when they are delivering they know where all the mail boxes are for all the points, AND they know the minutiae of many of the addresses as well. That’s an incredible amount of knowledge. Even a non-trainer postie will know at least three runs really well. I can’t believe I’ll ever be able to store and access that much information in my head. I reckon no postie could suffer from dementia while they’re actually working, they must be using every little synapse they’ve got.
Anyway, as I was valiantly following Ryan up hill and down dale through the streets of run 14, I started to work on my slow riding skills, which I knew to be somewhat lacking. I’d wham the brakes on too hard and whack my legs on the roll bars, or stop too early or too late, and have to paddle my way around pretty basic little tight corners in drive ways or streets. I got bruises all over my legs from where I whacked them on one thing or another. I got bruises on my bottom from trying to get the bike on the centre stand and not positioning myself quite right, and I got bruises on my thighs where the corners of the front bag keep poking into my legs. There’s nothing like bruises to remind you to do things the right way. I’ve now pretty much got putting the bike on centre stand quite right, and I’m no longer to trying to grip the front bag with my knees like you would the tank of a road bike! Over the first couple of weeks the bruises slowly faded through an artistic kaleidoscope of hues!
On the first day I followed Ryan up a very steep alley where there is a mail box in a very awkward position. When I went to come back down the hill I didn’t get the counter balance quite right and tipped the bike over. I was able to step off with no problems, but of course I felt like a nong! On the positive side, I’d been shown how to pick up a dropped bike at the training course so I was able to pick it up and keep going with no need for assistance. As part of Australia Post policy, I had to report the incident to the manager when we got back to the office, but it obviously happens often enough that I didn’t get the impression that they were suddenly re-considering my appointment! So I went home completely pooped, vowing to learn to counter-balance as if my life depended on it! (Which, in the right circumstances, it might!)
The second day I did a few deliveries and started getting more of a feel for the bike, only adding a little to my bruise count, and starting to develop an eagle eye for mail box spotting. It’s amazing where people have their mail boxes. They can be above head height, or down on the ground, they can be behind bushes or architecturally designed to blend in with the fence so the viewer is not distressed by a broken line. Then, once you’ve located the mail box, you have to work out what number it is. I have been amazed at how many house have no number on them at all. It is often hard to guess because a lot of the older places skip numbers so you can’t always assume that the house after the one with a number is the next sequential number.
In some streets the verges are so narrow, and covered with bins or parked cars or greenery or anything, that you have to bounce up and down the kerbs to get to the mail boxes. So there’s been a whole other range of skills I’ve been developing in order to get the bike close enough to deliver the mail. Eventually, I reckon I’ll be able to ride that postie bike like a mountain goat!
Each day I did more and more deliveries by myself, in a sequenced way so that over the two weeks I got to deliver to every address at least twice. By the end of second week I was much quicker than at the beginning, and I could see a glimmer of hope that I might eventually be able to ride like a real postie!
One day I had to do a u-ie at the top of a steep street and then, towards the end of the turn, I had to bounce up the kerb into a narrow gap between the brick fence and a pole on the footpath. I’d done it successfully a day or two before, but on this particular day Greg and another postie were having a quick chat and both turned to watch me execute this maneuver. Unfortunately I took the kerb a bit too fast and my handle bar caught on the pole and stopped the bike with the pole wedged where the handle bars meet the frame. I thought it was pretty funny, but was having a bit of trouble trying to push the bike back up the hill to get it off the pole, so Greg and Russell came up to assist. ‘You’re meant to go around the pole,’ Greg said, laughing. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was just practicing a special emergency stopping procedure.’ I replied. ‘Here, I think you need a Fruit Tingle.’ Russell said. And with that extra energy boost I was able to get the bike unhooked and I was on my way again.
These kerbs are difficult things, particularly when there is not much room between the kerb and the fence. On another day, I was trying to get to a mail box where the access was half blocked by a car. I thought to myself, ‘I bet Greg would bounce the bike up here. I’ll have a go too.’ Well I had no trouble getting the front wheel up, but I’d lost momentum and the back wheel was stuck in the gutter. This was another hill street, and the slope of the hill meant that the rear wheel was basically wedged in place. I tried pushing the bike back while I was on it. I tried pushing it while I was off it. But in the end I had to jump back on and push it a few millimeters at a time using the front brake to stop it rolling forwards each time. It was a tricky maneuver and I was hot and bothered by the time I eventually freed the bike up and finally could get enough revs and enough launch area to get the back wheel up on the path too. The only problem is that I was a fair way from the mail box and couldn’t get the mail in anyway! Just as I managed to free the bike Greg came around the corner, saw what was going on, bounced up on the path in one fluid movement and said, ‘Here I’ll put those in the box for you!’ He’s my hero! If my bike skills can ever get half as good as his I’ll be ecstatic!
We’ve had a few rainy days, which have added another piquancy to the deliveries. On my second day out we suddenly had a massive downpour. A few big fat drops had splattered on me so I’d quickly whipped on my fluoro jacket. Unfortunately there was no where for me to shelter and when the rain came pounding down in a monsoonal deluge, all exposed bits became rapidly drenched. I tried sheltering under trees but to no avail and there were no carports or verandahs in that area. So I figured the only thing to do was to keep delivering. The mail in the front bag had become instantly drenched and amazingly, the envelopes all began to dissolve as if they were made from spun sugar! Because so many of the letterboxes are too small for the mail at the best of times, it became very difficult to get the mail in. The new mail was disintegrating and any old mail still in the mail boxes swelled to fill the opening. (Yes, you’d be amazed how many people don’t clear their mail boxes every day.) I think a lot of people ended up with a little blob of paper-mache glued like chewing gum, to the opening of their box.
By the time I got back to the DC my pants were as soaked as soaked could be and my left boot was full of water that was slurping and gurgling with every movement. Because you stick your left leg out when you stop, the rain gets a terrific flow down your leg and into your boot. The right boot doesn’t have the same problem because you don’t stick that leg out. Even when wearing the water proof pants, they’re not generally long enough to stop the water getting into the left boot. I think I might need to find some sort of gaiters to channel the water over my boot rather than into it, otherwise, like the diggers in the world wars, my feet might end up with trench-rot in the wet weather.
Because it was Christmas time everyone had been working really long hours, and I had been too. Mondays were really busy days so pretty much everyone started at 5am (Arghhhh!). On the Monday of the first week I was going to have to leave work at 2pm but over the weekend I was able to rearrange that commitment. But due to a bit of a communication breakdown, the boss didn’t realize that I was available until the job was done. Anyway, as Greg had another job that day after 10.00am, they got me out on the road by 8.30am, a record for that centre I think, and I started delivering. And I kept delivering. And I kept on delivering.
Just before 4.30pm my team leader turned up and said, ‘Are you ok?’ the boss is a bit worried about how long you’ve been out.’ ‘I’ve only got these two houses to go, then I’m done,’ I said wanly. So I delivered to the last two addresses, staggered back to the delivery centre and went home completely exhausted.
The next day when I told Greg I’d done the whole thing he proudly said, ‘Good girl!’ which made it all worthwhile. I have to say, every day since then has been a breeze in comparison! And at least I know I can do it all, even though I have to get an awful lot quicker. Greg reckons in a month or so I’ll be able to do the whole run in about three and a half hours. I’m looking forward to that level of skill development, I can tell you.
It is now a couple of weeks into the new year and I have been surviving, and improving, as the time has moved on. I’ve still got a long way to go but everyone is still being supportive and understanding. From what everyone is saying it sounds like it will be at least three months before I get the basics under my belt. At least I have developed more stamina for the job and am getting less exhausted each day. So, one day at a time, I reckon I’ll become a real postie yet!
~v7~ |
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