New challenge - a day in the life of a postal worker

ISN

I have a little challenge for any takers - describe part or all of a day in the life of a postal worker - with you as the postal worker - it can be any genre of prose, or any style of poetry......it can be science fiction, horror, drama whatever you want......I've got some ideas, but if anyone wants to post one first, go ahead.....I haven't written mine yet....

grooveamatic

hmmmm...this one is a little close to home....both my parents have worked for the postal service all my life. my father is now retired. it will be strange for me. but i shall be thinking about this.

ISN

it's a pretty cushy job, with lots of vacation time in the UK at least, lots of overtime, and solid......my friend in London worked for the Royal Mail......he was always flying off somewhere on hols......heheheeheh......they've got a whole retirement complex for postal workers in the States I read a while back......

grooveamatic

well, the benefits and pay are nice, it's true, but I don't think I'd call it cushy. They work their asses off. As a matter of fact, about ten years back we had a rash of shootings by postal workers, walking into their post offices and killing all their fellow workers...stress and poor treatment by management, etc...it seems to have abated now....

ISN

wow......well, my friend in London used to sleep in the first aid room when he was supposed to be working - I think the unions there guaranteed that things were quite cushy......but the most important thing is that the service was brilliant......my son is dazzled by our postie who rocks up about three on his little moped with his neon orange and yellow garb......hehehehe

dunkman

Wake up
Dark
5 more minutes
4.17am
get up at 4.20 then
scratch balls
wash face
dae a shit
brush teeth
eat haggis
put on uniform
garter too tight
wrong uniform
put on right uniform
read news
say goodbye
to sleeping kids
baby goats
I forgot I had any
Drive, sleepy eyes
Crash into car park
Pick up letters
Check for birthday cards
My kinda overtime
Read postcards
Wake people up
Gravel treading
Finished at 9.25am
Timesheet says 10.30
Eat bacon
Play golf
Sleep
Wake up…..

ISN

yes, the order of the garter.....that's funny.....thanks Dunky.....

anyone read the beginning of catch 22 - where they're censoring letters to and from soldiers, while they're recuperating in sick bay, and they get bored, so they start blacking out all the 'and' or 'buts' or just every third word, I can't remember exactly, but it was hilarious

FinsburyParkCarrots

I shall write an opera called The Existentialist Postman. In this magnum opus, Postie takes the Kierkegaardian view that man's existence preceeds all social essence and thus also any consideration of personal accountability in a chaotic universe. So he doesn't see anything wrong with posting letters to the wrong addresses, or even not posting at all and chucking his mailbag in the river. I think we've got quite a few of these existentialist feckers working here in the UK for Royal Mail at the moment.

ISN

heheheeh......yeah.....I like it......:D

ISN

I just remembered Enid Blyton - Noddy.....heheheeheh......it was this pure existence of rolling English hills.....and "Hello, Mr Smith, your begonias are doing well'......heheheheheh

FinsburyParkCarrots

ISN wrote:

I just remembered Enid Blyton - Noddy.....heheheeheh......it was this pure existence of rolling English hills.....and "Hello, Mr Smith, your begonias are doing well'......heheheheheh

"Five Little Mosleyites inform on the communist postman to the village blackshirts, and put an earwig in his bed"

ISN

woman take over the world, and assign all menial labour to men, but reserve the beauty of being posties all for themselves.....they form a co-op and deliver flowers every Monday with their letters......the male house-husbands immediately dump the flowers in the trash

ISN

I had been working as a postman in Norway for some time, and things were pretty so-so....I lived in the beautiful city of Bergen, but for me it had become kind of weary.....sure there were mountains, and it was on the coast, pretty in Spring etc....I guess my job had just been getting me down.....the same old mail -envelopes and more envelopes....families contacting each other......things had been kind of slow since email took over......I didn't even bother reading the postcards anymore.....I had practically learnt English, Spanish, German and French by reading the postcards.....Then one day a particularly beautiful photograph of the traditional shops in Bergen crossed my path, and I saw myself in the photo on the front of the postcard.....naturally, I read it, and it said.....

'Catherine & Torin -

Hello from Norway - a country full of nice people, beautiful landscapes - weather same as Ireland. Rest of Scandinavia has been really good - Estonia was the only country we were disappointed with. Lots of snow capped mountains & glaciers outside train now....

Dennis xxx'

I felt as though I had been jerked out of a dream - from that day on, the word 'priority' would define me. I wrote in my black ball pen 'Priority' on the top right hand corner of the postcard, and I looked out the window at the snow-capped mountains, hiding their glaciers, and I wanted to thank 'Dennis' for having woken me up from this trance......priority was going to be my catchword.....I would make life and living my priority, and I was at that moment grateful that I had endured the tedious hours of working for the postal service in Norway....

ISN

I shall write an opera called The Existentialist Postman. In this magnum opus, Postie takes the Kierkegaardian view that man's existence preceeds all social essence and thus also any consideration of personal accountability in a chaotic universe. So he doesn't see anything wrong with posting letters to the wrong addresses, or even not posting at all and chucking his mailbag in the river. I think we've got quite a few of these existentialist feckers working here in the UK for Royal Mail at the moment

so much wonderful art was inspired by these very kinds of sentiments....Yves Klein and that other guy....before him, whose name escapes me.....begins with an M.....

FinsburyParkCarrots

ISN wrote:

so much wonderful art was inspired by these very kinds of sentiments....Yves Klein and that other guy....before him, whose name escapes me.....begins with an M.....

Er, M. I can only think of a fictional character, Meursault, in Camus's L'Etranger. *Scratches head.* M, M ....

ISN

well, first name is M....Marcel Duchamp....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp

inspired Yves Klein who sold blank space in an empty book to people, and gold coins they paid for this space with, he threw into the Seine.....that's why The Existential Postman reminded me of Yves Klein.....you know, postmen/women throwing letters into rivers etc....heheheheeh

DopeBeastie

the muscles in a mailman's legs
look like good poetry reads
everything is perfect
stringy, taut and moving
always moving
toward day's end
toward an empty bag
and an empty head

it's postal xen
from forest to dustbin

postal zen








(i know a mailman... i think it hurts his feelings that most of the crap he delivers goes directly into the trash... poor guy)

FinsburyParkCarrots

ISN wrote:

well, first name is M....Marcel Duchamp....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp

inspired Yves Klein who sold blank space in an empty book to people, and gold coins they paid for this space with, he threw into the Seine.....that's why The Existential Postman reminded me of Yves Klein.....you know, postmen/women throwing letters into rivers etc....heheheheeh

Yes. I was thinking of the surrealists for a moment and considered Man Ray as a contender. I was close but, as Magritte would say, no pipe.

ISN

the muscles in a mailman's legs
look like good poetry reads
everything is perfect
stringy, taut and moving
always moving
toward day's end
toward an empty bag
and an empty head

it's postal xen
from forest to dustbin

postal zen

thanks Pasta.....and the frustrating thing is the bag always gets refilled....a bit like climbing a mountain every day, or pushing a boulder up a mountain every day, and the next day, you have to start again......I know Camus wrote a book about it, but I haven't read it....Sisyphus syndrome.....I'm sure most postal workers don't experience Existential angst to this extent though....hehehehehe.....they might complain a bit.....hehehehe.....thanks Mr Postie!!!! (why do hardly any women deliver mail in the UK and Australia - it's always men - maybe they have more sense )