With yesterdays Christmas post plea still fresh in my mind, I was reminded of my own experience with Royal Mail and the festive season.
In late November 2003, I joined Royal Mail as a Christmas casual. My hours were 10pm until 6am Monday to Friday. I chose this shift simply because the hourly rate was higher. As Christmas drew nearer, we were offered (and took) overtime hours. Some nights we started at six in the evening and worked a big twelve-hour shift. We had the option of working Saturday and Sunday nights at the same hours. We soon learned that Saturday was the one to do as from midnight until six, it was Sunday. Working on Sunday means double time. It was not worth going to do the same shift on Sunday night, as it was only Sunday night for two hours after which it became Monday, and the pay reverted to normal.
The night shift was more relaxed than days, and the job was easy enough to do while having a good banter with a fine group of lads. Regular tea breaks and half hour meal breaks were taken as a team, as was going out into the cold December air for a cigarette.
The contract finished and we were no longer needed at six o’clock on Christmas Eve morning. Enough money saved to enjoy a decent holiday season, and worry about work later. I did not have to worry for long, as Royal Mail offered me a chance to train as a postman.
At first, I didn’t think I had what it took to do this job. The mythical second post had just been abolished and the hours for a part time round were six in the morning until half past twelve. The idea was to sort your mail into order between six and eight, and then leave the office to deliver, returning to the office at half twelve. It was ‘job and finish’, which meant the quicker you worked, the sooner you were sitting at home and being paid.
The first day I was alone it took me until about half past ten to sort, and until five to finish the delivery. You are lumbered with the round you are trained on for a week, and I seriously considered giving it up.
The next week I moved to another round, which I soon got the hang of. I was finishing around the half past ten, eleven o’clock mark and was a lot happier in my work. I took up offers of overtime, and soon learned the ropes regarding doing bags for absentees. You said you would do a bag for two hours ‘docket’, the manager said yes and you took the bag out. It would take about half an hour to do.
Every now and again, my manager, just to be a twat, would put me on a round I had never done. This threw me back to square one, but instead of taking all day, I would simply ‘drop’ bags and finish on time. I also turned down overtime when he did this, which fucked him up because I was usually the first person he would ask.
In September 2004, I was put on the round that I considered my favourite. Easy to do, and with large houses. Large houses meant money, money meant Christmas tips. I had time to get to know everyone on the round, and they soon got to know me by name. I was your textbook village postman and East Parade in York was my village.
With weeks before the start of Christmas post, I trained a new starter (trainers got an extra tenner a day, and a week with a trainee is great because you cut your delivery time in half). As was the way, he got to do my round over the Christmas period. I was furious.
While this upstart rode the coattails of my popularity, I was put on day cover, five days with a different round every day for regular postie’s day off. So I had a shit time of it, and did not see a penny in tips!
I soon returned to my patch, and when the festive season approached again, I insisted that I stay on East Parade for the duration. When the schedules for December went up, I was pleased to see that I was.
The village postman had a plan!
I already knew that Christmas 2005 would be my last one in York, as I planned to leave my wife. Even if my transfer request didn’t come through, I would not be pounding these roads anymore. But I was a well-liked member of the community, as a postman should be.
One Sunday night, I spent the evening working on my strategy. I had bought a couple of boxes of the cheapest cards I could find. I also went and bought a festive tie, and a Santa hat. The village postman was going seasonal. I wrote enough cards for the entire round of about five hundred and fifty letterboxes.
Merry Christmas from Steve the postman, it’s great to be back on my favourite round and I will miss my corner of Heworth when I leave in the new year.
With my Santa hat and comic tie, offering more than my usual amount of cheery ‘good mornings’, I was off. Every house received a card from me that day, even if they didn’t have any regular post I made the effort to walk up their driveway. I reckoned on a pound per house as an average, with five hundred and fifty letterboxes.
The next day, envelopes were taped to front doors. Cards to Steve the postman, all containing tips. Some pound coins, but mainly fivers and tenners. Twenties in some cases! Throughout the Christmas period, I made about three hundred pounds, below my average forecast. But more than most of my colleagues.
One morning one of the lads pulled me up on this ploy, and accused me of sending begging letters. One by one, they started to turn on me for exploiting my position. I researched things and found that I had broken no rules. A couple of people followed my example and started slipping Christmas cards in their deliveries.
But overall, I was the bad guy.
This experience was the inspiration for the Eastenders plotline I wrote a year later, that the BBC initially turned down before using without crediting or paying me.
