I'm a postwoman - AMA

[rararala]

Not very exciting but been a postie for years so AMA.

Ooh good timing - I’m looking at applying but one thing bothers me - what do you do if you need the toilet during your round??

How many miles a day do you walk?

How many steps do you do and are you fit?

We’re refitting our letterbox. Are there any things about letterboxes you really hate?

@ETgo there's usually a toilet somewhere on the round, I've found most places let the postie use their toilet. The places I've used are shops, care homes, bookies, cafes, supermarkets, gyms, pubs. But I think your body gets used to not going to the toilet for the 4/5hrs that you're out because 99% of the time I don't go even though I'm drinking water throughout the day.

Do you like your job? What time do you start in the morning and what time do you finish?

Is your round anything like the Robin Askwith Confessions of a Postman 70s sex comedy?

@rachelinindia walk between 10-12 miles a day
@OldJoseph Around 25000. No I'm not fit at all. I think because you do the same amount of walking everyday it just becomes the norm to your body so you probably get a bit fitter than when you started but not actually fit. I get out of breath just walking up stairs in blocks of flats. A lot of people I work with are very overweight so I don't think being a postie makes you fit.
@Coldhandscoldheart yes I HATE the letterboxes which are lowdown near the floor, also narrow ones which you struggle to post anything through are annoying especially if you have a parcel which would have gone through if it was slightly wider.

@Findingdotty I do like my job yeah, I don't love it but it's much better than other jobs I've had. It's nice being out by yourself without a manager breathing down your neck and I much prefer it to the office jobs I've done as I don't really like being around people and prefer to work by myself. It's really hard work though, physically exhausting and there's a lot you have to think about and remember throughout the day as well.
@PanGalaticGargleBlaster I don't even know what that is lol

Do you like your job? What time do you start in the morning and what time do you finish?

Oh and I start at 9.00 and finish between 14.30 and 15.30 depending on how busy it is. At Christmas it can be 16.00 or even later but as I'm only on a 25hr contract I am entitled to work 9.00-14.00 if I wish. You usually end up having an argument with managers over this though as they don't like people working their hours and it's expected of you to do overtime to complete the round. You'll always win the argument as you just involve the union rep but it can be stressful if you wanted to do this everyday.

Do you hate the houses with dogs? Our regular postie loves our dogs, but the guy who covers him hates them. He won’t even walk up next door’s garden if our dogs are the other side of the fence. Trouble is, we don’t know when he’s going to be doing the round instead of the normal bloke, and he gets to ours around 9.30am whereas normal postie is there about 11.30am. At this time of year when I’m in the garden all day, it’s a bit unavoidable! If I’m in the garden though, he doesn’t even need to come through the gate because I’ll go down and meet him to get post off him. I can’t help but feel he’s in the wrong job but maybe we’ve just got used to our regular guy.

I was just about to ask about dogs too!

How much do you earn if you don’t mind me asking?
Do you have to have a drivers licence to do it?

@meel well I absolutely love dogs so going to the houses with friendly dogs are the highlights of my day and one of my favourite parts of the job. But it's also a massive hazard of the job too, I don't think there's any postie who hasn't been attacked, bitten or had a near miss with a dog and one man was almost killed by a Rottweiler a few years ago. We do a lot of training on this and it's really stressed to us to never go into a garden where there's a dog or into garden where a door is open in case a dog comes out. If you're on a job regularly you get to know the dogs and where they are so it's not so scary but if you get moved onto different jobs you don't know you always feel a bit apprehensive going into every garden.

Is it tough doing the job in this heat (not sure which part of the country you’re in).

And is it also tough when it’s freezing cold or torrential rain?

I have a question about post offices - I sent a parcel to Australia which had a bottle of gin in it. I signed the import form as "gin" and they accepted it. It was delivered to me the following day saying that it couldn't go air freight because it was gin.

Can I get my money back for the air mail posting? The postmaster must have known it wasn't ok for sending when she accepted it.

Gutted, it cost a fortune to post, too!

@Frosty66612 I'm part time and earn around 270 a week but it varies depending on how much overtime I do.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria sorry I don't know about that sort of thing I don't deal with anything like that

Is it very male oriented? You mentioned having to remember other things throughout the day, what are they?

Oh and yes you need a drivers licence I don't think they take on non drivers at all now I could be wrong but they don't at my office anyway.

@ImAGoofyGoober it was very male orientated but they've taken on a lot more women in the past few years, we're catching up now but nowhere near 50/50. Other things we have to remember throughout the day are - where the 1pm special deliveries are and plan route around getting to all these on time this is mega important and you risk loosing your job if you don't do this right. Collect mail from certain post boxes/post offices and some of these have time frames to stick to. Remember where all parcels are for when walking round with mail. Plan route to deliver the large parcels around that won't fit in bags. DOGS, where are they/where could they be this has to be ok your mind at ALL times!

Losing not loosing. My spelling and grammar is really shite I'm sorry

@Frosty66612 yes it's so hard doing this job in the heat it drains all your energy and you spend most of the day waking round sweating feeling like you're going to collapse. I'd say is easier than rain tho as you're freezing and your letters turn to mush and you can't push them though the letterboxes also you get people complaining their mail is wet when there really is nothing you can do about it

Do you really hate the people who obviously buy EVERYTHING off eBay / Amazon and so have at least 4 packages a day....