I was a postie for about 18 months, quite recently. I had mixed feelings about it. A few things (actually, on preview, quite a lot of things):
Every postie who has been there any length of time will tell you it's very different than it used to be. Different = worse. They used to have their own rounds, and work independently - now it's done with two posties sharing a van to cover an area, which means having to compromise on pace and working habits, because usually one will be faster than the other. That was a downgrade, and none of those who had worked there before liked the change (but felt stuck, because they'd been a postie for 20 years, so where else were they going to go?) The rounds are also a lot longer than they used to be - often 600-700 doors in urban areas, and the pace of work is generally very high. The majority of posties seem to want to get done asap (even the part timers, whose interest it is in to work slower..!), but then there are some who prefer to work like it's 1950 and take their time, who annoyed management and often their faster round partner.
The longer term posties are on full time contracts, so the pay is decent. But in recent years all new hires have been on part time contracts (usually around 25 hours), though you're expected to work as many hours as needed to get through that day's mail. What that looks like is, in summer, when the mail load is light, you only work (and get paid for) 25 hours. Same with holiday pay. In winter it's more like 33 hours, with the heavier mail load. It's something that works purely in the company's favour, and sort of sums up their attitude to staffing now. Even 33 hours pay isn't loads. I think I averaged about 15k a year, while working very hard for it.
Summer was great - light bags, quick rounds, easy days, and time in the sunshine. Winters were hard going, and a different job - very heavy bags, crap weather, long, hard days. It did at least cure my SAD, being outside for every hour of sunlight.
How much I enjoyed the job was also dependent on which round I was working. I was based in a poor, inner city area, and all the nicer rounds further out were given to people who had worked there donkeys' years, They are allocated on seniority, so you had no hope of ending up with one unless you worked there 15+ years. Being given any kind of permanent round meant being there years - newer joiners were shuffled around wherever they were needed that day or week. Enjoyment was also dependent on who I was working with. There were some seriously grumpy bastards there who were no fun to be stuck in a van with. I've worked in a number of environments and there were a lot more angry, dissatisfied people at RM than elsewhere, and that isn't great to be around every day. It wears on you. I think our depot was particularly bad for that, but it was my impression that it's a component of the company as a whole nowadays.
I figured the main problem is that senior management do not give a hoot about RM's employees (including middle management), so every single decision is based on money, to the extent that actual sensible working practices have been scrapped to everybody's detriment (staff and customers). E.g, they used to have a small surplus of staff to cover unforeseen absences across the local region and ensure good coverage - they've been scrapped to save money. That means anytime someone takes sick leave, everyone else's workload goes up to cover it and staff get shuffled last minute in a bit of chaos, and that makes everybody grumpy because they're already working their butts off. Worse, chronic understaffing seemed to be an actual policy, so that it was nigh impossible to be granted any annual leave given that there was no one to cover it. That, of course, leads to lots of staff sickness. I can't remember the actual rate of staff absence but it was ridiculously high. That created more stress for everyone else, which created more absences, and so it went; everything was a mess. Middle management seemed to spend their lives running around like headless chickens putting out fires and being crapped on from above, and trying to calm down posties who were fed up of being messed about and had no qualms in expressing that in strong language. No fun. Proper staff coverage would have solved a lot of problems.
The union seemed to have become pretty irrelevant, too. I didn't see them actually do anything, and they've let the T&Cs become really poor by this stage, so presumably don't wield much real power.
I liked it in summer, because I was working five hour days and getting a tan for it, albeit for very little money. I liked it when I was on a scenic round, and imagine it would be a very different job somewhere rural than it is at an inner city depot at the "bad" end of town. I liked being fit, and feeling like I'd genuinely earned my money each day - there was a nice satisfaction to that. Hated the dogs. Was annoyed by people who didn't understand how hard we were working and yelled at us for not knocking (I always knocked, but nobody believes you). Felt depressed in some streets, stepping over broken glass and dog crap. Couldn't abide the company culture. I ended up very stressed being there, probably because I didn't have a thick enough skin to withstand all the crap bits, but I wouldn't have wanted to stay in that kind of work environment any longer than I did even if I could withstand it.
I did end up a lot fitter than I started out, though. And with very sexy legs.