Each month Robert Hruzek sets a topic for a group writing project in the theme of “What I Learned From” and this month it is WILF Odd Jobs.

I thought about it and all of my jobs have been pretty mainstream. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Then I remembered my time as a postman ( or woman ) or as is commonly known here in these parts a “postie”.

I have never worked for a Post Office though. But I did work for one of the major banks in the UK ( and now the whole world!) and, as the junior member of the team, it was my responsibility to deliver bank statements by hand. Now this was not a personalised service to make the customer feel good as in - “Here is your bank statement Mr Blah and thank you so much for being a customer of our esteemed bank”. No - this was a money saving exercise!

The area in the city where the bank branch was situated was surrounded by what are called tenements - blocks of flats ( apartments ) with a shared door entry ( known as “stairs”) and on each landing 3 or 4 flats. Some of these were built as far back as the late 1800s and some were more modern but not by much.

Some of the maintenance of the stairs was wonderful - clean, well maintained steps - and others were not! I seemed to have to deliver to a fair proportion of customers in the latter properties.

Add to this that everyone seemed to live on the top floor and I am sure you can get a picture of how much I enjoyed this aspect of my job.

But I was the junior and in those days even the older employees did what they were told! So each week , on delivery day, I would gather up the envelopes, which I had stuffed myself with the statements which were sent from HQ, and set off. Depending on the weather there could be an upside - like a walk round the gardens on the way back on a sunny day .

I learned to just grit my teeth and get on with it. Someday a new member of staff would join and it would become their job.

After a series of “mishaps” though things had to change.

I mentioned the maintenance - or lack of it - and on one occasion I stumbled on a worn step twisting my ankle. Some stairs were filthy and smelly - goodness knows what the properties behind the doors were like! Another time a huge heavy entrance door decided to snap shut on my hand - more bruising. Then there was the creepy guy who came out of his flat onto the landing and watched me go upstairs and all the way back down ( I “lost” the statement for that customer in the next round - no way I was going back there). The final straw was when a huge dog grabbed the statement as soon as I put it through the letterbox coming dangerously close to taking my fingers with it.

I want to be clear here. I liked the manager and the team I was working with. They were good people. But when I raised the issue of my safety ( oh how the laws on employee health and safety have changed over the years) I was met with silence. There was no clarity on who would be responsible for me outside the branch on bank business. I decided that enough was enough and told the manager so.

And that was it. No I wasn’t fired ( though I am sure it must have crossed his mind. He had had a quiet life til I turned up on his staff). I was never asked to deliver statements again. And neither was the new junior who joined a couple of months later.

I moved on from that job after 9 months. I learned lots while I was there but the main lesson to me was that if I believed something was wrong/unfair I should say something about it . I have done so since  though not always with the same result . Something else I have learned is  that I am not always right !!!