Apr
12
What I learned from Odd Jobs
Filed Under Career development, Learning, World of Work, lessons learned
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 !!!
Jackie, a wonderful post to show all you learned delivering messages to these tenement homes. I believe I see in your wonderful spirit a deep sense of social justice that may very well have had its roots here. Thoughts?
Thank you for your comment, Robyn. Your question has truly made me think and I will follow this up with separate post on the topic.
Yikes, Jackie; I think the dog would have done it for me! How things have changed, eh?
I worked for a local post office myself for a short while. Thanks for the memory jog - now I’ll have to write about it for sure!
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Bob - is there no end to your talents? Thanks for giving us such a great WILF topic this time round.
I’ll be curious to see that follow-up post about how this experience changed your views on social justice.
I am thinking about it, Mark and was chatting with a long time friend about it today. I will post in the next couple of days.
Thanks for coming by my blog. I am looking forward to reading all of this months entries on yours and Bob’s sites.
lots of great stories this time jackie - yours reminds me of one i had just after my divorce - a filing job for a crazy pediatrician - it took me no time at all to destroy the entire system they had by filing all the p’s and d’s incorrectly along with the b’s and the q’s - i have never seen so many files in my life.
Well ME - I think sometimes systems need to be “reworked” - you don’t say whether your efforts were for better or worse though. And I suppose that really depends on whose point of view you are looking at it from
Thanks for coming by
Jackie
[…] What I Learned from Odd Jobs by Jackie Cameron who wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself when the bank asked her to do something that was dangerous. […]
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