The Heroic Post Team
It started like any other day. Only it was different. I walked through the door into the office and had to climb over post bags. That wasn’t standard practice. Usually I could sidestep the responsib-uhh... I mean I could avoid falling over the bags and get to my desk without incident. Five minutes it took me to get from door to desk, avoiding bags and people swinging bags over their shoulders somewhat recklessly. There had been a huge backlog, because the public had been informed of the cost of an application going up and therefore hastened to get theirs in before the deadline. This is where the Post Team becomes an incredible machine capable of churning out more than three million applications a minute.
Approaching my desk, I realised I had the arduous task of walking the entire length of the office to get to my locker. Some bright spark in January had decided that it was wise to give someone a locker absolutely nowhere near where his workstation was. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to let this bother me, as I had much more important things to deal with. Breakfast, well, the latest incarnation of a couple of burnt sausages and some soggy toast, were my priority at this point. I devoured this with an air of resignation, as I knew that if breakfast started bad, day started bad. And boy did the breakfast disappoint.
I had a job to do. Or rather, the team had a job to do, together. This backlog wasn’t going to clear itself, so I quickly got to work hauling a bag of post onto my desk. I let it fall onto the desk with a satisfying thud, made all the more satisfying by the sound of my cup and some other stuff making clangy noises as they hit. I am easily pleased. Content with the racket I was making, I made progress into the work I had to do, and soon I, and the rest of the team were in full flow. Slowly but steadily, the pile of bags went down, and our morale went up. Temporarily. This was happening day by day on the post team, an inhuman amount of bags of post, eventually conquered by a mammoth team effort, only to have to start again the next day. Luckily, we had our trusty public alcohol providing facility around the corner, and it really aided us through the days of the backlog. We’ll call it ‘The Great Bagstorm’ as it was literally hundreds of bags a week.
I take immense satisfaction from working as a part of this team, not only because of the way we work, but the way we get on with each other. The banter and laughter on the team is immense, and at the moment I wouldn’t change it for anything. For instance, today, one of my colleagues (who won’t be named because it’s somewhat embarrassing) burped and farted at the same time, resulting in the entire team falling about in fits of giggles. Me especially, as the person who did it was standing not too far away from me. This team now means a lot to me, through the adversity of ‘The Great Bagstorm’ I learned the true meaning of teamwork. It’s not something that can be taught, as much as any trainer or tutor will try to drum into their students, it’s about getting on with people, finding a particular chemistry between them and using each others strengths and weaknesses to ultimately pursue the teams goals.
Approaching my desk, I realised I had the arduous task of walking the entire length of the office to get to my locker. Some bright spark in January had decided that it was wise to give someone a locker absolutely nowhere near where his workstation was. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to let this bother me, as I had much more important things to deal with. Breakfast, well, the latest incarnation of a couple of burnt sausages and some soggy toast, were my priority at this point. I devoured this with an air of resignation, as I knew that if breakfast started bad, day started bad. And boy did the breakfast disappoint.
I had a job to do. Or rather, the team had a job to do, together. This backlog wasn’t going to clear itself, so I quickly got to work hauling a bag of post onto my desk. I let it fall onto the desk with a satisfying thud, made all the more satisfying by the sound of my cup and some other stuff making clangy noises as they hit. I am easily pleased. Content with the racket I was making, I made progress into the work I had to do, and soon I, and the rest of the team were in full flow. Slowly but steadily, the pile of bags went down, and our morale went up. Temporarily. This was happening day by day on the post team, an inhuman amount of bags of post, eventually conquered by a mammoth team effort, only to have to start again the next day. Luckily, we had our trusty public alcohol providing facility around the corner, and it really aided us through the days of the backlog. We’ll call it ‘The Great Bagstorm’ as it was literally hundreds of bags a week.
I take immense satisfaction from working as a part of this team, not only because of the way we work, but the way we get on with each other. The banter and laughter on the team is immense, and at the moment I wouldn’t change it for anything. For instance, today, one of my colleagues (who won’t be named because it’s somewhat embarrassing) burped and farted at the same time, resulting in the entire team falling about in fits of giggles. Me especially, as the person who did it was standing not too far away from me. This team now means a lot to me, through the adversity of ‘The Great Bagstorm’ I learned the true meaning of teamwork. It’s not something that can be taught, as much as any trainer or tutor will try to drum into their students, it’s about getting on with people, finding a particular chemistry between them and using each others strengths and weaknesses to ultimately pursue the teams goals.