I had to work 6 hours a day delivering junk mail. Mainly for restaurants, charities, insurance adverts, health policies, gift ideas. It was horror work. Real mindless wheel spinning mouse cage stuff- humiliated for a lump of industrial orange cheese. If only I knew.
It took two hours to get all the junk together. Sometimes 5 or 6 pieces of toilet paper per household, and the possibility of 500 or 600 households, altogether, amounting to 5000 or 6000 leaflets. The walks could take up to 3 hours even longer if the weather was bad, if you had ‘natural’ delays, like having your breakfast, arguing with the slave owner, slipping on a dog shit, in front of the circus of pedestrians.
Today I had to put in over time. I was over by 3 hours. The boss said: I could get a paraplegic to deliver faster than that. I could convince a donkey to run the fucking grand national, if we were all as slow as you. Three fucking hours, over time; what do you think this is, a bank? You’ll have to quit if this keeps up. Seriously, my grandmother has been dying slower than you.
What a cunt. He was always full of shit humour. Thought he was a stand up comedian. He was more like a cog in an engine. A spare part in a junk yard. A wooden spoon in a silverware box. A dildo made of marzipan. Like masturbating with a pitch fork. A midget in a stampede – useless. A little fascist with his monthly salary and managers handbook. And me, the petulant attitude and hourly rate, and over time. He talks to me like talking down to a rectal passage. His face and nose scrunched in disgust. Like I was his illegitimate child letting it slip that I love him. Like a dunce who knew the answer to a complex algebraic question. You get the fucking photograph, the portraiture, the antagonistic love festival between us.
Well you see boss. It takes near 2 hours to sort all the leaflets, then over three hours to walk the route, and I’m supposed to get a 15 minute break, and I haven’t had one for over a year, and you just expected me to overlook walking for an extra three hours. It’s raining out there. I have over 200 flats , four stories high, in a 600 household walk. That’s like a walking a fucking marathon everyday. Surely you…
You telling me you can’t handle the job? Is that it? There’s hundreds of men and women out there willing to work without a whimper to earn their money Son. And you come in here all high and mighty, complaining like you’ve been burying corpses in the fucking Gulag. Cheek. You don’t know you’re living son. You’re just not good enough at the job. How come no one else puts in three hours over time, eh?
They know they’ll be on watch for the sack if they do. They know it looks bad. It’s catch 22. If we claim over time, our jobs on the line, so we don’t claim over time, then you think the system is working; then you add on more leaflets, then the over time extends, but hardly any one claims, and they are all going mad out on the streets. All going mad when they get home. All grinding against each other, all screaming blue murder at each other, cause of the stress – murder the Queen, the boss, your Sister. This is meant to be a small delivery service, not training for the fucking Territorial Army.
Look Son, I’ve got a meeting to go to, put in an hour over time this week, but no more, you hear. No more. Or I’ll get my wife down to walk your route and show you up as a wee fairy complaining his balls are chaffing against his thighs. Now go put the over time sheet in, and bare in mind, I’ll be watching your time keeping from now on.
Fuck sake. The rage boiled in me. I was a kettle ripe for scolding. I walked out his office, out of the sorting office, outside, and the sky was thick grey, like a world full of smokers puffing it up. The trees too, hung down, like manic depressives; and the roads were black tar, and the pavements grey tar. I would be happy now for every one to be swept away by a tidal wave, succumb to a sleeping epidemic, die of cancer in this grey but gold city.
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