Honestly, similar goes for Post Office. Of course the respect levels have always been a bit different - long queues and female-led, often non-white staff… but like most customer-facing jobs it’s become worse, and when it was sold off it meant less hours, less pay and all that. It’s effectively separated newer workers from the CWU as well.

Like banking, they tend to want a certain type of responsible person but where they used to pay good wages for that, you’re basically on minimum wage now. I’ve had people come in before who assume that you have a nice comfortable job when they’re yelling at you, and of course a lot of people think you’re a “professional” who can sign their ID forms. But basically it’s glorified retail with a lot more responsibility.

Despite that the job has only got harder. Less regular post, but a lot more independent businesses sending hundreds of parcels. Passport check and send, online passports, driving licences, international drivers licences, currency exchange, business banking. And of course since the banks have all shut that aspect has trebled and lot of regular people do their banking at post office. Some have set up Amazon post, and for those you have to actually wrap the package.

The company only pays enough hours to have 2-3 people work in a day, and most of them won’t be in all day. One all day, one morning, one evening. So probably only one person there when the other is at lunch, or taking the post down. Many people queuing for the post office only need a minute. But a lot of these processes take 15+ minutes. A short queue could last an hour and a long queue could be 5 mins. Not all of them have a drop-off option.

They often only give 12-20 hour contracts like most retailers on the high street. There is some expectations for people to work overtime - however, their demand for trustworthy responsible employees who are willing to live off a 12-20 hour contract means that they largely hire mums who are supporting a full-time husband. Ergo, the kids come first, little Shabnam gets picked up from school at 3, and her sister has piano lessons, and Rosa has a newborn and can’t do mornings or stay late because it’s feeding time.

Naturally like retail they don’t want you to clock in/out too far from your official times, and your work hours are the same as store opening hours. No extra time for cleaning or cash ups. But the cash ups can take up to 15 mins. All these big cash transactions since the bank closed can take much longer. So you’ll see them close the bureau at 4:30 to do that cash, and often cash ups their tills before closing. And closing is only a little after most people finish work, so that’s a lot of unhappy people.

And then all this frustration means that angry people are looking for reasons to get angrier at you. You’re in a shop but can’t sell them the deals. They think that people taking the post down or doing office work “aren’t working” and “should be helping on till coz it’s busy”, as if there would be any point to customers coming in at all if the post wasn’t getting taken away and the paperwork and banking weren’t being done. And the longer someone has been standing in a queue the longer they feel entitled to stand there arguing and holding everybody else up.

Elsewhere due to apps and the internet there’s a lack of accountability and process. But it just seems to mean people in front facing roles have to bear the brunt of everybody else’s issues. So the PO staff don’t just take complaints about the PO and themselves, but about the banks, bill companies, passport companies, Royal Mail and Amazon…

Sometimes lifts break or computers shut down, and they have a bill that needed to be paid today and that’s going to be your fault.