Postal and Delivery Workers
Deliver goods and mail by light vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, and on foot.
A parcel rush before Christmas
You are a delivery driver for a courier depot in the last week before Christmas, with a full van and a long list of drops. It is 11am and the van is packed to the roof. There are more parcels than hours, the depot keeps adding stops, and you will have to decide what to do when the easy option and the right one split apart.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
Oh, you are early. I have to run out. The parcel needs my signature, but could you just leave it by the door and scan it as delivered? My neighbour will see it, no one comes down here.
Leave it by the door as asked and scan it, since she has said she is happy with that
The parcel is gone by the time she gets home. It was a signed item, and without a signature the company cannot show it was delivered. The blame comes back to you.
Ask if her neighbour can sign, and if not, take it back and leave a card
The neighbour signs, the record is correct, and she is pleased. If no one had been home, a card and a second attempt would have been fine. A signature protects both of you.
Wait on the doorstep for ten minutes and hope she returns
She does not come back in time, and you have lost ten minutes you cannot afford. The parcel goes back on the van, and the next three customers wait longer.
We have a new urgent drop for you, a pharmacy order for an elderly customer on Rimu Street, about twenty minutes off your route. Can you fit it in? Your afternoon drops will run late.
Decline it because your route is already full, you are already behind, and the sums do not work
Nobody can fault you for protecting your round, but the order sits until someone else is free. You could have said what you could manage and let dispatch decide.
Accept it and tell dispatch which afternoon customers will be late so they can warn them
Dispatch messages the customers who will be delayed and moves two drops to another driver. The pharmacy order arrives within the hour. Saying what a change costs is what makes it workable.
Accept it quietly and hope you can catch up without anyone noticing
The urgent order gets there, but by four o'clock six customers are wondering where their parcels are. You rushed the rest of the round and made two small mistakes.
You nearly ran over my dog! The gate was open for a minute. Why are you driving so fast down our street? I am going to complain to your depot about the speed you were doing.
Say you were only going the limit and she should have shut the gate
She is angry at being blamed and the complaint goes in. Even if you were within the limit, a near miss is not the moment to argue about who was right.
Offer to leave the parcel and go, without discussing the dog
You avoid the argument, but she still feels brushed off, and the complaint goes ahead. A moment of listening would have saved an awkward call with your supervisor.
Apologise for the scare, check the dog is fine, and say you will slow down in the street
She calms down when she is listened to. The dog is fine, and she does not complain after all. You also notice you had been rushing. A calm round is a safer round.
How it went
You finished the round late, with an honest record of what was delivered and what was not. Delivery is a job of routes, rules and thousands of small encounters with strangers. How would you feel about being out on the road, mostly alone, but with a whole community to look after?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The letterbox that was always full
A fictional case set in a suburban postal and parcel round in a fictional regional town, by van, motorbike and on foot.
The situation
Habib had delivered mail to the same street in Wattle Creek for three years. One week he noticed that the letterbox at number 14 was overflowing for the first time. Its owner, Mr Pearce, an older man who lived alone, usually emptied it every day and waved from the verandah. The curtains were drawn, the newspaper was still on the path, and there was no contact number on the box. Habib had thirty more stops and a tight finish time.
What they did
Habib knocked and called out, then looked for other signs without going onto the property. He tried the neighbour at number 12, who had not seen Mr Pearce since Sunday. Habib rang his supervisor, who contacted the local police for a welfare check. He then went back to the round, a little late, with a note in his book about what he had seen.
How it turned out
Police found Mr Pearce had gone to hospital after a fall and had no way to tell anyone. His niece in another city was contacted. She thanked Habib in a card left in the box a few weeks later, and the depot asked other posties to watch for similar signs.
What would you do?
- Would you have stopped when you had thirty stops left and a finish time to meet?
- What is the difference between being helpful and overstepping on someone's property?
- Who else in a community notices when something is wrong?