Post Boy Jobsworth

As well as the crazies out on the street there is always weird people around you eight hours a day at your work.

The "post boy" in my office is over fifty years old and I can’t figure out if he’d always been a post-room boy or if he’s ever held a position of authority and is just happy now with an easy gig. He wears plain white shirts and a very old tie. His shirt pocket is always pulled down by his heavy security tag which no-one else has and I don’t think he actually needs, and also a row of pens. He walks around with an air of superiority as if he knows that without him we would be unable to function. No, we'd just find someone else.

He supplies the basics of our office like paper for the copier and printers and stationary and gets the post collected and sent out. He has one of these multi functional trolleys which can be used upright to lift single heavy items or down on four wheels to transport the many stationary orders he gets.

I think he is a little "over proud" of his job and his little trolley as he frequently travels through the building with the stationary stacked as high as he can possibly get it. Boxes of paper at the bottom and paper clips at the top. Like thin pyramids. I am praying for the day the whole lot topples over in the middle of the office, with reams of paper bursting open and many boxes of small items breaking open and spilling their loads all over the place. That would be bliss.

If someone has not used the correct and acceptable "code" on the stationary order, he'll come and tell you all about it. "White window envelope, small" is not good enough. He'll read through the order standing beside you and not only advise you of the correct terminology for the numerous envelopes available, but also correct your spelling as well.

When the printer runs out of toner, he'll turn up some hours later, if not the next day and shake the toner, telling us it's not done yet and we can still get some use out of it. Then when it really starts churning out unuseable letters, he'll only then order another, saying it might be in tomorrow. He doesn't think to have some ready at all, in this large office with various printers on each floor.

When he goes around collecting stationary orders he goes to each photocopier and kicks the boxes to see how full they are, sometimes with a little laugh as if to say "they want more paper, that's typical." Or if someone tries to hand him an envelope to be posted while he is actually collecting the post, he doesn't just take it from them, oh no, he'll tilt his head back as if looking down his nose at it and take a few seconds to decide whether he is going to take it from them, like he's deciding if your letter is worthy of being posted or not.

I have seen him pick up letters which are obviously personal or a birthday card which the person has not stamped themselves and hold it up, inspect it and say "tch tch" before dropping it in his basket. Oh yeah, that should definitely be reported, someone bastard ripping the company off for 30p.

In the past he has moaned about people using the wrong envelope for the size of letter being sent, and once he actually visited each team during their weekly meeting to perform a talk on the various envelope options and which ones we should be using and actually gave us a frigging demonstration of each envelope. He'll only permit use of the large gusset envelopes if all avenues have been exhausted, which includes him showing you your file being stuffed into an envelope which is obviously too small, until it rips and he concedes that he needs to use the slightly more expensive one.

It wouldn’t surprise me if he was getting paid more than me. I just wish he’d just do his job and do what we tell him to do. However, he is a source of entertainment for me, and now you.