I'm into my 12th year now and I turn 52 this month and I seriously need to aim not to do another Christmas at Royal Mail.
The minimum wage is going up a hell of a lot faster than our pathetic 2-3% we get each year so realistically this WILL be a minimum wage job within 5 years.
The hours are literally the only positives I can think of now, for the rest I'm constantly tired, especially on a Saturday night when it's my night to go out or do something fun, I ache a lot, suffer with back issues, I've already had 3 bouts of tonsillitis and 2 lots of chest bugs this year of which the doctor has told me I'm literally run down,. I got treated like crap by the managers for being off for only 2 days last week because I was so poorly and the value in us from them is ZERO. This attitude is probably the icing on the cake.
I'm off to get my class 2 HGV in the summer, not everyone's cuppa but I know friends in my area which have done this and they only do day work only, lots of local work delivering food etc and get a full weekend off and earn £250 more a week what I get which probably means I can retire 7-8 years earlier than I would if I stay as a postie ( that's even if I can still do the job). They also have much more energy having moved from physical jobs.
Time to take control of me now and not just depend on this job. A few years ago I was scared of the grass not being greener but there is literally nothing to stick around for nowadays. Shame cos I did love this job.