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In order to be successful in the mailing business you must

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In order to be successful in the mailing business you must

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Get in shape before applying to the USPS. According to the BLS, applicants must demonstrate their ability to lift 50 pounds and walk for an entire shift without injuring themselves. Developing a physical fitness routine will be beneficial while still in school or before applying.
Step 2.The USPS requires that applicants pass the 473 Postal Exam. This is a written exam that tests applicants in four different areas, including address cross comparison, forms completion, memory and coding, and personal characteristics and experience. This exam is about 2 hours and 15 minutes long.

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Though their working day is over, there are still four or five postmen - and today they are all men - milling around the Northfield depot in south-west Birmingham. It is Thursday lunchtime, and the mood is jovial. Dave O'Neill tries to say hello, while his workmates chip in with some gentle mockery about "Paddy's" age, appearance, character and professional ability. "It's come from school," he explains about the nickname. "Some of the office call me Paddy, and the other half call me Dave. My wife does not call me Paddy."

At his sorting frame - a desk surrounded by a honeycomb of slots, one for each address on his walk - he points to an aged photograph of all the depot staff dressed as bikers for a charity event. "We pulled an old Morris Minor Royal Mail van from here into Birmingham for Guide Dogs for the Blind," he says. O'Neill himself, I notice, is pictured in drag in the role of a biker's (or the whole gang's) girlfriend. "They're terrible for ripping it out of each other," he shrugs. "It leads to a relatively happy atmosphere."

And yet some of this camaraderie between postmen, he says, has been lost since Royal Mail's switch, in 2004, to single daily deliveries. Besides missing out on their shared half-hour's break each morning as they waited for the second batch to arrive, O'Neill and his colleagues now have more houses on their rounds, which means more slots on their desks to sort post into.

"We didn't have the big frames that go round you and sort of enclose you then," he says, showing me how he and the others can no longer make eye contact as they sort their post. "It did take longer to do than it does now. I'd sit here, prepping it, and the next bloke would be sitting there next to me, prepping his walk. So you could always keep that banter going. In one respect, you've lost a lot of that, but that's just progress." He sounds sad, but acquiescent.

Nowadays, a typical morning at the depot begins a little later, at 6am, when O'Neill and the others take up position in their booths and begin sorting the day's letters into the order of their walks. With 669 addresses on his round, and roughly 1,500 items to deliver each day, that usually takes O'Neill about three-and-a-half hours. This is the boring bit.

"Then it's going out to your round," he says, and his face brightens, "walking round for another three-and-a-half or four hours ... And you've got no one looking over your shoulder. Once you're out you're your own gaffer." What is more, O'Neill has been walking the same 12-mile series of streets, including his own, every single day for the past 12 years, so he has built up a particularly close relationship with almost everyone in the area.

"Some of the kids, I've seen them go to infant school, and now I'm seeing them go off to work," he says with pride. As a result, all his neighbours are familiar with his weakness for the dressing-up box, from which he plucks a different costume to deliver his round in once a year. "People now expect that," he says, as if this were a burden. And how would he react if the powers-that-be were to change his round one day? "It would be like cutting an arm off!" he exclaims. "How dare they!"

Being so deeply rooted among his customers, of course, can also make his job feel worse as well as better. "It's nice to make people's day sometimes, bringing them parcels and birthday cards," he says. "But you have to be careful with cards occasionally. You'll take the card to someone and say, 'Whose birthday is it?' And they go, 'Oh, my husband died.' That happened to me a long time ago. And it's awkward when you go up a path and the funeral is that day, and all you've got in your hand is a gas bill." He buries his head in the crook of his arm.

In total, O'Neill has now worked for Royal Mail for nearly 29 years, having joined as an 18-year-old who had found himself less than ecstatic with his job in a builder's merchant's. He sat some basic aptitude tests - "Which were nothing really, to be honest. How people didn't pass I don't know" - and was accepted into a sorting job at Birmingham's old mail centre. When the time came for him to settle down, he chose to try his hand at delivery. "And I've been stuck here ever since," he grins.

And I have to ask. I begin ... "Have I ever been bitten?" he interrupts, unerringly. "I got bit about two years ago. Yes, I have actually been bitten by a dog. It does happen. It was only a little Jack Russell, and as I walked past, he bit the back of my ankle. But it was only a little nip. You get more trouble from behind the letterboxes. There's one house where I put the letter just about that much through the box, and the dog straight away pulls it in. I never put my fingers through."

Letterboxes, of course - though few of the rest of us even notice them - are a source of fascination to O'Neill, who has got to know the difficult ones on his own round like familiar enemies. Old-fashioned letterboxes, for instance, of which he has a few to contend with, are much too small. This is because they were made in the days when there were only postcards and small letters to deal with, leaving them quite unsuited to the large and variously shaped objects that make their way through the modern postal system.

Which is not to say that O'Neill is always a fan of the latest letterboxes either. The models, for instance, that have been fitted to a new set of addresses on his walk are a source of unceasing aggravation. "The brushes behind those doors are so strong," he complains, with genuine outrage, "you cannot push a letter through without either bending the letter or pushing it through with your hands. It physically will not go ... They certainly don't think about us postmen. The only good thing is that the letterbox is in the middle of the door, not at the bottom."

How about junk mail? Is that a modern innovation he approves of? "Junk mail? We don't use that phrase," he replies with mock reproach. "It's direct mail now ... And it must work, otherwise they wouldn't keep sending it." But doesn't he feel bad about dumping the stuff on the majority of his neighbours that it doesn't work on? "No, because without that direct mail I wouldn't be in a job. It is really big business for Royal Mail. Actual mail that the everyday person posts is a very small amount now ... Without it, my round would probably double in size, because I wouldn't have half the work that I have now."

For anyone who doesn't like junk mail, but does like their postman, O'Neill has discovered a good compromise. "I had a chap who used to say to me, 'I'm sick of this mail,'" he says. "And nine times out of 10 there'd be a prepaid envelope inside, so what he used to do was to take out that envelope, stuff all the stuff back in it, and post it back to them. So I'm thinking, Well that's great, because we've got the revenue for it coming out, and we've got the revenue for it going back again. Keep on doing it!"

Like many postmen, in fact, O'Neill also distributes some unaddressed leaflets as part of his round for some extra cash, often on behalf of pizza companies. "And three people have specifically written in to ask not to receive them," he grumbles cheerfully. "So I've got special instructions not to deliver leaflets to these three addresses. Whereas I was getting 669 leaflets, I now get 666. So to my mind, those three people have cost me 5p a week!" He pretends to be scandalised, still impressively jolly for a man who was up at 5am.

In fact he must go to bed early, I observe, as we get up to leave. "About 11pm most days," he says. So that means he only gets about five or six hours' sleep? "You'll find a lot of postmen who like to go and lie down for an hour in the afternoon," he says, as if letting me into a trade secret. "After a while it does catch up, so I get a couple of hours' kip in the afternoon every now and again. If the wife lets me."

Curriculum vitae

Pay Approximately £400-£420 a week, including allowances for starting early, leaflet earnings and overtime.

Hours 48 hours a week.

Best thing "Just being out on the road, meeting your customers. No one looking over your shoulder."

Worst thing "When it's absolutely pouring down with rain, and you're coming into work, and you know you're in for a bad day because the Sky magazines are coming in."

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A working life: Dave O'Neill, the postman

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Though their working day is over, there are still four or five postmen - and today they are all men - milling around the Northfield depot in south-west Birmingham. It is Thursday lunchtime, and the mood is jovial. Dave O'Neill tries to say hello, while his workmates chip in with some gentle mockery about "Paddy's" age, appearance, character and professional ability.

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you get Compensation, Health Insurance, Dental and Vision insurance, Flexible spending Accounts, Long -Term Care insurance, Retirement, Thrift saving plan, Social Security & Medicare, Life insurance, Commuter Program, Leave, Holidays, And career development & Training.

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The Postal Service® offers a competitive compensation benefits package.

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Education Level | High school diploma or equivalent
Licensure/Certification | Postal exam; driver's license with safe driving record; criminal background check and drug test; US citizenship
Key Skills | Customer service; detail-oriented; strong work ethic; physical stamina

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When you excitedly wait for the post to arrive, do you ever stop and think about how it gets to you? With over 80 million items to deliver to 27 million addresses, the Royal Mail could always do with a helping hand.

So if you don't mind early starts, love the thought of plenty of exercise every day and fancy finishing by mid afternoon, you might want to check out a public sector career as a postman/woman.

So, what will I actually be doing?

Exactly what it says on the tin, you'll be collecting and delivering post. Not for people that want a relaxed job, you're bound to be kept busy, especially during the holidays of Christmas and Easter, as well as the made-up celebrations like Valentines Day.

As a postman/woman you will be expected to:

Sort the parcels and letters for your route

Deliver the mail to homes and business

Re-direct wrongly-addressed mail

Collect signatures for recorded and registered mail

The finer details...

Delivery offices open at approximately 5.30am, so make sure you set your alarm clock because it's an early start. You'll then need to start sorting letters and parcels so you can prepare the delivery bags for your round.

Postmen/women don't carry bags heavier than 16kg but you may have three or four bags weighing you down. Good news is, you aren't expected to carry it all in one hand, you can deliver the post on foot with the help of a trolley or on a bicycle if you need it. Bigger parcels are delivered separately in a small van.

When it comes to working hours, full-time postmen/women can expect to notch up to 40 hours per week working from 5.30am to 1pm.

Don't fancy dealing with barking dogs? Alternatively, you can work in a sorting office dealing with letters and parcels as well as bagging and labelling post. Sorting offices are open 24 hours per day so you could be working early, day or night shifts.

There are plenty of opportunities for flexible working arrangements and part-time roles, as well casual or seasonal positions.

Money, money, money

New employees aged 18 or over working full-time will earn around £256 a week. This will increase to £285 - £311 after a year in the job. This rate will be on a pro-rata basis for part-time hours. There may be allowances for working unsocial hours.

See what people are earning in this job

The good points...

"I actually liked the early starts because it means you also get to finish early," says former postman Richard Cracknell. "You get lots of exercise and there's a strong sense of community as everyone knows who you are."

"Working in the wind, rain and snow and, of course, getting barked at by dogs!"

Is there study involved?

There are no set qualifications to work as a postman/woman. However you will need to have a full driving licence (with no more than six penalty points) and you'll be expected to pass an aptitude test.

Royal Mail run an 18-month apprentice programme working towards a NVQ Level 2 in mail services. The programme is a combination of classroom-based, computer-based and self-directed training and project work. The training includes on-the-job training on how mail is sorted and delivered effectively plus key skills training in literacy, numeracy and IT.

Good news for school leavers, Royal Mail also run a fast-track, nine-month apprenticeship scheme for people aged 16-18.

And you don't have to just deliver post, other roles are available. Anyone with a degree can apply to the Royal Mail graduate scheme choosing from programmes in operations, finance, marketing, sales, customer service and human resources.

Need additional qualifications? Find a course at our Learning Zone

OK, I'm interested... But is it really the job for me?

As you can imagine, the Royal Mail has got quite a task on its hands, so they employ 180,000 staff to help all year round. Could you be one of them? "We need ambitious individuals who'll bring fresh ideas and a determination to make an impact on a business that touches the lives of millions every day," say Royal Mail.

Postmen/women need to be:

Fit and able to deal with heavy loads

Friendly and approachable

Self-motivated but also good in a team

Reliable and trustworthy

Have competent literacy skills

Be able to cope with early starts and working in all weather conditions (you don't get a day off just because it's raining)

The Royal Mail say they are, "keen to recruit apprentices who want to progress their career and become managers of the future, and therefore will provide training and support to help people achieve this". You can progress to become a supervisor or manager or train to work in any of the areas specified in the graduate scheme.

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When you excitedly wait for the post to arrive, do you ever stop and think about how it gets to you? With over 80 million items to deliver to 27 million addresses, the Royal Mail could always do with a helping hand.

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The salary for a post man is $44,000 per year.

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The salary for a post man is $44,000 per year.

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As of Sep 2017, the average pay for a Postman is $49,057 annually or $15.48/hr.