The Steaming Rants of Ernie Wight

I wanted to be a Postman

Excuse me while I lift this chip off my shoulder for a moment, I'm going to swap it for another one.

The Fast-Track-Visas took most of us by surprise. The contract market began to shut down. Contractors who had been assured that they would be extended or renewed found themselves out on the street. Wise contractors jumped into permanent positions as they became available. Less wise contractors began vying for the pitiful work remaining, or jumped into the well-saturated website design market.

I was one of those who had previously been assured of an extension. After being given the grim news ("I've been given a challenging head-count target to achieve"), I initially had some other work offered to me by a branch of the same company, but they then discovered that although they had the budget to spend on getting the work done, they were not allowed to spend it on someone from outside the company's own IT department. Over the next few months, as I became aware of what was going on, I came up against that "keep it in-house" door so often I've got a boxer's nose.

The fast-track-visa is a government initiative to get people in from foreign countries to fill a skills shortage within the UK. Since foreign programmers came considerably cheaper than UK-based ones, a skills shortage magically appeared. In the early summer of 2002 the BBC news website reported that the Professional Contractors Group had managed to convince the Government to withdraw IT skills from the list of skills for which fast-track-visas could be obtained, on the basis that since nearly half of the PCG's members were currently not working, there was a very obvious surplus of skills , and an equally obvious shortage of jobs. Computer Weekly then published a report suggesting that up to 14,000 Fast Track Visas had been issued in the 12 months up to the government removing IT skills from the list. That's 13,999 other people like myself disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour without having been given the right to try and compete.

By the time I realised I wasn't going to get any more software work in 2002 I was in quite desperate financial straits. I could not pay myself the legal minimum wage from my parts business for the hours I was working, and still had to meet the rates and rental on the premises. The employers national insurance contributions coupled with the salary, PAYE and employees contributions came to more than the business could afford. It was after all only meant to be a part-time venture. I needed work that would still allow me to answer the phones and run parcels up to the Post Office. A postman's round seemed ideal, and the local posties assured me that they were short-staffed and needed delivery-persons.

I sent off a letter to a lady at the Royal Mail personnel offices asking for the application forms. After two weeks, they still hadn't arrived, and I knew from the local sorting office that over half the vacancies had already been filled. I got a provisional night-shift in a factory for minimum wage while I tried to get an answer from the Royal Mail. I spoke to a colleague of the lady to whom the letter had been addressed, who told me to be patient, as there were over 200 requests for application forms to be dealt with, I replied that I didn't think there were even 200 people living in Shaftesbury. She took a while to get back to me, and the answer, when it came, was ironic in the extreme - the letter had been delivered to the wrong person. I was competing with 200 other hopefuls for a job in the Southampton sorting office.

A set of forms was sent out to me for the two remaining vacancies, and I put the factory job on hold until I had gone through the interview process to become a Postman. A postman's interview is mostly numeracy; some sorting; and probably most of all a test of reading ability. There were six of us sat the written tests, and all six passed, so six interviews had to be conducted. I got my reply the next morning. "There were three of you that we really liked, but only two jobs". Ah, I've heard that often enough. "But, since you were so keen to join, we were wondering if you'd be interested in temporary work. There is a need at the office for someone to fill in next week, and once we get people working for us we tend to keep them on. Are you interested ?". Yes I was. It was not as high a rate as a short-term contract delivery person, but better than the night-shift at the factory. I gave the factory the bad news, and got ready for the Luxembourg trip.

On my return, I got my own bit of bad news from the sorting office. They'd re-arranged the schedules and didn't need any temporary staff after all. The factory, understandably, didn't want to know me any more.

Holly, Red Dwarf series 1, says "... and the lowest form of life is a man who works for the post office. "

I do most heartily concur. That's my second chip done with for now.