It definitely has not been a good couple of months for Singapore Post (SingPost). The mail company has been involved in a series of troubles due to their bad service like late mail and parcel delivery as well as discarding unopened letters in the bin without delivering them.
It was so bad till the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) imposed a financial penalty of S$100,000 on SingPost early this month for its failure to meet the delivery standards of local basic letters and registered mail on nine events in 2017.
However, the company is back again in the limelight when a Facebook user named Amirul Azam uploaded a picture of a postman waiting on the side of the road to gobble up his meal so he would be able to deliver all his letters.
In his picture, he accompanied a caption that said:
Probably his first meal/break of the day while on the job.
You can condemn Singapore Post for all their inefficient SOPs and lack of service, but please appreciate the individual Postman for doing their best in delivering letters to you.
One reason why this postman might be pressing for time to send out all his letters is due to the insane amount of mail they have to deliver.
Based on a Parliamentary response by Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Sim Ann revealed the fact that postmen deliver 38,000 parcels that can fit into mailboxes each day, and that calculates to between 25 and 45 doorstep deliveries on top of their regular mail work.
It is also reported in a Straits Times article that SingPost delivers three million mail items daily, which adds to about 3,000 pieces for each postman.
According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), under the Employment Act, all workers are generally not required to work more than 6 consecutive hours without a break. However, if the nature of the work requires continuous work for up to 8 hours, then breaks must be provided for meals, and the breaks should be at least 45 minutes long.
On social media, over 200 comments were received on Mothership’s Facebook page regarding this news. Most of the netizens sympathised the postman for working so hard to send out the letters while blaming SingPost for overworking its staffs.
Some even called for a check with the labour law for overworking its employees.
Other netizens shared their personal experience of being a postman or encountering hardworking postman who tirelessly send out mails without complaining about the hours.
