COLUMN: My knowledge of computers is all down to Royal Mail
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The Postie Notes by Mark Gilbert
I was very lucky just after I joined Royal Mail on the Youth Opportunity Scheme in 1994 that a call was made for volunteers to learn how to use the new fandangled computers.
At that point records were still being meticulously kept on paper - as had been done since Royal Mail was founded 478 years previously.
The first task was to input paper records to files on the computer, and then we learned how to use emails so we could communicate internally. I can still remember the strange electronic noise on the machine when you logged on.
It was a time of massive desktop machines and floppy disks. I remember at Keighley Delivery Office one morning inputting pages of figures and forgetting to save regularly to the floppy disk.
I then pressed the wrong button and turned the machine off, losing what I had input. I never made that mistake again!
In no time at all, we seemed to have everything streamlined and smaller. Later, as a manager, I was given a laptop and mobile phone, so technically could work from anywhere.
This worked out well for me when my late wife Susan became too ill to work. Matt, my operations manager at the time, said that as soon as I got the deliveries out on the streets, I could do my work from home and be with her.
One of my posties at Slaithwaite said he would avoid new technology at all costs. Knowing he was a steam train enthusiast, I asked him to name his favourite engine and he said it was the Tyne Tees Pullman, so I put it into my search bar and immediately showed him the results – all the information you could ever need on a train. He was amazed and within a week he had his own home computer.
And then came social media, which I still try to avoid at all costs, except for local “What’s On” Facebook sites. I really don’t think that the word social is appropriate, because previously youngsters would at least grunt something if you spoke to them, or bid them a cheery good morning, but now you don’t even get the grunt, because they are so engrossed in their devices, that they don’t even know you are there!
The other thing is that this doesn’t just include youngsters now. And why would you pay sometimes hundreds of pounds to go to a concert, and then watch it through your phone?
At the very beginning of “socials”, as they are now referred to, we sat in our kitchen whilst our friend Jacki and her then young daughter Francesca, “shopped” for a husband.
After a few false starts we eventually all met Graeme and attended their wedding 12 years ago. They make a fantastic family.
Sadly, lots of other folk of a similar age to myself didn’t have the opportunity, or desire to learn this new technology and got left behind. Now they have a different experience accessing services and paying bills, whereas most of my life is either on my phone, tablet, or laptop.
My reliance on internet, wi-fi etc, came back to bite me recently when cables were damaged in the Pentland Firth and all Sky customers in the Far North lost service for four days. I had no phones, no television, no laptop. And then the water went off. Nightmare!
By the way, I lied about the YOPS earlier, I was 39 when I joined Royal Mail, after a previous life in the pub trade.
Mark Gilbert is a postman based at Bettyhill.
