Mattias är trött

Trött på akassan. Sedan jag slutade från universitetet så har jag gått en del ronder med akassan. Det har tagit tid. Fem veckor innan dom ens såg på ansökan. Fler veckor innan universitetet skickade in arbetsgivarintyg. Fler veckor innan repliken från akassan kom. Och nu har dom kommit på att jag slutade av mig själv, något som jag skrev på den initiala ansökan, och vill att jag ska ange varför. Jag slutade för att jag mådde dåligt. Flera år av deppression. Jag var sjukskriven mycket de åren. Tillslut så orkade jag inte mer, jag hade inte mer fight i mig. Jag har under de senaste åren förlorat så mycket av mig själv och jag klarade helt enkelt inte av det längre. I februari kände jag att jag höll på att sjunka ner i en djup grop igen och jag gjorde det enda rätta. Det som jag skulle ha gjort för två år sedan, jag sa upp mig direkt. Dagen efter hyrde jag en lastbil och flyttade till min flickvän i Eskilstuna. Sedan den dagen har jag återhämtat mig. Att leva utan att känna press, utan att känna att man inte duger, utan att känna att man är dålig har varit underbart. En dag hade jag två ton över mig, nästa dag så var jag fri. Det har tagit tid, men nu så mår jag mycket bättre. Jag har fått ett jobb som jag kan gå till och känna att jag är bra. Att jag är duktig. Där jag slipper gå hem efteråt och ha det kvar i skallen (ok, det finns där, men det plågar mig inte). Jag känner att jag har återfått en liten gnista i mig. Att jag är gladare. Hjärnan har också återhämtat sig lite, jag hoppas att jag kan komma tillbaks till den kapacitet som jag hade för fyra år sedan men det är inte så säkert. Och så kommer akassan och slår undan benen på mig. Ok, jag förstår deras motiv, men jag förstår inte deras metoder. Jag är fortfarande svag och små motgångar företer sig enorma för mig. Det är nästan i det läget att jag säger att jag skiter i det och slänger alla papper åt helvete, men det kan jag inte. Jag har levt på luft de senaste månaderna. Mina reserver är helt tömda, alla konton är tomma, alla fonder är sålda och lånekontot hos pappa har byggts upp. Jag behöver verkligen de här pengarna. Och om någon anser att jag inte har rätt till dom, för att jag slutade jobbet av mig själv, så ... jag vet inte ... jag orkar inte. Om det är så, om det blir så, så kommer det vara ett hårt slag. Ska det verkligen vara så att systemet bryter ner folk? Ska inte systemet hjälpa folk? Ska det ta så lång tid? Ska det vara så svårt?

Mailbox designers

Mailbox designers have all the possibilities in the world to fuck with mailmen. And they do. It seems that their only motive when they design the boxes is that it should be impossible to deliver mail to a household easily. If they are a bit in the mood the boxes also fuck with the mailmen. And if they are really in the mood, the boxes also hurt the mailman.

Some of the ways that they fuck us is:
-The box (that I hereby will call the slit in the door) is so small that anything larger than a A5 envelope will not fit.
-The box is so thin that e.g. two magazines will not go in together.
-The box (the rat-trap design which is a hole straight through the door which has two metal flaps on either side of the door) has to be pushed open with a finger to let the mail through (both of the metal flaps), the finger has then a 50/50 chance to get stuck on the way out.
-The box above is also so small that a A4 envelope / magazine don't go through unfolded.
-The box has something that traps the mail on its way through the door -> the mailman must then stand there and fipple with the mail until it goes through.
-The box is hard to open.
-The name tag is incomplete.

When mailboxes at regular houses are concerned several of the problems above still hold, and then there are some additional once:
-The mailbox is hidden so that your mailman cant find it.
-The mailbox lacks number or name.
-The mailbox is positioned in a way that you have to get of the bike/moped to get to it.
-There are some plant or fence in the way of the mailbox.
-The mailbox looks like if it would open one way, while it is in fact the other way.
-The mailbox is full.
-The mailbox is hidden behind the house.

The fact is that the number of good, easily opened, easy to find, easy to drop anything down in, name clearly visible boxes in all the rounds I have gone is less than 3%.

I think that mailbox designers should have their own place in hell where they (yea I know I am an atheist and don't believe in hell, but it works to good as a metaphor not to use it) are exposed to their own contraptions all day long.

Wildlife

The score from this Sunday:
#deer 5
#moose 1
#rabbits 1
#cranes 2
#eagles 1
#pheasant 1

The morose mailman

The mailman is supposed to be merry. A morose mailman is not supposed to exist. But today I was one. It sucked. But tomorrow is another day, and I will try to be a bit happier.

Note to self

When it is hot as hell and you are going to spend the day running up stairs, a half liter of water is NOT enough.

Full time and #100

As of tomorrow I am a full time employee at CityMail. My mail-sorting skills must have impressed the bosses. Nice to know that I have a job to go to every day instead of being a temp that they call when they need reinforcements. I celebrated by eating a Magnum in the sun.

Another reason to celebrate is that I today spotted number 100. I started my plate-spotting career at Christmas time year 2003 and it was slow at first. About a number a month used to be the rate until half a year ago. Then the speed increased for some reason and I have seen 065-101 since then. Today was hence the day that number 100 came rolling by, and to top that of, I had a hunch that I would see 101 since I saw that one yesterday and knew where it used to hang out. So I biked over there after work and found it close to its usual place. Hence today was a double day. There has also been one triple day (a very happy day indeed).

After spotting number 101 I stopped at Röda Korset to see if they had something of interest and found the note on the electrical organ extremely funny. It said 'Orgeln har ett visst pipljud' ('The organ has a certain peep noise').

What T F

One of the ideas behind getting a job like the one I have now gotten was that I would be able to leave the job behind me at the end of the day. I would not lay awake at night brooding. But that was exactly what I did yesterday after the fcking long day. I just could not fall asleep. Today is better. Today I will sleep.

Tired

New week, and a new office. It is on the other side of town from the other one I have been working in. And I don't know if I was slow today or if there was something else that is the culprit, but I was on the job 11 hours and thirty minutes today. Five and a half of which I was biking and delivering mail. And god damed I was tired when I came home. Another month of this and I will be ready to do what ever comes in my way fitnessy wise.

Some words about the Helsinki trip, and some photos, can be expected when I regain consciousness.

Codes

Ok, the short brainfreeze that I had that made me forget the password to my laptop now inspires me to write about the fucking amount of codes that we are supposed to keep in our heads all the time. It is just insane. Today I entered maybe 40 different codes as I got into the buildings on the job, and probably I remember some of them (yes I do). But since my code memory was full already some of the codes and passwords that I used to remember had to say goodbye and leave. They now reside on the far side of the moon, living happy lives together with the lost socks and the holes in the cheese.

Anyhow, I got to get this organized. This is going nowhere but down.

Training period is over

After two weeks, minus a couple of days, of training, I am now ready to go out into the world as a full fledged mailman. I just hope that they are in demand of my services. I hope they are, cause I have kind of gotten used to getting up early as hell in the morning and then doing repetitive tasks for three hours (sorting mail) followed by three hours of running up stairs. Oh, and riding along on a bike with 80kg of mail is rather fun as well. I hope that you all don't think that I am being sarcastic cause I am not. Compared to not doing anything at all it is just jolly good. And compared to doing something that makes you feel totally rotten its a bliss.

Now we are going to suomi, Helsinki over the weekend, or not now, but rather tomorrow. It is the first time for both K and me, so its going to be exciting.

Soup #27

Leek and potato. Thats all there was. The name says it all. Would have been better if there was some cream in it, but there wasn't. The grade was very simple to set, one and a half star (out of three).

Manly cold and other tidbits

I know it is a cliché, but men who has a cold are the sorriest excuses of human beings. I spent the whole day yesterday in the sofa feeling rotten, all cause of a little cold. Then I gave up at nine and went to bed, only to wake up at three in the morning. Even if I was feeling a lot better it wasn't so much fun to be awake at that hour when I knew that work started at seven.

There was another first for me this morning on the job. I got to take one of the cars over to the other office. The first was to drive a brittish style car on swedish roads. (The steering-wheel is on the right side of the car).

Oh, lets ramble some of my pet peeves (aka. things I loathe)
-Old rotten cucumbers. I mean, come on, how can something that simple become so horrible??
-Old smelly garbagebags with old diapers in staircases.
-Being ignored by waitresses in restaurants.
-Not getting any money from akassan (since like a long time ago) cause of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. (But I did just put some grease in the large cogs so perhaps perhaps there will be results coming out soon.)
Ok, thats all for now!

Number of deer spotted in a smallish park in Eskilstuna on our walk this saturday: 3

Number of totally uninteresting hill forts (Fornborgar) visited and ridiculed on the same walk: 1

Ok

I have been saying that 'no, the job is not as tiresome as I thought' but that really changed today. Today it was really as tiresome as I imagined it would be. I have been running up endless number of stairs in houses with three floors. When I was 3/4 of the way through, with perhaps 40 gates left, my legs started to protest and I simply could not run on the way up anymore. On top of that my water was out and I was quickly dying of dehydration. This was however rectified as I asked a nice finish chap that I met in a stair for water. He did not live there, but was visiting a friend, a friend that opened the door in his underpants as he was drying his hair in a towel. Due to their help I survived the route.

Today was the first day, öööh, no, wait it was not the first day that I was alone, it was the second day that I was alone. Yesterday I biked around alone in a area with villas, no running what so ever. eazy peacy.

Today was the first day, yes it was, my brain is fried but I know I am right when I say this, on a moped. The first time on one of these for about fourteen years.

Oh, the photo walk yesterday was quite nice, if I am not to tired later tonight I might share some nice photos of a Nuthatch and a Woodpecker.

Hours

Since my work hours are determined by the amount of mail that we have, the hours I work is very varied. This means for example that I am home at one o'clock today and can grab my camera and go out into the beautiful day and continue to work on my tan.

Sorting mail

Sorting mail is very similar to one of the things I did when I worked at Securitas. There I stood at a machine that did a security check on bills, and sorted them and put them in stacks of a hundred. The finished stacks was then taken out of the machine and a paper collar was put around them. The work was totally mind numbing. And sometimes the entire day was spent at that machine. Sorting mail is somewhat the opposite. Stacks of mail is sorted according to the street address in a rack that has about a hundred different compartments. It is a task that quickly becomes a zen thing, the rack is almost memorized and the letters goes into the compartments as soon as the address is read. Luckily the day is not spent doing only that, the mail has to be sorted again according to the order in which the people lives at the individual address, then it is time to get on the bike and start running up stairs. This change of tasks is a really welcomed change compared to the Securitas gig that I once had.