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Photo Features You've got mail "Though the job of mail carrier is routine as we've a very similar delivery route every day, it's still full of challenges as we'll meet different people," she said. "I have come across some kids who greet me as ‘uncle postman'. Their mother will then correct them by saying ‘watch carefully and she is a postwoman'," she said. It was only until last September that Ma became a mail carrier, 11 years after she has joined Hongkong Post, the city's postal service operator. She said it was satisfying to return to the post office with an empty bag after delivering all the letters, postcards and parcels. To make sure a recipient got her parcel during the Lunar New Year period three months ago, Ma worked extra hours to locate the recipient although the parcel from Canada did not carry the block number in the address. She knocked on doors after doors of flats fit to the unclear address among the many blocks in the public housing estate involved. When she finally found the correct recipient, she was relief, she said. She got a piece of chocolate as a token of thanks. "I didn't eat the chocolate at once since I felt nothing special at that moment," Ma said. "Yet, when I ate the chocolate on my way home at the MTR, I found it's the sweetest gift I'd ever had." Ma said many of her colleagues got their hands hurt when they carried theheavy bags of mail. "But it's unavoidable and we are getting used to it," she said. "Many public housing estates or delivery routes have no airconditioning, and it's really uncomfortable when you've to walk up and down the stairs with heavy bags, especially in summer time," she continued. She once delivered more than 40 registered mail items in 45 minutes within the same block. "I was totally soaked with sweat, but satisfied," she said. Yet, Ma never sees her job as a sweat. At work, she met her husband, who has been a postman for 12 years. She said being a postwoman had brought her a lot. |
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