SingPost is having a not-so-great year.

Charges of late deliveries, letters thrown into the trash, and in one extreme case, getting caught fraudulently "investigating" and claiming work was done when it wasn't, have gotten the public into a rage.

With that being said, however, it is worth also taking a moment to acknowledge the difficulties that the individual postman faces when delivering letters.

A thousand words

A Facebook post by one Amirul Azam captured quite succinctly how busy a postman can be.

Here is his picture.

Accompanied by this caption.

"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."

The reason why this particular postman might be so strapped for time is the insane amount of mail they have to deliver.

A Parliamentary response by Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information Sim Ann mentioned the fact that postmen deliver 38,000 parcels that can't fit into mailboxes each day, which works out to between 35 and 45 doorstep deliveries on top of their regular mail work.

According to a Straits Times article, SingPost delivers three million mail items daily, which reportedly works out to about 3,000 pieces by each postman.

In that article, ST followed a postman, one Rajab Abu Noh, over a work day.

Rajab eats two slices of butter kaya bread, downs a cup of coffee for breakfast, and doesn't take a break again for the next 12 hours.

Which would explain having to grab a quick bite while on your bike.

S'poreans heap sympathy, praise on postman

Comments were unanimous in praising the postman, and sympathising with the sheer amount of work he was probably inundated with.

And criticising the organisation behind them as well.

With one making a good point on judging each postman as an individual.

The company and the people

As the caption highlights, it's important to separate the organisation from the people.

SingPost has made actual tangible mistakes in the past, to the extent where they were fined S$100,000 by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) for failure to deliver mail in 2017.

They have planned on some changes, including increasing the number of dedicated counters and staff at post offices for parcel collection, reducing advertisement mail, and offering incentives for successful deliveries of items.

Most importantly, they will also hire 100 more postman, and redeploy 35 mail-drop drivers as full-time postmen.

Perhaps this could have been implemented sooner, but hopefully it will lessen the burden of those on the ground.

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Image from Amirul Azam