A former Islay postman says he left Royal Mail because he let customers down in an impossible job.
Long delays for post on two Scottish island communities have left Royal Mail workers in tears as they struggle to deal with parcel numbers, a former postman has told the BBC.Jim Love, 30, is one of six workers who left the postal team in recent weeks in because of "pretty dire" working conditions.Mr Love worked for the postal service for three-and-a-half years and had a daily 135km route around the island to deliver the post. He left last Friday.
"The pressure is just too much for people to last any more than about six months usually, and that's been the case since the pandemic started," he told BBC Scotland. "We felt like we were being dishonest to our customers by not being able to tell them why we were having to leave their letters in favour of parcels," he said.
He said staff skipped breaks every day and sometimes had so many parcels they were squeezing them into their vans' passenger seat and footwell. There are no supermarkets on the island and residents have come to rely heavily on online shopping, but the Royal Mail now has only one sorting office to manage increasing demands on the service.Islander Campbell McCormick, 67, said on Thursday that he had just received letters sent on 7 and 10 October.
He said the cost of living was higher than on the mainland but Islay's "vibrant and dynamic" economy, which includes several distilleries, offered more attractive work opportunities for locals.
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