The letters about the interaction between some of the younger and older staff of An Post the differences in lifestyles manner of communicating and so on is very witty and we can all see some of this in play right across An Post.

However there is also a serious side to this and the differences that occur between the different generations. While some of these are captured brilliantly by ak47joes wit there are also the physical differences between younger and older people, which do not seem to be considered any more by An Post as we are now told that the delivery standards apply to all regardless of age.

The capacity for physical work diminishes as people age. We demonstrated this very well with the graph on age related times in the London Marathon some time ago on this site see article on link at botom of page.  Now we have come across some other information, which reinforces this fact, which is taken on board by other organisations.

Is An Post being unrealistic and somewhat cruel in some cases by insisting on older workers fulfilling the same standards as their younger colleagues? Deliveries are being designed now mainly by people sitting in offices using computer programmes. To really understand what a delivery really entails the designers of these deliveries should also have to actually deliver some of the duties that they design.

The age old system of the duties being redesigned in-house by delivery staff worked very well for years and produced a balanced set of duties that catered for all ages and had a few slightly easier duties for people as the years passed and a section of the workforce aged and their physical capacity reduced.

This rigid approach may cause problems for An Post and their workers in the future. There is anecdotal evidence that it is already creating problems for older staff some of who struggle to complete duties and to physically recover from repeated daily deliveries. This could lead to overuse injuries, suppressed immune system and increased colds and infections.

The Irish army recognise these changes in work capacity according to age in their fitness test, which must be taken annually by fulltime soldiers, see table and link to site below . I wonder why An Post feel that postal delivery staff is different from Irish army soldiers.

A number of questions are pertinent at this stage
- Was physical work capacity and age considered when designing the C+D process and deliveries?

- Was there any person qualified in medicine, anatomy or physiology with the knowledge required to make these decisions involved in the C+D process.?

-Should it be a consideration in the future when designing duties?.

Irish army annual fitness test showing grades - ages and times expected for the distance see below (one of a number of tests) note how the target times become substantially slower as the age of the participant increases. Link to site http://www.62infantry.com/Annual_Fitness_Test.shtml

Run / Walk

• Females add 2 minutes to the times below

3.2 Km Run Assessment

• Soldiers of 40 years or older may do the 4.8 Km Walk instead. A grade 4 is awarded for completing this.

4.8 Km Walk Assessment

See also other related articles here http://www.irishpostalworker.com/artman2/publish/letters/Older_Postpersons.shtml

http://www.irishpostalworker.com/artman2/publish/letters/Older_Postpersons.shtml