#CrisisCareersHeroes profile: Postal worker

Sarah is a postal worker delivering mail to addresses on her route. As part of this week's #CrisisCareersHeroes campaign, she talks about how the coronavirus crisis has affected her day-to-day work.

Name:Sarah Harnett
Role: Postal worker
#CrisisCareersHeroes field of work: Getting people and things around
Industry: Transport & Logistics

What does your job involve?

My name is Sarah. I am a post woman and I work for Royal Mail. I collect letters and parcels from the sorting office and deliver them to people’s houses.

How has coronavirus affected your job?

My job is a bit harder now as the parcel demands have gone through the roof, so I’m very busy with parcels every day. Now what we have to do is put the parcel on the doorstep, knock on the door, stand at a safe distance and wait for the customer to come to the door.

I am lucky as my office is providing gloves and hand sanitizer, and we are all using the 2-metre rule to stay away from each other. Also, instead of van sharing we are going out in separate vehicles. We are also cleaning down inside the vehicle at the end of every shift.

It's just a bit more tiring as there are a lot more packets to deliver and we are still delivering all normal mail and door-to-doors leaflets as well. But we are only posting leaflets where we are delivering mail.

We explain to the customer if a parcel needs signing for, we sign on their behalf so there is no cross-contamination. We just have to be extra careful these days.