Knock, knock. Who’s there? If it’s a female letter carrier, she probably wants to use your toilet. No kidding. For women who deliver mail, needing a washroom en route is “a huge problem,” “a critical issue,” and “the hardest obstacle,” they say. “I’ve literally been on the verge of peeing my pants to the point where I thought it would be impossible to do this job,” says Theresa (some names have been changed), a Brantford, Ont., Canada Post employee.
“We talk about it all the time at work,” says Richmond, B.C.’s Denise Kowalski. “When you’re out there and all of a sudden you have to go, you can’t hold yourself. You ask a customer. That’s what everybody does. Most customers are nice and they’ll let you use their washroom. I always try to move around so I don’t have to bother the same customer.” Kowalski insists that “of course management knows! Their policy is to try to make sure you go before you start your route. But you can’t control that!”
Kowalski’s route encompasses the million-dollar homes in the University Endowment Lands near Point Grey in Vancouver. “The driveways are very long,” she notes. “It’s happened to me where the customer was in a lousy mood and said, ‘Oh, the nearest washroom is McDonald’s,’ which is three blocks away. By the time you get three blocks, you’d be peeing yourself as you well know.”
Catherine, a 35-year letter-carrying veteran, wonders why no one warned her about the washroom problem when she started the job. “The first time it happened to me, I got this little old lady and she’d just signed a registered letter. I walked two houses down. It was the middle of winter and I thought, ‘I’m not going to make it.’ So I went back and I knocked on her door. I said, ‘I understand if you say no but I gotta ask. Can you let me in? I’ve got to pee.’ ”
“Men are luckier, aren’t they?” muses Kowalski. “They can go anywhere.” But then she decides guys have their problems too. “I’ve been told by some of the male carriers that they’ve been caught and called in. The customer has phoned in and complained about them peeing in the bushes.”
Theresa from Brantford recalls a recent conversation with a fellow postie: “This morning Claire came up to me and said, ‘You won’t believe this, but on my way home yesterday I saw Gord standing by his Canada Post van in full uniform peeing at the side of the road as though it were the most natural thing in the world!’ ”
Pages: 1 2
