Postal officer

Ravinder Bhal is determined to make her children proud during the Commonwealth Games.

She has been training every day for the past six months, putting herself through the pressures she will face when the Games start.

She is concentrating on doing a personal best, planning to visualise success around every corner as she powers her bike into a winning position.

She aims to deliver mail to the athletes in the Games village as rapidly as possible.

Bhal is one of seven Australia Post staff members from around Australia chosen to deliver mail in the village. Australia Post held a nationwide, internal competition to determine which lucky staff members would be Games posties. The competition invited 35,000 personnel to apply and entries came from every state.

Apart from feeling some apprehension about riding a bike for the first time in two years, Bhal has never been a postie and is excited about being involved in the Games.
“I am looking forward to meeting the athletes. It will be a different environment to what I usually do at work,” she says. The chance to work during the Games is just another reason she loves working at Australia Post.

The single mother, 42, joined Australia Post in a part-time administration role after having her first child. Since then she has sorted parcels and loaded trucks.
Now in transport logistics, she manages all the transport systems for Australia Post in Victoria. “There are great opportunities to move forward at Australia Post.
I started off as a base grade part-timer. Now I am transport information co-ordinator. “It is a really progressive organisation. They think things ahead. They planned for diversity and job sharing before it became popular. As a single mum I was able to work in different areas and do different shifts that suited me and my kids.”

Bhal applied for the chance to work at the Games village because she loves to try different things. It was this attitude that enabled her to become the first woman to work a forklift, manipulating big loads on to trucks. Other workers were wary of the challenge, but Bhal relished it.

During the Games, she will work for seven days. “Australia Post has been involved in the delivery of mail at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games for some years,” Bhal says.

“Since Barcelona it has sent posties to deliver mail to the Australian team.” A T the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Australia Post delivered 10,000-12,000 items a day, and that was only to the Australian team.

“This time there are 71 countries, 4500 athletes, 1500 officials and 1800 media.” But Bhal will be ready, and when the gun goes off, the mail in the village will be on time. To send a message to your favourite athlete, address the letter to: c/o Australian Commonwealth Games Team, Letter Link, GPO Box 5803, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001.

JOB LOT
A parcel post officer at Australia Post may be required to undertake several different roles. They will often specialise in one area. That specialisation may be as:
A MAIL officer working at mail centres or mail exchanges.
POSTAL delivery officer mainly working at delivery centres.
PARCEL post officer working at parcel centres.
POSTAL sorting officers who work in business centres, post offices and in mail delivery.
POSTAL transport officers who spend most of their time operating in the general transport fleet.
POSTAL services officer working at retail outlets.
EDUCATION: No formal qualifications are required.
In most cases applicants sit an entry test, and if successful they are placed on a candidate list.
People are then chosen from this list for interview.
Training is provided.