
French postal workers helping lonely older people (2018) - EndXA
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/23/care-package-french-postal-workers-helping-lonely-older-people
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seapunk
_He denied that the French post office was cashing in on friendly gestures
that postal workers had been doing for years for free. “Postal workers always
spontaneously and informally connected with clients and looked out for them,
and that will continue. But what we’re doing is adding new services and
bringing greater value.”_

In my opinion, La Poste (the France’s publicly owned postal service) found a
terrible way to break the social link with their customers. The actual
situation is postal workers in France are complaining to work in terrible
conditions because of a new work organization, monetize what make La Poste a
more human and quality service won't improve anything.

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madaxe_again
At best, this is a well-intentioned but poorly thought out initiative.

I have lived in rural France on and off for the last 20 years. The post person
changes with the weather, and we have to remind them where the house is every
few months. They drive ridiculously long routes, covering hundreds of
kilometres on rural roads every day, and it isn’t uncommon to have them show
up at 9pm with their girl or boyfriend in tow, as they’re still on their route
and it’s the only way they get to see each other.

How they think that these already prodigiously overworked people will have the
time for social visits is beyond me. How they think any kind of community bond
can be built by a worker who’s going to burn out and leave in a few months is
beyond me.

It’s like they’ve entirely failed to consider their reality before their PR
department steamrolled this through.

There’s a much better way of building community and getting old people out -
night markets. They started as a touristy thing, but now many communes are
doing their own small scale ones, and providing a bus service for people
without transport. The one in our hamlet has been heaving, and seeing people
who I only ever see alone at home sharing a meal with their neighbours is a
real pleasure. It also generates an income for the commune, and supports local
businesses. Win-win-win.

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_eLRIC
Previous discussion : In France, Elder Care Comes with the Mail -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21208356](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21208356)

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zamfi
> It’s lovely to see the postman as I don’t usually see anyone else all week

Forgive my urban-dweller naïveté, but how does it work exactly to not see
anyone but the postman once a week?

Doesn’t this person need to get food, say, at the grocery store — or does
someone deliver that too? Or is she getting a month’s worth of canned goods
delivered at a time? This is France, forgive the stereotype, but doesn’t she
want fresh bread or other fresh food? Or is she making that at home, from
flour delivered once a month and eggs from her own chickens?

I’d be very curious to learn more about what this lifestyle looks like!

~~~
yodsanklai
> This is France, forgive the stereotype, but doesn’t she want fresh bread or
> other fresh food

Well, not everyone in France eats fresh bread everyday. The population is not
as homogenous as you may think. Many French still buy fresh bread daily but
not all of them. Some people stock piles of frozen food for weeks. Other
people eat junk food daily...

I imagine that this person who only see the postman is unable to run errands
on her own anymore. Most likely, she gets her food from her family or a social
worker. For instance, my grandmother who is 90 years old don't leave her house
in the winter (as the streets may be icy and dangerous for her, in the summer
she still walk and buy what she needs). She sees various persons though,
social workers, nurses, doctors, hair dresser, cleaning lady... (most of this
paid by the government as she has a very low income, about 1200 euros a
month).

~~~
zamfi
Thanks, this is helpful. Maybe she’s one of those people who stockpiles frozen
food because she can’t really leave the house on her own.

Frankly, the night markets in the original piece sound much nicer than a
weekly 20 min chat with the postman...

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remote_phone
My friend is a pharmacist in Toronto Canada and she says that very often,
elderly people with no family or support system would come to her and talk at
length or ask her to explain what their mail was that they received. Sometimes
it would be elderly people who don’t speak English (she works close to
Chinatown) so she would get one of her pharmacists who speaks Chinese to help
out the person. It’s a very sad situation to be in.

~~~
glouwbug
Toronto being the sprawling megalopolis it is, I can see why. Having lived in
Vancouver all my life I was pretty shocked the people here in Toronto wouldn't
even make eye contact as they passed by on the streets.

I can't imagine being elderly. This is a cold city if you don't have an
immediate social group to join in on.

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jeromegv
Just google the loneliness epidemic, nothing to do with toronto being cold or
unfriendly. I can tell you there’s plenty of lonely old people in Vancouver.

~~~
hurrdurr2
Yeah there's a lot of lonely people everywhere... and not just the elderly.
I'm sure they problem gets worse as lonely folks get older.

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TazeTSchnitzel
They said no other postal service in the world was doing this, but isn't
Japan? [https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Postal-workers-to-
deliver-s...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Postal-workers-to-deliver-
senior-services-under-Japan-tie-up) (Not quite the same I realise)

