‘‘I’m glad to get out of there . . . everyone looks so glum.’’
James Barton swapped his suit and tie for a postbag five years ago and never looked back.
After 33 years as a public servant, the 63-year-old quit his job at the Ministry of Environment and now roams the streets of the northern Wellington suburb of Johnsonville, delivering mail.
‘‘I’m glad to get out of there,’’ he says of the public sector. ‘‘You can do an immense amount of thinking when you’re walking around the streets.’’
On a typical day, he might rise at 6.20am and cover 18 kilometres on foot delivering mail before knocking off for a beer at 2pm.
Barton left his job as a climate change expert, in which he helped the Government devise a way to measure carbon removal and link it to land use, just before savage job cuts began. Now he finds it depressing to walk down Lambton Quay amid the dwindling throng of suits. ‘‘Everyone looks so glum,’’ he says. Barton says it’s a difficult time for younger public sector workers, many of whom had never endured such hard times.
While he prefers pounding the pavements, his finances are tighter. With just 20 to 25 hours work per week, his wage has roughly halved. Barton’s wife, Alisi, works at a supermarket, but he says his costs – petrol, power, rates and insurance – have risen above inflation. The couple are paying off the last of their mortgage, but with Barton two years from retirement age, he says: ‘‘We realise we have to be a lot more careful and prudent.’’ An expensive holiday is shelved and Barton is holding onto his ageing television and car.
Where he can, he picks up some consultancy work and would consider a return to the civil service for the right job, but admits: ‘‘There are not many at the moment I would go for.’’ Until then, he’s happy to keep delivering the mail: ‘‘It’s good for me. I’ve lost 12 kg.’’