Employee: Steve

Steve is in his twenties, single and living in an apartment in the city where he was born. He was a milkman until localnet arrived in his neighbourhood. He is now one of a team of about twenty local residents who are employed at the LocalHub there. Here, we concentrate on his work as a localnet employee rather than how localnet affects his home life.

Scroll down to read all the ways localnet impacts his life or click on a bullet point below to jump to the item that most interests you.

 

localnet at Home

Like everyone else in the borough, Steve makes good use of localnet himself but when he heard it was coming to his neighbourhood he was worried about his job. He'd been a milkman since leaving school at sixteen and enjoyed the work, though it did get a bit tedious at times - and quite lonely as hardly anyone was up when he delivered in the mornings. He needn't have worried as those impacted by localnet were the first to be interviewed for jobs on the local delivery teams. He now enjoys his job much more and wishes it had happened years ago.

He's also delighted that the council has modified one of the elevator shafts in his tower block. There's still an elevator there - this one is just three feet narrower than the others now. In that space at one side of the shaft there is now a localnet SmartHatch system which he and the six other apartment owners on his floor use every day. As a young, single man his use of it is not far off that of Phil - a student living in a Hall of Residence that also has one of these systems in it. Rather than duplicate much of Phil's story we look instead at Steve's life as a localnet employee.

More Interesting Work

Steve loves the fact that the work is much more varied than when he was a milkman and, although he still does some early mornings, he now only has to do the first round one day in three. Other days he might be on the lunchtime or evening runs but he also takes his turn at all of the other jobs.

That way, there are enough of the team who can cover each role so that holidays or sickness don’t disrupt things. They can all switch roles as needed. As well as the existing staff from the local sub-Post Office and convenience store – which has been rebuilt as the new LocalHub - his co-workers previously worked as postman, bin-man and delivery van driver.

He's had some additional training and is now helping out in the LocalHub kitchen, preparing ingredients for recipes people are going to cook that night. He's always wanted to become a chef and this is a great stepping stone for him. He thinks he might try his hand at some of the other jobs in the LocalHub too. As he doesn't mind some early mornings he'd quite like to work on the bakery shift for a while. He's still not sure exactly which career path he's going to follow but is delighted that there is such a thing and that there appear to be many different opportunities for specialisation and/or management roles as he gains experience.

Commuting via localnet

The staff members all live within the local catchment area so don’t have to drive to work.

Passionate about Quality and Service

When he was a milkman, Steve rarely spoke to any of the several hundred customers he served each day. Most of them were fast asleep when he delivered to them. Now, because he goes out on rounds at all times of the day - but to a much smaller set of properties than before - he actually knows most of his customers by name. He also knows that if he damages something they're expecting, he'll have to face them again tomorrow.

He hates being pulled up by them for shoddy service so has become passionate about giving every one of his customers excellent service. His round actually includes his own house and he gets it in the neck from his wife if he's not doing a good job.

Neighbourhood Watch on Steroids

Except when he's covering for someone else, Steve does the same round - of not many hundreds of properties - for long enough that he not only knows his way around like the back of his hand, he also knows what is normal and abnormal. More than once he and the team have reported something suspicious that turned out to be of interest to the police.

They also know the local youngsters and the trouble-makers - both young and old. They find that a quiet word with the parents works wonders if they've seen kids misbehaving while they're not averse to dropping the local beat bobby a message regarding the more serious offenders.

It's not just crime they're alert to either. Someone not collecting their boxes will immediately ring alarm bells and if they don't respond to the beeping from their localnet touch-screen, someone will go and check on them or alert the appropriate authorities.

Early Morning Round

Each round in the day is very different. On the early morning trip it’s mostly post and newspapers and fairly quick. At most houses he drops off one small box about the size of a cereal packet. More and more people, though, are signing up for breakfast too as they love the freshly-baked bread and having much more variety than they could keep in their fridge. There are half a dozen different fresh juices and a dozen pastries and rolls to choose from. As these MealBoxes clip onto the PaperBox holding their post and newspapers, it doesn’t take any longer to drop these off at the same time.

There’s no time to stop and chat on this round though as several people rely on the van to get a lift to the bus stop at the LocalHub. The early morning route is designed so that he just drops off post, papers and breakfasts as he heads away from the hub. That way, when he gets to the end of the round, it’s a straight run back picking up passengers on the way to the hub. Because the van’s then empty, the fold-down seats are all available and he can ferry up to twenty people back to the hub. (“Whisk” would be pushing it a bit as his van only does 20mph)

There’s a fifteen minute contingency built in to the schedule for this run to make sure everyone is on time for work and school so most days he can stop at the end of the route and enjoy his own MealBox before heading back. If he ran late on the way out, he can always eat fifteen minutes later when he arrives back at the LocalHub. This way, everyone has a chance to open their post and grab their daily paper before leaving for work – whether they drive or, as an increasing number do, jump on his van to the bus-stop at the hub.

Groceries only go out on that round if specially requested and as delivery costs a little more there are usually only one or two larger boxes each day on this round. Two of the people he gives a lift to most days also work at the hub.

Midday Round

In Steve’s area they currently run three rounds a day to each street but may go up to four soon.

The lunch-time round is mostly groceries and hot meals for the elderly. He probably visits every other house on average as most people order groceries every two or three days. He’ll collect “empty” containers on this round – though most are actually partly full of recyclables and many have outgoing post, vegetables or other items in them for onward delivery. Steve still can’t get over the way the system in the van will sometimes tell him to drop off a box just minutes after picking it up a few hundred yards away. He guesses most of these are for the home-workers doing laundry and ironing or the vegetable sharing service but as he never sees inside the sealed boxes he’s never sure.

He also carries quite a few empty, cleaned containers on this round and drops these off for anyone who has more to send than they have containers available.

This round is much more sociable than the ones at the ends of the day and he’ll check on the elderly residents and punch in orders on his handheld for those who don’t or can’t use the website or localnet touch-screens. Most days one or two people will jump on the van to get to the hub – and he’ll often bring them back again on the last trip of the day.

After this round, he backs the van straight into the recycling bay where all the used containers are automatically emptied with the sorted contents going straight into the appropriate skips.

Evening Round

The evening rounds are staggered so that each van leaves at a slightly different time and they use slightly less efficient routes but this gives most people at least a couple of chances to catch a van going within a few hundred yards of their house.

This time, the vans go out with not much on them – maybe something for one house in ten. They also drive straight to the farthest point, dropping passengers off on the way then work their way back to the hub, delivering what they have on them but also picking up empties and recyclables from any property that hasn’t been covered on the earlier runs. It can be 8 or 9pm by the time Steve finishes this round – but as with the morning ones, it’s only one day in three and he likes the variety.

Waste Collection Round

There’s one delivery van that’s adapted for waste collection only. Because the level of recycling is so high; so many products don’t have outer packaging any more or use reusable packaging and people waste so much less food these days there’s not a lot to be collected! It gets round everybody at least a couple of times a week but anyone can just click to request a next day pickup.

Other Duties

In between delivery rounds and on days when he’s not driving, Steve also takes his turn on some of the other duties at the hub. These include:

All in All...

Because the staff at the LocalHub all come from the immediate neighbourhood, they socialise as well as work together. They live amongst their customers and experience the service themselves so really care about the quality of the experience. They find the work rewarding and stimulating - as well as much more sociable than their previous jobs.

Benefits