Roger Walser: “Life is the best teacher”

“If someone had told me 34 years ago what I’d achieve in my career, I’d never have believed them.” Roger Walser enjoyed working as a mail carrier. Everything was very clearly defined at the former PTT, and he simply couldn’t imagine doing anything out of the norm. As an administrative clerk, you could climb the ladder, but staff in uniform remained in their original careers. Everything changed suddenly when the Appenzell native joined the St. Gallen railway post office after two years of professional experience. “There I met students earning money to travel abroad by doing temporary jobs.” The 19-year-old quickly made a deal with his line manager – mail carrier in the summer, South America in the winter. He travelled, explored new countries, met new people and helped out at a children’s charity in Lima. “These experiences changed me as a person. I saw ways of living that were totally different from the uplands in Appenzell where I grew up.”

Settling down

By the age of 25, he started to want to settle down. Roger Walser started out as a mail carrier in Au, Canton of St. Gallen, a job he thought he’d do for the rest of his life. But a year later, the PTT was dissolved. The Swiss Post employee took advantage of this situation to become a parcel carrier at the newly founded parcel center in Berneck.

“On my travels, I met lots of people who’d successfully switched to completely different careers. That made a big impression on me and illustrated that you can get ahead if you show some drive.” With this in the back of his mind, he trained as a post office counter assistant. After completing commercial college and various internal training programmes, his first management opportunity arose after just two years in the job, and he became Head of the Appenzell post office.

More than education and titles

Roger Walser continued management training and was offered the opportunity to manage a branch district in the Rhine Valley in St. Gallen. Exactly the same place where he’d worked as a parcel carrier all those years ago. Other positions as Head of the Frauenfeld Sales Area and later as Head of the Zurich North Region followed: “My motivation was always to keep moving forwards and to challenge and champion my staff.” In exactly the same way as his managers had always believed in him.

Five years ago, he took another big leap by joining PostBus. “Back in the day, I used to travel to nursery on a Postbus,” he says with a smile. Looking back, he wouldn’t change a single thing. “Many people rely on education or titles, but they forget that life is the best teacher.” Now 49 years old, he lives in Altstätten, Canton of St. Gallen, has a son from his first marriage and two stepchildren by his second marriage. On his next travels, he plans to return to South America.