The Royal Mail

dreamdaisy

Over Christmas I listened out for - and heard - repeated knocks and thumps on the door because (like many of you, I suspect) we had ordered stuff from the net and it turned up. So far, so good.

Late last week I ordered some stuff which, I was told, would be sent via RM. This morning I heard the post plop through the door, and when I went down to sort it out I found one of those annoying, smug, red and white cards telling me that they had had to return my goods to the PO as it was too large to fit through the letter box. I was in but he didn't knock. The card states that I can re-arrange a re-delivery but does that mean I will have to sit in the hall waiting to see the shape of the postman trotting up the path? Blast that, I will go and fetch it (when I can be bothered) and ensure I get the Clatterator jammed in their door (because it's too large to fit).

I know which postman it was, because I watched him walk up the path and drive off in his van (and he looks like Elijah Wood). The next time I see him, which may be tomorrow, I will give him a vigorous demonstration of how to operate a door knocker. DD

mellman01

well while your doing so don't forget to wish him a happy new year DD!.

stickywicket

It aint what it used to be and that's for sure. We've had similar things happen. We also, very occasionally, get odd periods when we go about three days with nothing, not even a circular. I swear they just don't do the round. Cos, on the fourth we get loads.

Airwave!

Oh RM has far better japes to play on us, the cost of posting certain items, we find its often cheaper to post to Europe/Russia/USA and Oz than UK. Some of our stuff goes missing/lost/stolen in UK, we have repeatedly tried to claim for them but can't (gggggrrrrr!!!). Some of the postmen are great, the rest are a pain. I for one will be happy when it all goes private, they (RM) are their own worst enemy!

suzygirl

How familiar that sounds, we also often get mail go missing. We never get mail on a Friday but lots on a Saturday!!! :roll:

It makes me mad that I can order something up to 5pm on a weekday and get it before 11am the next day relatively cheaply from any other courier but if I order by RM I have to wait days for it.

I think we are all paying the price now, for the shareholders not reinvesting and just taking the profits unfortunately. I wish we had more competition, to give them a run for their money!

In fact I am going to shut up now as I could rant all day about the lack of service. :oops:

LignumVitae

Sticky, a good postie once asked me if I had had a few days without post as you described. She had been on holiday and had worked out that the person doing her round (and getting over time for doing it) whilst she was away had been simply popping all the post back into the post box - the second franking was what had given it away. She cared about her customers and was furious with the relief postie for messing with her reputation. They are a mixed bunch, for every dedicated worker there seems to be another who will stick cards through the door rather than simply knocking. Good luck in finally getting your goods DD.

mellman01

Don't blame the psotman so much as the governemt and the post office management, they are deliberatly making it jump through hoops and cutting funding so the service will decline so everyone will be so p*****d off with it they're wont be any complaints once the government sells it off, I have a freind who is a postman and he's so down about how bad its got he's lost the will to live, they are doing as many state companies do and that's tending to get graduates fresh out of school to run sections and they have no idea of the effort a postman has to put in or the basic job they do, I've seen how this has been done as they did the same at Harwell.
They use to promote the lower downs to the managers job as they know what it's like from the **** up but today those people are ignored and made to jump through stupid hoops, you can see it with the NHS, they can't leave it alone to manage itself they constantly want ticks in boxes then wonder why people get neglected.
And after all I can gurantee you that once it's sold off just like the NHS and the trains we'll be forced to pay for it twice while the top few get megga payouts and Platignum parachute pensions if the cock up and leave the board, look at the banks, they did exactly the same there, whatever mess is made you and I will pay for it, once the post office has gone will we truly understand what a once great company it was, the only common denominator in all of this is political meddling, the MO post sell off is sadly always the same.
They asset strip it pay big bonuses to each other straight off the bat then neglect it by not investing in infrastructure so they can pay dividends to share holders and bounses to the top managers year on year and in time like the national grid although it's a private company it will gewt so worn out services start to become irratic they will blame it on old worn out kit they will then get the government to change the rules so they can hit us all with a levy to pay for "modification" when really any profit should go to that first, again we pay twice if not thrice and as always for less.
sorry socialist rant over!

LignumVitae

That was interesting Mellman. When I worked for the NHS I did so as it underwent yet another change, with the introduction of billions of managers. The thing that always struck me was not that the managers were plucked from the ranks of new graduates but that being placed into a management job, away from patients and uniform wearing was often used to get ineffective clinicians, who were a burden, away from patients. This had the bonus of removing crap clinicians but then placed them in authority over the good clinicians and their limited experience, imagination and abilities seriously hampered and demoralised the decent clinicians. It was quite worrying, particularly when they started to team these managers up with people brought in from outside the NHS who were generally number crunchers making 'efficiency savings'. That further demoralised people, saw swathes of experienced clinicians jumping ship or retiring and left the graduates or those with just a couple of years experience in charge of patients...a system which, other than in teaching hospitals, appears to often still dominate the NHS as it crumbles today. Asset stripping of a different kind, the younger clinicians, without experience, are cheaper to employ and far more likely to take orders from the rubbishy management as well as working in efficient yet often ineffective and thus more expensive ways.

dreamdaisy

Surely one of the most important features of being a postman is that you at least knock at the door - especially when there are lights on - to alert the householder to the fact that there is a delivery for them. **** the morale, this is his job.

So, let's extrapolate this careless attitude to the job further: shelf stackers leave the goods on the pallets in the middle of the aisles (oh, sorry, Aldi and Lidl already do that) I pay the barman up the Cat for a pint but pull it myself, I go to the dentist and he watches while I ferret about in my mouth, I tell the GP what's wrong with me (ah, people already do that, don't that? That dread phrase 'I've been reading Wiki and this is what is wrong with me.') my cllients turn up, pay me, then teach themselves while I sit in the other room.

The net result of his sloppy attitude (which was so different in December so I guess there was some form of monitoring in place?) is that I now have to turn out and fetch my post. I won't bother with the 're-delivery' for fear it will be like the first attempt. At least one of us can do his job, it's a shame it's not him. DD

stickywicket

I think Mellman and LV both make good points but I used to do Christmas Post as a student and it really wasn't that difficult. I know I'm talking of long, long ago but I did both sorting and delivering and thoroughly enjoyed both.

I believe there was a case of one student postman re-posting the letters and he was immediately sacked.

frogmorton

Oh how annoying!!! :x

Good news for me though.....our postie is back

He's been on his holidays to his family for Christmas and was back smiling and chatting as usual on Monday. Cheered me up he did - I was worried he had left.

Love

Toni xxx

mellman01

I agree DD but I've worked in the civil service and learn't if you abuse people long enough and badly enough they get so hacked off they don't give two hoots, it's like a collective type of depression, I'm not making excuses for your postie and I agree they should knock and wait but round here they do the same now you have to be standing at the door ready or you will miss them does my head in same as leaving Amazon parcels outside the door and legging it but they do that as well here from time to time, they never use to so in the past so something has changed drastically inside the post office to get them all to start acting the same.
That said I know from experience if you keep messing around by moving the goal posts and you also keep loading more work on the plebs the level of efficiency will go down and keep going as long as the abuse continues even the most keen workers will give up in the end.
I think the Government want it to fail and they are doing so by changing the goal posts and loading the workforce I’ve seen it happen more than once and it’s so soul destroying the same goes for the NHS. If you keep changing the goal posts and set targets then keep changing them you’ll end up with increasing inefficiency confusion & demoralisation. The biggest problem the NHS and the post office face are meddling MP’s, they are arrogant and highly ignorant and have no right or idea to think they can get a camel through the eye of a needle and for less each time although each time they try it costs 5 times what they said it would.
They’re also bent as hell I don’t trust one of them, as an example look at Keith Vaz, he has 7 times as much money going out in mortgage payments than he has in salary coming in yet no one seems to think he’s up to no good.
It’s odd but when it comes to expenses they know exactly how to screw as much out of the system but when it comes to running state infrastructure they constantly feck things so badly they lose us billions through shoddy paperwork and disastrously written contracts with costly get out clauses, but insanely once they’ve caused chaos they then start pointing out what needs to be done to sort it out yet totally ignore the fact they are the ones who made the mess in the first dam place.
If big companies like Virgin did business like MP’s do then they’d be bankrupt in days, I think what needs to happen is MP’s posts need to be put out to private contract and their pay needs to be linked to results, if an MP badly messes up a contract then they should be demoted or sacked, as it stands it doesn’t matter what they do as they are bullet proof and it’s tax payer who picks up the tab each time they mess up so all that happens is bad behaviour and incompetence is rewarded as there’s no culpability whatsoever.

rondetto

I ordered a few items on 30th December from Amazon. They said delivery due by 5th January, it, s 10th tomorrow and I'm still waiting for them.

frogmella

I just thought I would chip in with my good experience of our postie! Our old one was good, old Dennis, he would leave parcels round the side etc but got taken off our round because he crashed the van too often, or so it is said! Our new one, Ian, is just as good if not even better. He knocks the door, has posted things through the cat flap at the side and will leave packages in safe, sensible places. We acknowledge that we are lucky with our postie and I know that they aren't all this good. This must be the area of my life where I get my little ray of sunshine!!

stickywicket

rondetto wrote:

I ordered a few items on 30th December from Amazon. They said delivery due by 5th January, it, s 10th tomorrow and I'm still waiting for them.

Have you tried tracking them, rondetto? It might be worth seeing where they're up to.

tkachev

rondetto wrote:

I ordered a few items on 30th December from Amazon. They said delivery due by 5th January, it, s 10th tomorrow and I'm still waiting for them.

I have the same issue Ron. Stuff ordered in the sales end Dec is only just arriving and some has not been delivered at all. I even got one parcel re- sent out because it had not turned up (tracking said it was due 29th Dec) but of course both have now turned up :roll:

Before Christmas my Sons £340 wii u and game were left on our doorstep at night. A card was put through the door but we have a curtain which close around 6 pm so did not see it. It was only because my OH went out for some **** at 9 pm that he found the box sitting on the doorstep.

Elizabeth