Royal Mail one day Strike 19th December

mazza111

Jack it depends on your local office, many of them were working last sunday, this sunday as well as doing evening deliveries in the run up to xmas.

Windym, being in the call and collect locker, i never get cash gifts, but normally a nice bottle or two from some of our regular customers, so we have a little party in the afternoon of xmas eve :T

My own postie gets his supply of decent Belgian beers that aren't so well known in this country but taste gr8, and he always asks me to bring him some when i'm over there visiting family


edit: oopsy typo

ltm07

liam8282 wrote: »

No, they also post red cards through your letterbox because they cannot be bothered carrying a parcel to your door, even though postage has been paid for the item to be delivered to your door, not a sorting office which you have to travel to, to collect your item yourself.

Oh yes and they also strike in the Summer and at Christmas, bit of a coincidence I think?

& yes the strike is about money, as it always is. They either want pay increases, better pensions, they are currently saying it is because so many hundred workers will lose their jobs if they move a sorting centre, doesn't it occur to anybody that if they can simply move a sorting centre and save hundreds of jobs, that these hundreds of workers are getting paid for doing unneccesary work in the first place??

So many excuses, so many complaints. At the end of the day the more the workers complain and strike the quicker it will be sold off and privatised, then there will be no pensions to moan about, no 20% pay increases to strike over..... the sooner the better.

When have we ever been on strike asking for a 20% pay rise, one of the reasons we went on strike last year was because the pay deal on the table would have made walking postmen around £20-£30 a week worse off! This strike(which has now been called off thank God) was about people losing their jobs or having to travel to a different city to go to work, which would have cost £1,000's a year in travelling costs. I wish that the Union would call a work to rule for the whole country for a week or two & then the likes of you really would realise how bad the service would be if we did so. You do not see how the majority of posties go out of their way to help their customers out.

ltm07

windym wrote: »

How much do you tip your postie and do they prefer cash to gift?

Most people tip a fiver & it is also nice to get gifts, which are usually wine or chocolates. I appreciate anyone who tips me,but this year I do prefer the cash, which is going in our wedding fund, but as I say, it is wonderful of people to make you feel appreciated.

Millie's_Mum

My postie is fab, I cannot fault him one bit but the local post office and sorting office is a complete joke, there is only the main post office left open in the town, you can expect to queue for up an average of about 15 mins whatever time you go in, whatever the time of year and then when you finally get served they try and sell you credit card, it is intensely annoying however i hold my tongue because I know its not their fault.

The sorting office always take 48 hrs before you can collect and the queue for that is often 500 yards long and they often have not received the item back even when you've left it 48 hrs. They take ages to find the parcel even if its there because it is such a small office there isn't enough room to have things in their proper place. Even though its dealing with much greater volume due to post office closures, its only open til 12 on weekdays and 11 on saturdays which means there is no point even attempting to collect on a saturday.

However i appreciate this is not the fault of the people who actually work there its the lousy management decisions and i do not believe that it should be privatised but they really do need to get a grip on the situation before those that can vote with their feet, do so.

EbeneezerGoode

When have we ever been on strike asking for a 20% pay rise

I can remember reading about this, just working from memory but it seems like the facts have been muddled up, there wasn't a strike about it, it was a figure quoted by the newspapers, I'm not totally sure but I think the unions wanted around £1 more ph because the shift allowance was going to be abolished. The standard hourly rate was 5.50 so the papers decided to say 20% to make it sound like extortion, £1.10 ph extra (and being paid same hourly rate nomatter what time or day you work) doesnt grab headlines or sell papers - they want to make the unions sound like the bad guys. Wish I could go back to working there again, but there's no permanant full time jobs anymore, these days seems like the only jobs are part time or casual - probably because only permanant full time staff can join the unions and there's more people then who'll work during strikes.

wullie

windym wrote: »

How much do you tip your postie and do they prefer cash to gift?

It's really nice to receive anything. The only trouble is bottles can be a problem if i have a full sack of mail. Money is nice of course but i prefer it in a card to avoid embarrasment. I don't like money left in an envelope taped to the door as they get stolen. I always tip waiters and taxi drivers so i dont mind tips :beer: i'm unusual in that there are millionaires on my round and low paid workers in council houses..Guess who are the best tippers...the happiest and friendliest.

custardy

moneypooh wrote: »

BBC reporting that they have been called off

as someone predicted

frugallass

wullie wrote: »

Another £60 in tips today...woopie...i'll be booking my winter holiday in the sun soon.. i hope you remember to tip your postie frugallass lol...

hope your insured while your doing all these 'odd jobs' for your 'customers' or would you sue them when you get a shock from their dodgy old lawnmower - I take it when you call them customers it's because you're taking a back hander for the work your doing for them.

Yeah the tip for my postie will be, "try and get to my house before the sun sets and turn the stereo down on your van"

oh and while he's at it maybe he can find my missing vouchers

mazza111

Millie's Mum, I think u have hit the nail on the head with that post tbh. 48 hrs does seem ridiculous to get a parcel back in the office, but that's royal mail procedure for u If it's a van driver who has your packet, u may be lucky and get it back in the same/next day. Even if it's a postie who uses his own car, same/next day. If it's a postie on foot, well... that's where the 48 hrs come in, these are all "pouched" off at the post office, to await collection to the mail centre, which then delivers them back to the delivery office *sigh* Have suggested that they cut out the mail centre for pouched off items and they are brought back to the delivery office but alas it's fallen on deaf ears.
During these longer opening hours of the call and collect offices, I have the tidiest office around I bet, the public aren't used to us opening so long, so they don't call outside the normal opening hours, even though they have been carded to tell them of the hours. Spending my afternoons arranging shelves of parcels, woohoo.

Now how do we get these silly ppl to read the cards like Millie's mum has, had a customer in today demanding her package, as she needed it for tomorrow!!!! We had only tried to deliver it 2 hrs b4 hand got really abusive because it wasn't back, tried to call postie, package already pouched off at post office awaiting return to delivery office....

Well must get to bed, have lots of packages to tidy tomorrow, hohoho

mookie

My regular postie was an absolute star, he's always delivering my freebies, grabbits and ebay stuff and never moans, even offering to deliver them rather than the van doing it if they are not too large, not one item has ever gone astray when he's been on our area.

Recently he has been off sick and I have had 4 items go astray and one item worth £40 mis delivered to a (luckily) honest neighbour. A parcel was left on my doorstep which was picked up by me so I am assuming the other items were mis delivered or left outside and picked up by a passer by. To say the postie stole them would be totally unfair, it seems that he was either too lazy or not trained. I passed my comments to the local office and since then I have had other posties and not had any more problems. Based on this experience I would never accuse all posties of being lazy or dishonest is really unfair as my regular postie takes pride in his work. Some of the others bring treats for my dog.

After reading this I feel I should go down to the office and tip my regular postie who has returned from his sick leave but can no longer do the rounds I'm going to miss him as he has been so reliable.