Part Timer Expectations

[crimson king]

Loving all these vehicle checks being mentioned.

I think I I saw someone kick a tyre in our yard one morning, does that count?

[cpsteve]

2) Something is seriously wrong in your office fishtank if you can do all that work in 7 hrs 48 mins.

7h 48 day minus 40 minutes for the meal relief leaves 7h 08.
Delivery span of 4h 38 including travelling time - leaves 2h 30 minutes.
2 hours to prep the 2 duties - 1 hour on each at a rate of 1350 items/hour.
(It would depend on how fully prepped these duties needed to be depending on the indoor time available to whoever was delivering them.)
Leaves 30 minutes on IPS.

What is the problem?

The delivery span from leaving the office to returning on a typical normal busy day would be 6 hours on my walk.
IPS, along with prep, kill offs, redirections, collecting things from callers office, bundling up, loading van just for my walk alone then vehicle checks will typically take 2 hours 10 minutes altogether.
So that's 8 hours 10 minutes so far. Our total daily paid hours are variable across the week but similar if not the same as your 7 hours 48 minutes.
If I add the total 40 minutes of break time we are supposed to take that makes my total time at work 8 hours 50 minutes.
Make of that what you will.

You must be very quick prepping 6 hours work in 2 hours 10 or very slow on delivery.

[fishtank]

The delivery span from leaving the office to returning on a typical normal busy day would be 6 hours on my walk.

I would humbly suggest then that there is something seriously wrong in your office.

[crimson king]

The delivery span from leaving the office to returning on a typical normal busy day would be 6 hours on my walk.

I would humbly suggest then that there is something seriously wrong in your office.

It's the same on mine. If we can get out of the yard by half nine we've done well to get back by three thirty. Two thirty sometimes on a light Tuesday or Saturday. It kinda sucks to always be the last back, knowing that others are finishing their duty and then lapsing on overtime before we get back but I figure I won't be on it forever and that other walks will seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

Everyone who covers it during my leave or days off always comment how long it is, so at least I know I'm not slow

[rambo1]

2) Something is seriously wrong in your office fishtank if you can do all that work in 7 hrs 48 mins.

7h 48 day minus 40 minutes for the meal relief leaves 7h 08.
Delivery span of 4h 38 including travelling time - leaves 2h 30 minutes.
2 hours to prep the 2 duties - 1 hour on each at a rate of 1350 items/hour.
(It would depend on how fully prepped these duties needed to be depending on the indoor time available to whoever was delivering them.)
Leaves 30 minutes on IPS.

What is the problem?

The delivery span from leaving the office to returning on a typical normal busy day would be 6 hours on my walk.
IPS, along with prep, kill offs, redirections, collecting things from callers office, bundling up, loading van just for my walk alone then vehicle checks will typically take 2 hours 10 minutes altogether.
So that's 8 hours 10 minutes so far. Our total daily paid hours are variable across the week but similar if not the same as your 7 hours 48 minutes.
If I add the total 40 minutes of break time we are supposed to take that makes my total time at work 8 hours 50 minutes.
Make of that what you will.

You must be very quick prepping 6 hours work in 2 hours 10 or very slow on delivery.

Maybe it's a rural? Going a mile down a farm track takes a bit longer than delivering to terraces.

[Celgar]

2) Something is seriously wrong in your office fishtank if you can do all that work in 7 hrs 48 mins.

7h 48 day minus 40 minutes for the meal relief leaves 7h 08.
Delivery span of 4h 38 including travelling time - leaves 2h 30 minutes.
2 hours to prep the 2 duties - 1 hour on each at a rate of 1350 items/hour.
(It would depend on how fully prepped these duties needed to be depending on the indoor time available to whoever was delivering them.)
Leaves 30 minutes on IPS.

What is the problem?

The delivery span from leaving the office to returning on a typical normal busy day would be 6 hours on my walk.
IPS, along with prep, kill offs, redirections, collecting things from callers office, bundling up, loading van just for my walk alone then vehicle checks will typically take 2 hours 10 minutes altogether.
So that's 8 hours 10 minutes so far. Our total daily paid hours are variable across the week but similar if not the same as your 7 hours 48 minutes.
If I add the total 40 minutes of break time we are supposed to take that makes my total time at work 8 hours 50 minutes.
Make of that what you will.

You must be very quick prepping 6 hours work in 2 hours 10 or very slow on delivery.

Maybe it's a rural? Going a mile down a farm track takes a bit longer than delivering to terraces.

It is a rural and one of the two longest walks in the DO. Our walks have been made longer so as to keep our full time duties.

[peshwaarinaan]

This is a real bone of contention for me too. My contract is 20 hours a week which they insist on me working over 4 days. My start time is 9am this week and they've put me on one of the biggest duties in the office. There is no way I can complete in my contracted hours so I've already told them I'll be cutting off! I've asked if I can work my hours over 3 days and they said no so they can get lost. Like the OP I've also paid my mortgage off so I don't want overtime!

[Telbot]

I’ve been in 8 weeks on a 5 day 25hour contract as Im semi retired and those hours suited me fine. Always fancied working for RM so was made up when I got the job. The DO is nice, the DOM is really good and the guys and gals all very nice and very supportive. Trouble is the expectation for me and all part timers on the duty is to cover the complex rurals when the full timers go on leave. One of which includes close to 30 miles of driving. Not been easy to learn and have struggled to be honest. Also depending on which of the 25 walks I would potentially get, the expectation is to learn, bundle (with the frames often not mirroring the most efficient way to deliver) travel to first drop and then hope you somehow get back within your hours. I fully confess I find the hardest part is getting out of the DO in the mornings and I’m slow at the bundling. Perhaps I’m trying to hard to make sure I’m not gonna cock it up. It’s all very hit and miss in my experience. I was also loaned out to another office and one of the guys there told me part timers shouldn’t be bundling my and it’s part of an existing CWU agreement. I took it with a pinch of salt at the time, but is there any truth it?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

A sliver of truth

In most DOs if a 5hour part-timers want to work only to their contracted hours then the majority of the delivery is thrown in for them. All they do is clear the missort, redirections, packets, bundle up and go.

However, the managers can ask you to do anything reasonable within your contracted hours and if that means you can't complete then they have to MANAGE it.

[Telbot]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunatley, I resigned on Monday after some careful thought about what i want from a part time job, as the really long rural walk (25 miles of driving per day, with 500 drops) would require a couple of weeks cover soon as the resident postie was going on leave in May. I didn't fancy 2 weeks of extra time out every day with no overtime, or having to ask for it even though the bundling slows me down before I even get out. No doubt I would get quicker on the job the longer I stayed & the DOM was very nice, but also insistent that the new part timers could cover these rurals in contracted hours. That said the DOM also told me that any new part timers would be advertised at 27.5 hours per week, which is too much for me. Funny thing is throughout the 8 weeks, the old stagers in the DO all said they'd struggle to complete on some of the walks I was being put on, but naturally kept their heads down. I don't blame 'em.

There was also a potential transfer to another DO in an local town in an area I'm much more familiar with, which had more compact walks but were often heavy (the DOM in that office wanted to take me on as he was two posties short) but when I asked I was told this couldn't happen, and my resignation was accepted.

Shame really, as when I was out on walks and delivering I really enjoyed the job and I'm gutted to be leaving. On to the next I suppose.

[yellowbelly]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunatley, I resigned on Monday after some careful thought about what i want from a part time job,

Why the hell doesn't somebody in the RM hierarchy picked up on why so many new recruits leave so soon? This must be costing
RM a fortune what with advertising the job, recruiting process, interviews, security checks, uniform provision etc etc. and because of local management
incompetency and (lack of) support people leave so quickly and the process starts again ad nauseum!!

.....Funny thing is throughout the 8 weeks, the old stagers in the DO all said they'd struggle to complete on some of the walks I was being put on, but naturally kept their heads down. I don't blame 'em.

Unfortunately unless something affects people directly, apathy reigns in a lot of areas.

[97gaz]

[

[Interested-seeker]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunatley, I resigned on Monday after some careful thought about what i want from a part time job, as the really long rural walk (25 miles of driving per day, with 500 drops) would require a couple of weeks cover soon as the resident postie was going on leave in May. I didn't fancy 2 weeks of extra time out every day with no overtime, or having to ask for it even though the bundling slows me down before I even get out. No doubt I would get quicker on the job the longer I stayed & the DOM was very nice, but also insistent that the new part timers could cover these rurals in contracted hours. That said the DOM also told me that any new part timers would be advertised at 27.5 hours per week, which is too much for me. Funny thing is throughout the 8 weeks, the old stagers in the DO all said they'd struggle to complete on some of the walks I was being put on, but naturally kept their heads down. I don't blame 'em.

There was also a potential transfer to another DO in an local town in an area I'm much more familiar with, which had more compact walks but were often heavy (the DOM in that office wanted to take me on as he was two posties short) but when I asked I was told this couldn't happen, and my resignation was accepted.

Shame really, as when I was out on walks and delivering I really enjoyed the job and I'm gutted to be leaving. On to the next I suppose.

Sorry to hear that :(. Good luck with the future

[Telbot]

To be fair when I joined I made it clear to the DOM that I wasn’t interested in overtime. When I came back very late on one of the rurals one day, I had a chat and overtime got paid.

Truthfully, if Id known the DO plan was to place 5 hour per day part timers on big walks that with redirections, misiort clearance, bundling and loading & completion within that 5 hour period I wouldn’t have accepted the role.

The fact that the new PT jobs are going to be advertised at 27.5 hours, tells me that the resourcing plan was never going to work and relies too heavily on the offchance that new employees will acclimatise to working through with zero breaks and eventually get fast enough to complete.

For the record, I’m a retired ex Resource Manager for a major company who fancied a change. Thanks for the best wishes.

[Celgar]

Telbot. You should have pushed to get on the list for a transfer to the other DO. I don't think there is any reason they could stop you transferring if you won the vacancy. New jobs have to be advertised both in house and to new people but DOMs obviously prefer obtaining existing posties if they can. You should have contacted the DOM in the other office 'face to face' and they would pushed for you to transfer. RM are still persisting in trying to run the business on a skeleton staff. Eventually the business will start to suffer as a direct result.