Chaos

[grumpazoid]

I recently rejoined RM after having worked elsewhere for the last year and just thought I'd share one or two observations. At my previous DO, even in the run-up to Xmas and as we entered the first lock-down, I would describe the general atmosphere as one of organised chaos. Sadly, the same cannot be said for my new DO.

Previously, I'd generally notch up 18-20k steps on any given walk at my old DO. Now, I'm never doing less than 25k and I'm lucky if I can complete a walk within my duty time. I'm constantly posted to solo rural duties, where the majority of the houses have names rather than door numbers, and I don't think I've done more than two consecutive days on the same walk.

As is often the case, this morning I came in to find that I had been posted to a rural walk that hasn't gone out for several days. The frame was in an absolute state - piles of mis-sorted letters and mail to be redirected buried under heaps of litter and old D2Ds, FIVE full packet bags of un-tracked parcels that have been left to build up, several stacked trays of mail to go into the frame, as well as seven or eight bundles of mail that had previously been returned to go back into the frame... I could barely get near any of it to make a start! Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated incident - I came in to a different walk in a similar state last week.

The state of the DO in general is pretty bad - frames aren't routinely cleared and are left covered in miscellaneous crap, Yorks are left strewn all over the yard, keys for box collections are often issued to the wrong person... Yet the only thing I ever hear from managers is "Make sure all the tracked items go out".

Managers always seem to react as though I'm trying to pull a fast one when I tell them that I won't be taking everything out with me or, god forbid, I'm not taking my share of the absorption. I had a mountain of tracked items to deliver today, all of which I had to scan into the route optimisation app on the PDA (useless though it is, I'd have NO CLUE where to go for half of the deliveries if I didn't use it!). It was 1030 before I even got out of the yard. I only just managed to deliver all of the tracked items within my duty time (yes, I made damn sure I took my break, as always!) and, predictably, wound up taking back the letters I'd brought out with me.

The other posties I've spoken to about this seem to accept the fact that the walks are far too long and rush around like blue-arsed flies in an effort to finish within their time. On the one occasion when I've shared a van with another postie from this DO we just about managed to complete his duty within our time but didn't even manage a single loop from mine. Apparently, the walks for this particular area were all recently reviewed and deemed to be of an appropriate length.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to be back in this job. Once I'm out of the office and on delivery I'm generally pretty happy - it still beats sitting at a desk, responding to emails and attending meetings! I just can't quite believe that what I've seen at my DO over the last month is par for the course... Is it?!

[chickenwittle]

It can be mentally as well as physically draining but it sounds like you are doing the right thing . Start on time , take your breaks and finish on time the rest is royal Mail’s problem to fix .

[postslippete]

Managers will still be using covid as an excuse for any delivery failures,however if the tracked items are being delivered the senior managers have reason to believe that everything is being delivered, when it's obviously not.

Whether operations managers and their loyal reps report walks not going out, the overriding sentiment I get is that Royal Mail are not that bothered. Dig deeper and what happens are that staff get demoralised, make mistakes and may end up going on sick through stress.

[SpacePhoenix]

The other posties I've spoken to about this seem to accept the fact that the walks are far too long and rush around like blue-arsed flies in an effort to finish within their time.

And there is a massive part of the problem. Whilst there's lots of delivery staff doing that, there's no need for RM to make walks shorter or split walks off into new ones

[Jpro747]

Why have the CWU gone silent when things have never been so bad?

Rushed unworkable revisions. Vacancies not being filled. Agency drafted in. Failures galore. B&H rife. Mental and physical health of staff???

We need new leadership.

[postslippete]

The other posties I've spoken to about this seem to accept the fact that the walks are far too long and rush around like blue-arsed flies in an effort to finish within their time.

And there is a massive part of the problem. Whilst there's lots of delivery staff doing that, there's no need for RM to make walks shorter or split walks off into new ones

We got a few duties that are massively oversized. One guy that was on it regularly left a loop or two for WEEKS....and guess what? They didn't change the duty; they just moved the postie onto an easier round

That's management's way of fixing problems.

If a postie left a loop of mail behind then all that seems to happen is that there would be a loop of mail extra to deliver for tomorrow. In a mail centre if you can't sequence the 2nd wave, are you expected to do it tomorrow? No. So why are postie's getting sh@fted with double mail/packets.

The easy way out for both Royal Mail and the Cwu isto suggest working your hours. The more constructive way is to start holding incompetent and workshy managers directly accountable.

[Chelseablue]

Why are the revisions being rushed in esp as our crazy periods coming up soon? Why not get the workforce involved in the revision ? Any ideas folks?

[Grumpyoldmailman]

Why are the revisions being rushed in esp as our crazy periods coming up soon? Why not get the workforce involved in the revision ? Any ideas folks?

£££

[Phantom]

If the walk is too long and you don't want the overtime then simply cut off.

Yes you'll get the same cliched bollocks from managers but keep doing it and after a while they'll leave you alone.

[POSTMAN]

Thank you for your post grumpazoid and your previous posts.
Welcome to Royal Mail.

[SpacePhoenix]

In a mail centre if you can't sequence the 2nd wave, are you expected to do it tomorrow?

Half of the wave 2 batches are just walk sort anyway. I doubt it'll be too long before they're all just walk sort. Wave 2 starts whilst the iLSM is running plan 1 (the main inward sort plan) so the earlier batches can potentially get way more manual than walk sequenced/sorted

[krussel]

When walks have been over run with mail in the past RM always threw a fair chunk of OT at the problem and the frame got cleared. This time around it different. Staff being told that they cannot extend and stream their mail to make sure they complete the absorbtion.

I think its more about the way things are reported down the line than the actual mail getting delivered on time or at all.

[jeffers400]

Was off with stress for 14 days, came back to resign round, with 20 crates of flats and 3 non-tracked parcel sacks backlog to prep and deliver blind.

The round is a van share and, after 3 weeks as of tomorrow, consensus from van- share colleague is that the round cannot be completed in the allocated time, especially earlier finish times on Tue, Fri and Sat.

Have told the manager, who insists its doable. This despite no time for D2Ds or IPS, both of which we haven't done since assigned the revision duties.

To top it all, I got a Stage 1 for being off 14 days, despite this being my only absence in well over a year.

To be honest, I'm completely demoralised, still stressed and actively looking for alternative work.

[Chelseablue]

Well done union for all this chaos , weve no chance .

[grumpazoid]

The chaos continues...

Our DO is huge. A lot of the frames are for trolley walks in the vicinity of the town centre, the rest are for van duties in the surrounding villages, many of which include large rural areas. Managers tend to keep the reserves working in the same areas and, since my arrival, I have been kept on duties in the same village/rural area. As previously mentioned, these walks are MASSIVE and near enough impossible for even the experienced posties to finish within their time. Management are clearly aware of this situation - on more than one occasion I have been told "Just concentrate on the specials and the tracked, any un-tracked items and letters you get done after them are a bonus".

During the last week, I had the unexpected pleasure of doing a trolley duty near to the DO for one day. The number of delivery points was about the same as on one of the rural walks, however they were much closer together and I didn't have to take out any oversize parcels. Nor did I have any collections to complete, whereas the rural duties tend to have three or four per walk. I never usually rush around at work, but I think it's impossible not to feel a small amount of pressure when it's taking forever to make a dent in the volume of letters and parcels in the back of your van, as is so often the case on the rural duties. In contrast, I felt no pressure whatsoever when on the trolley walk as I knew from the outset that it would be completed within my duty time.

As mentioned, management are aware of the situation and cannot be blind to the obvious pressure felt by posties who are permanently assigned to the longer rural duties, most of which are swamped with oversize parcels on a daily basis. Surely their lack of interest in tackling this issue would make them complicit in discriminatory behaviour (i.e. "This group of posties are worthy of stress-free, short walks that they can complete within their duty times every day, whereas this other group are not")? It's not exactly good for morale when you see most people in the DO dealing with a manageable workload, whereas the rest are regularly struggling to deal with such an horrendous volume of mail and parcels.