How things have changed...

[Edward Hunter]

Also remember getting 3 days for to do your utility bills (mid 80s). They went on top of your frame with the rebate! Especially if it was a Saturday and you had football to go to. At my place 9.00AM was a normal time to finish on a Saturday. Today i finished at 12.45. I also remember wages being paid in cash. RM paid an hour OT so you could act as "security" to the phg as they were delivered."Hello Mr McVicar the wages are in the van for you. Take whatever you like just dont point that sawn-off at me please!"

[dave7634]

Also remember getting 3 days for to do your utility bills (mid 80s). They went on top of your frame with the rebate! Especially if it was a Saturday and you had football to go to. At my place 9.00AM was a normal time to finish on a Saturday. Today i finished at 12.45. I also remember wages being paid in cash. RM paid an hour OT so you could act as "security" to the phg as they were delivered."Hello Mr McVicar the wages are in the van for you. Take whatever you like just dont point that sawn-off at me please!"

I worked for a while with Cashco before the helmets were brought in and also before they were separated from Royal Mail Letters. Having to wonder into the Post Office armed with a PortaBlast. "Press the button and run!" I was told to do if there was a bloke in there with a shotgun. I think I'd have to run fast to catch up with my bowels!

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Also remember getting 3 days for to do your utility bills (mid 80s). They went on top of your frame with the rebate! Especially if it was a Saturday and you had football to go to. At my place 9.00AM was a normal time to finish on a Saturday. Today i finished at 12.45. I also remember wages being paid in cash. RM paid an hour OT so you could act as "security" to the phg as they were delivered."Hello Mr McVicar the wages are in the van for you. Take whatever you like just dont point that sawn-off at me please!"

Bloody Hell Ed! I'll bet you remember the green redirection cards and writing the damn things out by hand!

[OMV 5]

was that the trackback cup there was a few good fights and a lot of beer drank ....lol

[Daz....]

Ah! Those good old donkey jackets.Pity too ,that they got rid of the old style bikes,we still have a few around at my office,wish I had been riding one ,instead of the new heavy weight rubbish ,back in February when the crap gears slipped tossing me onto concrete,breaking my coccyx and giving me a serious whiplash injury to my neck.
Thanks too for the return to work interview and the written warning for taking supposedly too much time off ,the doctor did not think so,thanks to RM for the extra private physio treatment too.
Thanks for suspending me in 2007, why? Because the regional manager bod ,thought as our main sorting office was on strike that day ,our customers would not want there mail for a day.
Thanks to his bosses for telling him he had done something wrong and to get us off the picket line at the gate,and allowing us to do our deliveries.
THEY REALLY CARE ABOUT THE CUSTOMER?
Good job they promoted such a A ---HOLE and moved him I think to Gloucester.....?
What a great Christmas I had too last year ,on £13 wages on xmas eve ,why? Compassionate leave pay because my elderly mother had a stroke on December 13th ,pity my mate whose father was terminally ill the week before ,he got the same treatment.
But we work a week in hand?
Thanks to all the honest ,decent ,hard working real posties that I have worked with over the last 25 years,and ya boo sucks to all the Total tits ,sorry managers ,that frankly could not organise a piss up in a brewery let alone run THE ROYAL MAIL.

[gusco]

Fantastic thread.
It's great to hear stories of the good old days. Bin in RM since 1987- done all the lot- walks,datapost, parcels, yellow pages,Railway station platform work and even Cashco. My time full of good stories - days away all paid for to play footie against other DO's- Glasgow was our best trip
Favourite skive- was on 2nd delivery- hiding 1st class letters by putting them back in missorts-then leaving depot with 6 letters. Home for 1045.
People used to borrow vans for weekends at a time to move house.
We used to race electric parcel shunters round the parcel depot- our boss always won-
Where ever I have worked there's been postie morale- and that made the difference- work was about having a laugh first, work second.
That seems a different world compared to today's pressure and hassle. They may of broken many an old posture spirit - but they can never take our old fantastic memories away !!!!!