jessikb wrote:Hi!
I'm an A-Level Drama student. and we are currently doing a piece about the Royal Mail, and the issues surrounding it. It would be really helpful if people could tell us why they decided to work for the Royal Mail in the first place.
Thanks for any cooperation! :)
I was working shifts for a papermill ,,4 days on,,4 days off,and every 7 cycles,,18 days off,,that happened 5 times a year..since I had a family,,i joined an agency for extra work,extra income,,
The agency placed me Parcelforce,,and I loved it,arranging my own route,working outdoors,,keeping fit,,and with the dawn of the internet,the sales of paper slumped worldwide,as people chose to email rather than write letters,or issue invoices..ect.,and the mill closed,
As I was already employed part time with Parcelforce,,i left my main employer on the Friday and started full time on the following Monday.
As Parcelforce is under the umbrella of the Royal Mail,,and in the public sector,I found it extremely difficult to accept the working practices in a company under public ownership,since my previous employers were cost conscience,,to a certain degree,this didn't seem to apply to Parcelforce,and the system was,,deliveries in the morning,,then as the vans started returning to the depot,,the afternoon drivers would go back out to where the delivery drivers had been to do the collections.,
Double drivers,,double wages,,double work,,double cost,,resulting in Parcelforce losing 90 million a year..in 2001..
The government were faced with two choices,,reform,,or close it down,
It was then that the unions and the Parcelforce management actually got together and ask us drivers our thoughts on how we could improve the business and save our jobs,and the company, from collapse.
Our ideas were submitted,,the long termers who wanted to go,went,,on very favourable terms,,a few drivers became self employed,,using their redundancy money to set up as an owner driver,,and the remaining employed drivers put our ideas to the management on a depot to depot basis,,and that resulted in Parcelforce becoming an extremely efficient operation,,
Gone are the days when the drivers would turn up for work in trainers and a dirty shirt,,driving a shitty van,,to arriving to work looking smart,,some ,,like myself,,wearing a tie,,clean shoes,,gleaming vans,,and a massive pride in what we do,,after all,,its our customers who pay our wages,,and first impressions last..
Now the Royal Mail is in the hands of private investors,its the shareholders who benefit from the hard work of each and every one of us,,plus,,with the new scanners,,the job has changed from us drivers arranging our own route in the most cost and time efficient way,to our customers dictating when they would like their parcel delivered,,so, to a certain degree,,it's going backwards,as I could find myself in a street with 4 deliveries and the system will only allow me to deliver one,,so I have to return later at the next customers request..micro management is not good.