Royal Mail (Unit named removed) was a disgrace.

[csupernova09]

Working there on a temp basis from November doing the 6am-2pm shift, can honestly say I was not once late, or ever left early, did at least 14 hours overtime a week and generally kept myself to myself stuck my earphones in and got on with it. I've worked for Royal Mail 3 times before so know what the whole thing is with temps, however this was ridiculous.

The management were disgusting. The 'Main Man' as he called himself was latched on for the entire duration to an engaged lady working on Primary sorting, literally fixated with her even though he was married with children and based in a hotel out of RM's pocket. She got preferential treatment including 1.45 hours of breaks a day minimum, lifts from the manager to and fro places on breaks, allowed to lean up a york and chat all day, apply make-up constantly mid-shift and no fuss was made when she turned up repeatedly late - usually about half hour. Not once would he come over to Secondary and make any attempt to speak to us.

One time, a Monday morning, it was particularly quiet. No work was in so us on Secondary used our initiative and make up yorks with cardboard/sleeves and generally cleaned the whole place up. We did this for a good 3 hours. After that a small lorry arrived with about 20 sleeves for the Primary to sort who all this time we had been told were 'creating labels' in the staff room. However when we went in to tell them the entire lot were sat there doing bugger all drinking tea with the gaffers. Then one of the Primary came out and said "I can't believe you've been doing that, were getting paid for drinking coffee". The managers love interest then came out and proceeded to say "I'm not doing that, there's plenty up there for it" before going back and heading into the mangers office before reappearing at around 12pm and doing minimal work til 2pm. We all decided on Secondary enough was enough, and around 30 of us went up to complain to the Manager. When one of the guys working on Secondary with me raised the issue and said as a collective we wasn't happy the Managers reply was "What do you want me to do? If you don't like it F*** Off". Before walking back over to her and doing the usual standing over her shoulder whispering. That wasn't all though, the Manager then came over not too long after, took him to one side as if to have a quiet word but near enough yelled "I don't need little s***'s like you causing a division in this great team".

We never again really spoke to him after that, he'd send his assistant to tell us to do anything. On a Friday, the regular clique of about 15 on Primary would go to the nearby pub with the Managers and usually end up out up in the towns clubs til the early hours coming into work on the Saturday morning usually out their tree's. He organised an Xmas party for us, the majority on Secondary chose not to go as it would have cost us £10 each and we knew it would just be a joke. It was conveniently was held at the hotel he was staying at and it turns out he'd left to go with the woman off Primary up to his room by 6pm and they showed for work the next morning in the same car. When the majority on Secondary said we didn't want to go for various reasons he said "For f***'s sake, I've gave them numbers now and after everything I've done for you lot".

We were told last week that they would be letting half go, as obviously the work would dwindle after Xmas. They said they were doing this based upon punctuality, attendance, commitment to overtime and work rate. The manager and 2 assistants would supposedly be choosing who was staying for an extra 3 weeks and they'd let us know as soon as they could (in fact they did on the last day, and told us it'd be our last shift there and then). What they didn't mention, which we found out for ourselves was that his love interest was in there with them choosing who should stay. We were all fuming obviously, but knew we were p*ssing in the wind to try and make a complaint or raise an issue with that t**t as gaffer.

As it turns out, it was all the 'Pub Clique' who all got to stay on with a few others from Primary. We were told they'd come round and tell us all individually why we weren't kept on. They never came, and when I approached them to ask they stifled a reply of 'attendance'. I've not missed a day and even worked Sundays too. It's a joke. The manger then left early on the last day so we couldn't confront him, taking her with him.

Amongst all this, thieving was rife at our depot with agency staff coming in from all over the place. When someone found half a york full of empty Amazon packets with receipts for games, jewelry and blu-rays and took it to the gaffer he said "Bin it all, I don't want that getting back to revenue". Nobody was even challenged about it, with all staff remaining and the robberies continuing. Also, porters would have to tick off on a board whenever a mini-york came through to Secondary from Primary so we could see how many packets we'd sorted. In order to look better to his superiors, he'd make them take half full ones with about 10 packets in so it appeared we'd sorted more and then he'd get his assistant to come over to us and tell us to hurry up when they ran out of the yorks because of this. He also gave somebody a full-time job because he gave him a lift from the pub to his hotel when he was paralytic from alcohol, even though said person had poor attendance, and regularly left early for trivial reasons.

All in all, the whole managerial process was a joke. It was completely unprofessional and about 25 of us on secondary are considering complaining but to be honest I don't think that'd get us anywhere, but were giving it a go.

[fishtank]

Stick Dear Moya at the start,your name at the end and email your post to justsayit@royalmail.com

[csupernova09]

Stick Dear Moya at the start,your name at the end and email your post to justsayit@royalmail.com

Ok, I will do. Thanks . I'm guessing it's a RM complaint scheme?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Stick Dear Moya at the start,your name at the end and email your post to justsayit@royalmail.com

Ok, I will do. Thanks . I'm guessing it's a RM complaint scheme?

No, its a direct line to the CEO of the company. Good luck I hope it causes an earthquake - it should.

[csupernova09]

Stick Dear Moya at the start,your name at the end and email your post to justsayit@royalmail.com

Ok, I will do. Thanks . I'm guessing it's a RM complaint scheme?

No, its a direct line to the CEO of the company. Good luck I hope it causes an earthquake - it should.

I've sent it to her, thanks again. I can honestly say I've never encountered such unprofessionality from somebody, particularly on the subject of not tackling repeated thieving and near enough lying about our output with the half full mini-yorks. I just hope something is done about it.

[mandelsons_toenail]

Was this in the eastern region?

[NWpostie]

Find out who the wife is, contact give all the sinful details, stand well back in order to watch the fireworks from a safe distance free entertainment Jeremy Kyle 3D show.

[wamdue]

this place sounds like it might have been Peterborough Outhouse, which takes some beating, or possibly it is Peterborough. (speculation on my part)

The whole place was a right mess this yet , too describe the break room with the term "landfill" would have been an insult on landfills some days.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

this place sounds like it might have been Peterborough Outhouse, which takes some beating, or possibly it is Peterborough. (speculation on my part)

The whole place was a right mess this yet , too describe the break room with the term "landfill" would have been an insult on landfills some days.

I can confirm it WASN'T Peterborough - however I would strongly suggest its better not to speculate which office it was as I removed the name to make sure the guilty did not have a get out clause no matter how slim that chance is.

[wamdue]

fair enough, the point of my post was not to speculate that it was Peterborough, but to say other areas have been bad.

obviously change my post if you feel you need to.

[newtimes]

I hope something is done about this, well done for not just sitting back and doing nothing. In the past people stood up to give us better conditions, what you are doing and people like you are repaying that debt to those people and insuring the future generations have a chance.

[LinChong]

Send your email to manageroftheyear@royalmail.com

[csupernova09]

I've still not yet got a reply, not that I expected one in all honesty.

[newtimes]

I've still not yet got a reply, not that I expected one in all honesty.

Hopefully they will be checking up, and then you should get a reply. At the end of the day you have left an audit trail. They do not know if a newspaper or reporter is doing an investigation into the events. Last thing they want is to be shown up for not investigating this behaviour. Many thanks for keeping this forum updated and all the best in trying to get more work.