Doesn't this happen every year then after a week or so the DO's are in such a state they have to start paying OT again? It seems a bizarre way to run a company.
I think it would be a mistake to assume that was has happened before will happen again.
Royal mail is a different beast. Expect different scenarios.
Nobody can run a business at a loss.
RM still has to deliver some mail, it can't just leave weeks of mail to build up all across the business whilst it's retaining it's USO obligations.
Although at some point soon it's got to clarify what's happening regarding the further roll out of the ODM.
Doesn't this happen every year then after a week or so the DO's are in such a state they have to start paying OT again? It seems a bizarre way to run a company.
I think it would be a mistake to assume that was has happened before will happen again.
Royal mail is a different beast. Expect different scenarios.
Nobody can run a business at a loss.
RM still has to deliver some mail, it can't just leave weeks of mail to build up all across the business whilst it's retaining it's USO obligations.
Although at some point soon it's got to clarify what's happening regarding the further roll out of the ODM.
The ODM is dead. Died last year. There is no further roll out. A different method is being trialled soon.
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
The ODM is dead. Died last year. There is no further roll out. A different method is being trialled soon.
Strange then that we had planners in the office today and we are being told the roll out of the ODM will be as trialled.
3 covering 4.
It’s not the same thing.
What is it then ? Our manager claims to know nothing, surely someone must know I'm assuming the people responsible have been doing something since it was put on hold last year.
The ODM is dead. Died last year. There is no further roll out. A different method is being trialled soon.
Strange then that we had planners in the office today and we are being told the roll out of the ODM will be as trialled.
3 covering 4.
It’s not the same thing.
What is it then ? Our manager claims to know nothing, surely someone must know I'm assuming the people responsible have been doing something since it was put on hold last year.
Your manager doesn’t know anything. A new delivery model hasn’t been agreed with the CWU yet. If they are shoving some method in at your place, it’s am unagreed method.
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
The ODM is dead. Died last year. There is no further roll out. A different method is being trialled soon.
Nothing is ever dead, it just comes back stranger (cf starbursting, lapsing, etc).
This is true. They just name it something else. Parts of the ODM aren’t dead ideas for them: the idea that you deliver half of your walk and half of another and then switch the next day, is an idea that remains.
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
Your manager doesn’t know anything. A new delivery model hasn’t been agreed with the CWU yet. If they are shoving some method in at your place, it’s am unagreed method.
I suspect their manager knows more than them, you or me — and more than the CWU. A friendly deputy manager tells me the ODM will be rolled out under the auspices of “executive action”, ie, without reference to, or consultation with, the CWU, and that all “USO change managers” in our region — who were temporarily stood down and returned to normal managerial operations for peak — are now all frantically working on the roll-out plan so it can all be running and embedded in time for the summer leave slowdown. Of course, he could be right or wrong.
Your manager doesn’t know anything. A new delivery model hasn’t been agreed with the CWU yet. If they are shoving some method in at your place, it’s am unagreed method.
I suspect their manager knows more than them, you or me — and more than the CWU. A friendly deputy manager tells me the ODM will be rolled out under the auspices of “executive action”, ie, without reference to, or consultation with, the CWU, and that all “USO change managers” in our region — who were temporarily stood down and returned to normal managerial operations for peak — are now all frantically working on the roll-out plan so it can all be running and embedded in time for the summer leave slowdown. Of course, he could be right or wrong.
Dear gawd. Please for the love of the wee donkey, will you tale it as fact that managers know next to nothing. They are deliberately kept in the dark and told the bare minimum.
Your ‘friendly deputy manager’, not that we use that title, regurgitated a gossipy rumour. They have no roll-out plan to ram in. Have you not worked with the ‘genius team’ you are imagining could put together a new delivery model
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
Dear gawd. Please for the love of the wee donkey, will you tale it as fact that managers know next to nothing. They are deliberately kept in the dark and told the bare minimum.
Your ‘friendly deputy manager’, not that we use that title, regurgitated a gossipy rumour. They have no roll-out plan to ram in. Have you not worked with the ‘genius team’ you are imagining could put together a new delivery model
I do agree that low-grade managers know next to nothing. But next to nothing is, even if marginally, more than nothing. We of course know nothing — well, except that the CwU won’t agree to deployment,
No, this one is definitely friendly — I actually went to primary school with him so know he is sound. And anyway, despite his hi-vis being emblazoned with the word “Manager”, he is still just an OPG like the rest of us and his heart isn’t really in the managerial stuff.
Last edited by Smoothbackground on 17 Jan 2026, 16:34, edited 2 times in total.
Only a complete moron would actually roll out that farcical ODM method that was being trialled last year. So yeah, expect to see it in your office soon!
Dear gawd. Please for the love of the wee donkey, will you tale it as fact that managers know next to nothing. They are deliberately kept in the dark and told the bare minimum.
Your ‘friendly deputy manager’, not that we use that title, regurgitated a gossipy rumour. They have no roll-out plan to ram in. Have you not worked with the ‘genius team’ you are imagining could put together a new delivery model
I do agree that low-grade managers know next to nothing. But next to nothing is, even if marginally, more than nothing. We of course know nothing — well, except that the CwU won’t agree to deployment,
No, this one is definitely friendly — I actually went to primary school with him so know he is sound. And anyway, despite his hi-vis being emblazoned with the word “Manager”, he is still just an OPG like the rest of us and his heart isn’t really in the managerial stuff.
It isn’t that the ‘CWU won’t agree to deployment’, it’s that there isn’t a fully formed method to deploy. RM & the CWU have to agree to a trial timetable for an alternative method to the ODM pilots last year. That’s the hold up.
’You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.’
Dear gawd. Please for the love of the wee donkey, will you tale it as fact that managers know next to nothing. They are deliberately kept in the dark and told the bare minimum.
Your ‘friendly deputy manager’, not that we use that title, regurgitated a gossipy rumour. They have no roll-out plan to ram in. Have you not worked with the ‘genius team’ you are imagining could put together a new delivery model
I do agree that low-grade managers know next to nothing. But next to nothing is, even if marginally, more than nothing. We of course know nothing — well, except that the CwU won’t agree to deployment,
No, this one is definitely friendly — I actually went to primary school with him so know he is sound. And anyway, despite his hi-vis being emblazoned with the word “Manager”, he is still just an OPG like the rest of us and his heart isn’t really in the managerial stuff.
It isn’t that the ‘CWU won’t agree to deployment’, it’s that there isn’t a fully formed method to deploy. RM & the CWU have to agree to a trial timetable for an alternative method to the ODM pilots last year. That’s the hold up.
So what happens if RM wants to implement whatever bollocks they dream up and the cwu don't think it's a good plan and say we don't agree ? How can they hold it up or stop it ? Yeah I get they can say we won't help etc.
