Offices 'officially' in trouble?

[A2B]

We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We will regularly update customers on the offices most impacted here:

Question for you Postman

I understand that an office gets onto the public service disruption list after 3 consecutive days with 30% of delivery points failing the USO. From my understanding, RM uses a Delivery Point Coverage app that combines the data from its delivery to specification (DTS) system with PDA data to identify where deliveries have occurred.

PDA data can demonstrate where you went but doesn't identify what mail was still sitting in the frame or left in trays when you left the office. So how much of the delivery point coverage figure relies on information recoded by management and who audits the accuracy of that information?

Also, if loops of mail are taken out but have been brought back undelivered, how are those delivery points recorded and fed back into the figures? Because it's my understanding that this gets overlooked in our office

Is it that convoluted? I thought the DOM "should" be on the shop floor looking at the frames and talking to staff to see what was and what wasn't being delivered on the day.

Bringing work back is a very grey area, I've certainly been told to take everything out for delivery when I had no chance of completing it. I don't know if the walk was reported as completed or not

[yellowbelly]

We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We will regularly update customers on the offices most impacted here:

Question for you Postman

I understand that an office gets onto the public service disruption list after 3 consecutive days with 30% of delivery points failing the USO. From my understanding, RM uses a Delivery Point Coverage app that combines the data from its delivery to specification (DTS) system with PDA data to identify where deliveries have occurred.

PDA data can demonstrate where you went but doesn't identify what mail was still sitting in the frame or left in trays when you left the office. So how much of the delivery point coverage figure relies on information recoded by management and who audits the accuracy of that information?

Also, if loops of mail are taken out but have been brought back undelivered, how are those delivery points recorded and fed back into the figures? Because it's my understanding that this gets overlooked in our office

As another poster has said, don't think it's that complicated. I would have thought the failures are recorded from the data gathered from DODR's.

If you're inclined to go on Robin, there's a page in 'Delivery' about managers completing DODR's (Delivery Office Daily Reports).

Which includes:

Delivery Office Daily Report (DODR)

What is the Delivery Office Daily Report (DODR)?

All delivery units are required to report on unit clearance to workplan each day. This is done by completing the End of Day report and the Route Report (which then needs to be confirmed, or amended and confirmed via the 07:30 report the following day).

For any delivery units classed as Scale Payment Delivery Units (SPDO), they are now required to confirm any delivery route failures daily via the 07:30 report or the Route Report. This is the same as all delivery units.

Details of each report, are shown below:

07:30 (Monday to Saturday DO & SPDO units) - This report is used to confirm the previous day's Route Report entries or to add/amend any delivery route failures since yesterday’s Route Report submission. This is very important as we are measured on the USO delivery route failures as a business and fines can be levied by the regulator for failing to achieve our targets.

End of day (Monday to Saturday DO units only) - This report contains questions for achievement against the National Workplan and any additional questions the business needs to ask. There are also monthly questions, which are asked on the last Wednesday of the month.


The question categories on this report are as follows:

MAIL ARRIVALS
WORKPLAN CLEARANCE
MISSORTS
MAIL IN UNIT NOT DUE DELIVERY
DELIVERY ROUTES​
RETURNS TO MAIL CENTRE
CONTAINER CONTROL
MPUs Only
D2D (WEEKLY)
DROP OFF POINTS (MONTHLY)
LABELS 2 GO (MONTHLY)

[postslippete]

Not accusing anyone of falsifying the figures but management could potentially have competing incentives when reporting failures.

An office that is struggling for resources might benefit from accurately showing how badly it is failing whereas an office that is under pressure to demonstrate improved QoS or a successful DM26 deployment has the opposite incentive.

That is why I'm genuinely interested in what is independently captured by the systems and what relies on local management input. If the same people being measured are also responsible for confirming the figures they're being measured against, there surely needs to be some form of independent audit. Whether that happens is what I am trying to establish

[Mr Rush]

there surely needs to be some form of independent audit. Whether that happens is what I am trying to establish

Check the office visitors' log. Audits do happen, occasionally. Visitors have to declare their business on site and who they are working for. Most staff will be completely unaware any ever occur because they're not inside all day.

[postslippete]

Check the office visitors' log. Audits do happen, occasionally. Visitors have to declare their business on site and who they are working for. Most staff will be completely unaware any ever occur because they're not inside all day.

Yeah, perhaps I'll spot the auditor around the same time that our MP finally decides to show up!

[yellowbelly]

there surely needs to be some form of independent audit. Whether that happens is what I am trying to establish

Check the office visitors' log. Audits do happen, occasionally. Visitors have to declare their business on site and who they are working for. Most staff will be completely unaware any ever occur because they're not inside all day.

Aren't the independent auditors just a manager from a different office? I don't believe they're from an outside organisation!

If it's like what I've recently seen in our office when I had to return to the office partway through with a dodgy wagon, a friendly manager grabs hold of them, they sit in the office for a bit with coffee and biscuits, then the 'auditor' wanders round a few frames that have still got mail in them, picks out random letters to look at and that's it. TIck in the box, cheers mate.

[funkflex55]

I think the office are also aware of the visits beforehand. They definitely are before an MP visit. That's why the offices are always completely clear in the photo opportunities.

[POSTMAN]

We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We will regularly update customers on the offices most impacted here:

96

Abergavenny DO (NP7, NP8)
Ashington DO (NE22, NE62-NE64)
Ashton Under Lyne DO (OL5, OL6, OL7)
Barry DO (CF63)
Blyth DO (NE24)
Bradford North DO (BD1, BD2, BD3, BD8, BD9, BD10)
Brecon DO (LD3)
Brierley Hill DO (DY5)
Burslem DO (ST6)
Calderway DO (WF12-WF14)
Calne DO (SN11)
Cambridge DO (CB1-CB5, CB21-CB25)
Carmarthen DO (SA17, SA31, SA32, SA33)
Coalville DO (LE6, LE67)
Dudley DO (DY1-DY3)
Dursley DO (GL11, GL12, GL13)
Exmouth DO (EX8, EX9)
Finchley Church End DO (N3)
Gosforth DO (NE3, NE13)
Hailsham DO (BN27)
Hyde DO (SK13, SK14, SK16)
Kingswinford DO (DY6)
Llanrwst DO (LL24, LL25, LL26, LL27)
Loughborough DO (LE11-LE12)
Milton Keynes Kiln Farm DO (MK8, MK11-MK14, MK19)
Neston DO (CH33, CH64)
New Ferry DO (CH32, CH62, CH63)
Penarth DO (CF64)
Rugeley DO (WS15)
Shrewsbury DO (SY1-SY5)
St Helens DO (WA9-WA11)
Stalybridge SUDU (SK15)
Stourport On Severn DO (DY13)
Tipton DO (DY4)
Tiverton DO (EX16, EX18)
Wantage DO (OX12)
Wednesbury DO (WS10)
Wincanton DO (BA7, BA8, BA9, BA10)
Wolverhampton NE DO (WV11, WV12)

Units that report three consecutive days of 30% of DPs failing USO gets you on the list and public RM service disruption website. Then you need three consecutive days below 30% to get off the list (well below and back to stable USO)

For gamers who grew up playing Super Mario World on the SNES, 96 is a legendary number. The game doesn't track your completion by a standard percentage (0% to 100%). Instead, it tracks the total number of secret exits you have discovered. When you find every single exit in the game, your save file gets a tiny star next to a maximum score of 96. Seeing "★96" on your cartridge was the ultimate 90s bragging right.

[Mr Rush]

Letters are at their annual nadir. Sequence callrates are barely exceeding 10%, manual maybe 10% more. Even if you generously add another 15% for packets, you'd need 90% of duties to fail to trip over the 30% rule.

The only way this can be explained is if gross understaffing combined with habitual overreliance on overtime brough to a sudden end has led to too few people covering too many duties to spend all day every day doing Tracked. DM26 is about aligning the service to the staff still standing. Our grand army over the last twenty five years would look like something worthy of a Minard graph.

[SpacePhoenix]

Letters are at their annual nadir. Sequence callrates are barely exceeding 10%, manual maybe 10% more. Even if you generously add another 15% for packets, you'd need 90% of duties to fail to trip over the 30% rule.

Has your DO gone over to DM26 yet?

[Mr Rush]

Has your DO gone over to DM26 yet?

No, the red letter day (or should that be blue/yellow frame day?) looks to be pushed back from the initially declared date of August 17th. We've been told we may still see a change in sequenced traffic patterns regardless. Thus far it's following the typical weekly curve.

[SpacePhoenix]

Has your DO gone over to DM26 yet?

No, the red letter day (or should that be blue/yellow frame day?) looks to be pushed back from the initially declared date of August 17th. We've been told we may still see a change in sequenced traffic patterns regardless. Thus far it's following the typical weekly curve.

Unless it's logged somewhere which walks would be on the non-2C day the system will probably treat it as all walks being on a non-2C day on the same day.

[POSTMAN]

We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We will regularly update customers on the offices most impacted here:

116

Abergavenny DO (NP7, NP8)
Ashington DO (NE22, NE62-NE64)
Ashton Under Lyne DO (OL5, OL6, OL7)
Barry DO (CF63)
Blyth DO (NE24)
Bracknell DO (RG12, RG42, RG45)
Bradford On Avon DO (BA15)
Brierley Hill DO (DY5)
Burslem DO (ST6)
Calderway DO (WF12-WF14)
Cambridge DO (CB1-CB5, CB21-CB25)
Carmarthen DO (SA17, SA31, SA32, SA33)
Coalville DO (LE6, LE67)
Dudley DO (DY1-DY3)
Dursley DO (GL11, GL12, GL13)
Ebbw Vale DO (NP23)
Exmouth DO (EX8, EX9)
Finchley Church End DO (N3)
Gosforth DO (NE3, NE13)
Hailsham DO (BN27)
Heswall DO (CH31, CH60, CH61)
Hyde DO (SK13, SK14, SK16)
Kidderminster DO (DY10, DY11, DY12 and DY14)
Kingswinford DO (DY6)
Llangefni DO (LL62-LL78)
Milton Keynes Kiln Farm DO (MK8, MK11-MK14, MK19)
Minehead DO (TA22, TA23 and TA24)
Mold DO (CH7)
Mumbles DO (SA3)
Neston DO (CH33, CH64)
New Ferry DO (CH32, CH62, CH63)
Penarth DO (CF64)
Rugeley DO (WS15)
Shrewsbury DO (SY1-SY5)
St Helens DO (WA9-WA11)
Stalybridge SUDU (SK15)
Stourport On Severn DO (DY13)
Tipton DO (DY4)
Tiverton DO (EX16, EX18)
Wantage DO (OX12)
Wednesbury DO (WS10)
Wincanton DO (BA7, BA8, BA9, BA10)
Wolverhampton NE DO (WV11, WV12)

Units that report three consecutive days of 30% of DPs failing USO gets you on the list and public RM service disruption website. Then you need three consecutive days below 30% to get off the list (well below and back to stable USO)

One of history's most famously misnamed events is the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Despite what the textbook says, the conflict didn't last for 100 years. It actually dragged on for 116 years (from 1337 to 1453). Historians likely just decided that "The 116 Years' War" didn't sound quite as catchy.

[POSTMAN]

We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We will regularly update customers on the offices most impacted here:

110

Abergavenny DO (NP7, NP8)
Ashington DO (NE22, NE62-NE64)
Ashton Under Lyne DO (OL5, OL6, OL7)
Barry DO (CF63)
Blyth DO (NE24)
Bracknell DO (RG12, RG42, RG45)
Brierley Hill DO (DY5)
Burslem DO (ST6)
Calderway DO (WF12-WF14)
Cambridge DO (CB1-CB5, CB21-CB25)
Carmarthen DO (SA17, SA31, SA32, SA33)
Deal DO (CT14)
Dudley DO (DY1-DY3)
Dursley DO (GL11, GL12, GL13)
Ebbw Vale DO (NP23)
Gosforth DO (NE3, NE13)
Heswall DO (CH31, CH60, CH61)
Hyde DO (SK13, SK14, SK16)
Kidderminster DO (DY10, DY11, DY12 and DY14)
Kingswinford DO (DY6)
Llangefni DO (LL62-LL78)
Milton Keynes Kiln Farm DO (MK8, MK11-MK14, MK19)
Minehead DO (TA22, TA23 and TA24)
Mold DO (CH7)
Mumbles DO (SA3)
New Ferry DO (CH32, CH62, CH63)
Penarth DO (CF64)
Portslade DO (BN41, BN42)
Rugeley DO (WS15)
Shrewsbury DO (SY1-SY5)
St Helens DO (WA9-WA11)
Stalybridge SUDU (SK15)
Stourport On Severn DO (DY13)
Tipton DO (DY4)
Tiverton DO (EX16, EX18)
Wallingford DO (OX10, OX49)
Wincanton DO (BA7, BA8, BA9, BA10)
Wolverhampton NE DO (WV11, WV12)

Units that report three consecutive days of 30% of DPs failing USO gets you on the list and public RM service disruption website. Then you need three consecutive days below 30% to get off the list (well below and back to stable USO)

When filmmakers were creating the original 1933 King Kong movie, they had a hilarious problem—the giant ape kept changing sizes. In the jungle scenes, the model was built to look 18 feet tall. But when Kong reached New York, the director thought he looked too small against the skyscrapers, so they secretly scaled him up to look 110 feet tall! This massive 110-foot scale is what made him look so terrifyingly iconic on the Empire State Building.

[POSTMAN]

We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We will regularly update customers on the offices most impacted here:

87

Abergavenny DO (NP7, NP8)
Ashington DO (NE22, NE62-NE64)
Barry DO (CF63)
Blyth DO (NE24)
Brierley Hill DO (DY5)
Calderway DO (WF12-WF14)
Cambridge DO (CB1-CB5, CB21-CB25)
Carmarthen DO (SA17, SA31, SA32, SA33)
Deal DO (CT14)
Dudley DO (DY1-DY3)
Ebbw Vale DO (NP23)
Frinton on Sea DO (CO13, CO14)
Gosforth DO (NE3, NE13)
Heswall DO (CH31, CH60, CH61)
Llangefni DO (LL62-LL78)
Llanrwst DO (LL24, LL25, LL26, LL27)
Milton Keynes Kiln Farm DO (MK8, MK11-MK14, MK19)
Minehead DO (TA22, TA23 and TA24)
Mold DO (CH7)
Mumbles DO (SA3)
Penarth DO (CF64)
Portslade DO (BN41, BN42)
Rugeley DO (WS15)
St Helens DO (WA9-WA11)
Stalybridge SUDU (SK15)
Stourport On Severn DO (DY13)
Tipton DO (DY4)
Tiverton DO (EX16, EX18)
Wallingford DO (OX10, OX49)
Wednesbury DO (WS10)
Wolverhampton NE DO (WV11, WV12)

Units that report three consecutive days of 30% of DPs failing USO gets you on the list and public RM service disruption website. Then you need three consecutive days below 30% to get off the list (well below and back to stable USO)

In Australian cricket culture, 87 is known as the "Devil's Number" or the ultimate unlucky score. There is a deep-seated superstition that batsmen are uniquely prone to getting dismissed (out) when their individual score hits exactly 87. The funny origin of the myth comes from subtraction: 87 is exactly 13 runs short of a century (100 runs), combining the classic unlucky 13 with the pressure of reaching a milestone!