westlondonpostie wrote:Ethilfrog wrote:
Your argument seems to be... you put up with unfairness when you started, so people who start now have to put up with the same unfairness.
Forgive me for saying that you don't seem to have learned from your experience.
It's not unfairness, I wouldn't have expected a senior man to put up with the crap I was doing when I started as as I knew that when he started he had to put up with the same, and I knew that if I stuck out the job it would get easier for me in the future,I could have left but I didn't.
Is there a fairer way of allocating duties? Should it be left to managers to give em out to they're favourites or maybe give all the hard walks to the capable Postmen and the less capable ones should get the nice straight forward walks with no floor to floors? or for those who have stood up to the Management bullying or have been a bit to vocal about changes that Management want to implement are given a different job each day.
I hope that seniority remains as when I'm approaching 60 in just under 18 years I won't be doing a delivery that may well be the death of me!
Is there a fairer way?
Is there a fairer way ? Surely there must be, or we are simply giving up. You cite the usual complaints of managers dishing out plum duties to favourites, and the lead-swingers being treated leniently -- both of which I have experienced. As I said in a previous post, I am in processing, not deliveries, but the arguments are the same wherever you are. Do not get me started on the guys in our mail centre on PDC letters -- many of them seem to have retired already, they just haven't stopped coming in to work ... and when I see that I'm sorting more packets per minute than they sort letters per minute, and then have to move to the letters to bail them out after the packets are done, well, it's time to reflect that I'm working indoors, for comparatively good money, I don't take work home with me, and the guys on delivery may well have a much worse deal. (Actually, I just curse.)
The problem of weak management affects all functions and I think this is something which will have to be addressed, simply because if it isn't there won't be a company by the time you're 60. Remember, if you've got a manager who is a bully, he's weak. What's more, he probably knows he is. Strong managers aren't bullies, they don't need to be. Unfortunately many of our managers haven't been given the necessary skills. I've done well because I have always felt able to challenge management when it has been clear that I could win (the trick is to choose your battle carefully and not waste your energies on trivia). Some people can't do this, which is why having a good rep is so important -- and god knows I could have done with one in some of my battles, but I was part time and the CWU wasn't interested, so I was on my own`. Your problem sounds as if the duties aren't fairly arranged. You already know what the solution is; the trick is achieving it ! Have you a good rep ?
In another post someone said, if not seniority, what would we replace it with. Other companies use such criteria as ability, aptitude, skills, physical capability. It's not difficult. Tesco does this and it is a successful company. RM is, in a very real sense, insolvent. (Aside: our mail centre has a skills register, but when they assign overtime and SAs it is never used. Plus they constantly direct a guy with a disintegrating knee towards the stand-up packet duty !) Truly, I do not understand what the problem is aside from simple incompetence.
didn't mean to blow my own trumpet just replying to the to the "if you can't do the job" comment.
Sorry Ghost, 2 yrs without going sick 
