Postie Traumatic Address

[numan]

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Royal Mail bosses have ordered 40 posties to cover round of a colleague who left By Jeremy Armstrong 12/03/2010

As daft stories go, this one is first class... Royal Mail bosses have ordered 40 posties to cover the round of a colleague who left his job.

Instead of recruiting another member of staff, they diverted the army of workers and their vans away from their own patches to deliver letters to the area.

It means many start work by driving in the opposite direction from where their regular customers live - delaying post to 14,000 homes in the rural surroundings.

Unions and posties branded the cost-cutting exercise a "joke".

Communications Workers' Union regional chief Paul Clays said: "I've never heard of anything like this, it is laughable.

"It's brilliant, I suppose, if you live on a round that's got 40 postmen. Surely they are getting their post before anyone else in the country."

Taxpayers' Alliance spokesman Mark Wallace said: "This is crazy. Instead of hauling a small army of postmen from right across the town they should have divided this one round among those who work near that patch. It is ridiculous."

The 40 staff cover the round of 540 addresses, including businesses and shops in Hexham, Northumberland.

People living yards from each other get letters delivered by different postmen.

Some even find two working the same street, one each side. In one morning the Mirror watched as 17 vans made 23 journeys along the same street in 50 minutes. One appeared every two minutes and 10 seconds.

One furious postie said they were not even warned about the change. He added: "We were just told to start doing it. There is the added cost to the environment. None of us can see any sense in it."

Royal Mail defended the move. A spokesman said: "We are constantly reviewing our operational efficiencies, while maintaining quality of service. Our Hexham office is not aware of any complaints from customers."

£1M DEAL

Royal mail chief exec Adam Crozier was paid nearly £1million last year - with the price of 1st class stamps set to rise to 41p

[milesy]

thats called lapsing i think!!

[rhino49]

We do it like that all the time and it works fine - today I travelled a mile in the opposite direction to my own walk and will get 45 minutes extended delivery for a section that took just over 20 minutes to deliver - if I had not been lapsing I would have finished bang on my time. And as there were a lot of us doing the same thing I do not somehow think that lapsing is as cost effective as it is made out to be.

[sevenandseven]

We do it like that all the time and it works fine - today I travelled a mile in the opposite direction to my own walk and will get 45 minutes extended delivery for a section that took just over 20 minutes to deliver - if I had not been lapsing I would have finished bang on my time. And as there were a lot of us doing the same thing I do not somehow think that lapsing is as cost effective as it is made out to be.

Unfortunately it does work when you still have people coming in early, beg for a van and do their own and a mate's absorption in their meal relief so they can get out on their deliveries while the rest of us are doing the job properly. At times it is -

[Yahoorsur]

'Taxpayers' Alliance spokesman Mark Wallace said: "This is crazy. Instead of hauling a small army of postmen from right across the town they should have divided this one round among those who work near that patch. It is ridiculous."'

yeah why not Mark,lets add another 1-1.30 hours onto someone elses round,you f***ing tadger
By the way,was in Hexam last week ,lovely place,may pop down for the races this year.

[Stormproof]

There was talk last year that this could happen at my office, never happened.........yet!

[dvbuk55]

'Taxpayers' Alliance spokesman Mark Wallace said: "This is crazy. Instead of hauling a small army of postmen from right across the town they should have divided this one round among those who work near that patch. It is ridiculous."'

yeah why not Mark,lets add another 1-1.30 hours onto someone elses round,you f***ing tadger
By the way,was in Hexam last week ,lovely place,may pop down for the races this year.

It sounds quite amusing doesn't it? But in reality it shows a business that has gone crazy, making x number of posties deliver a single delivery instead of bringing someone in on their day off, or recruiting someone to deliver on a specific duty contract so when the time comes they are let go or kept on depending on future circumstances.

This more than anything highlights a management that makes people do this because they CAN and this is the sort of management that is being given carte blanch in a new agreement without any safeguards whatsoever.

[opgpat]

Abandoned now but in our office there was a street of 60 houses covered by 3 FT guys (being accelerated to their rounds) who jumped out of the van as it followed them up and down the street. Two PTers sharing the lift out in the van would sit on the back seat and watch through the windows because PTers wern't supposed to be doing lapsing.