Starting this week & got a few questions!

[wolfie citizen smith]

Hi people
Got a few questions if anyone can help me out:

1.I'm starting as a OPG this week on a 6 month 30 hour contract my hours are 8-4 mon to sat with a rotational day off but I can't work out how this can be 30 hours?
2.What break entitlement will I get working a 8-4 day?
3.As I have yet to order my uniform what should I wear on my 1st day on the job?
4.Also on the uniform order sheet it says you can order a winter and summer hat what's the difference and what are they like, are they just plain or Royal Mail branded?

Thanks

TALK TO YOUR UNION REPRESENTATIVE

If you have one

If you dont have one get incontact with your branch secretary

[George door to dawes]

would give up on your uniform its unlikely you will get anything for months! It seems to come through in dribs and drabs when they have it in stock and some people like myself have been waiting over 9 months for something to turn up!

Over 9 months thats a joke! what have you been wearing then?
I'm still really puzzled at my 30 hour contract but doing 8-4 over 5 days does not add up to 30 hours and my pay is for 40 hours?!

Yeah tell me about it! Just wear normal old clothes you can pretty much wear what you want as long as theres no offensive logos. Sucks though would rather have some RM stuff then ruining my own clothes. Shoes is the worst i find iam going through a pair every 3-4 months which isnt great when RM are supposed to be giving them to you!

[gaffers gimp]

Wow 9 months, I've been there 5 days and I've had a full uniform delivered to the office for me. Shirts, trousers, jacket, fleece, beanie, cap, boots, shoes.

[NewPostieUK]

boots, shoes.

I don't get this. How can you get boots AND shoes in one go? Every two years I can have a pair of boots OR shoes!

[taurus88]

We've had a new starter come in recently and I feel terribly sorry for him. He seems to have been stitched right up in terms of his training - he has basically had none - and, after today (a very heavy day), I'm very concerned that he feels already as if the job is too much for him. Naturally, I have tried to help him along where possible, in some instances at management's behest, but I'm only a part-timer myself and there simply aren't enough hours in the day for me to be helping him regularly with some of the things I've been helping him with (I helped him to bag up, for instance - so I've bagged up two walks today). Now, I'm not a workplace coach. Seniority-wise, I'm the next lowest after this guy. The management have basically thrown this guy to the wolves (he had ONE DAY's training before doing the walk on his own), and given me a bit of a nudge to help him wherever possible.

Tell me, where are the senior guys in the office who should be helping him out?

Tell me, why is his walk not being fully thrown out, with redirections, etc., getting done FULLY?

Tell me, how do RM expect new-starts to survive when they're not giving them a fair chance of survival?

This feels like one of those nature documentaries, where the turtle babies are trying to crawl up the beach as the birds swoop down to pick them off, one-by-one. There are a few who survive, that's why there are so many of them - by the law of averages at least a few have to survive. But there are no good odds of any one of them surviving.

I feel sorry for the guy but I can only do so much to help. The full-timers, who are finishing at 11.30am each day, should be giving him help. I've got a big walk, I usually get in in a morning to find I've got some indoor work to do on it myself. I don't want to be out on the street till 3pm every day because I'm molly-coddling new-starts. In an ideal world, I'd do it, of course I would, but I'm not trained to do it, I'm not paid to do it, and I'm certainly not best-placed to do it. I shall certainly be making overtures towards our union representative when I arrive at work tomorrow regarding the fate of new-starts and the risks that management are exposing them to. I could use many words to describe the situation, but I suspect that some of them would be slanderous - even if they were directed towards as yet unidentified individuals.

I feel sorry for the guy, of course I do. He's ex-Army and he said to me today that he'd rather go back to Afghanistan than be doing this. I have my suspicions that he'll quit - soon. I hope not but I couldn't blame him for even a second. I'm sure he feels ridiculous enough without having a young lad like me try and lead him along.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

We've had a new starter come in recently and I feel terribly sorry for him. He seems to have been stitched right up in terms of his training - he has basically had none - and, after today (a very heavy day), I'm very concerned that he feels already as if the job is too much for him. Naturally, I have tried to help him along where possible, in some instances at management's behest, but I'm only a part-timer myself and there simply aren't enough hours in the day for me to be helping him regularly with some of the things I've been helping him with (I helped him to bag up, for instance - so I've bagged up two walks today). Now, I'm not a workplace coach. Seniority-wise, I'm the next lowest after this guy. The management have basically thrown this guy to the wolves (he had ONE DAY's training before doing the walk on his own), and given me a bit of a nudge to help him wherever possible.

Tell me, where are the senior guys in the office who should be helping him out?

Tell me, why is his walk not being fully thrown out, with redirections, etc., getting done FULLY?

Tell me, how do RM expect new-starts to survive when they're not giving them a fair chance of survival?

This feels like one of those nature documentaries, where the turtle babies are trying to crawl up the beach as the birds swoop down to pick them off, one-by-one. There are a few who survive, that's why there are so many of them - by the law of averages at least a few have to survive. But there are no good odds of any one of them surviving.

I feel sorry for the guy but I can only do so much to help. The full-timers, who are finishing at 11.30am each day, should be giving him help. I've got a big walk, I usually get in in a morning to find I've got some indoor work to do on it myself. I don't want to be out on the street till 3pm every day because I'm molly-coddling new-starts. In an ideal world, I'd do it, of course I would, but I'm not trained to do it, I'm not paid to do it, and I'm certainly not best-placed to do it. I shall certainly be making overtures towards our union representative when I arrive at work tomorrow regarding the fate of new-starts and the risks that management are exposing them to. I could use many words to describe the situation, but I suspect that some of them would be slanderous - even if they were directed towards as yet unidentified individuals.

I feel sorry for the guy, of course I do. He's ex-Army and he said to me today that he'd rather go back to Afghanistan than be doing this. I have my suspicions that he'll quit - soon. I hope not but I couldn't blame him for even a second. I'm sure he feels ridiculous enough without having a young lad like me try and lead him along.

Sounds like a clusterfuck thats for sure - he may recognise that term.

Get him on here we have a few ex-service perhaps we can make him feel at home.

[Lateagainpostie]

would give up on your uniform its unlikely you will get anything for months! It seems to come through in dribs and drabs when they have it in stock and some people like myself have been waiting over 9 months for something to turn up!

Over 9 months thats a joke! what have you been wearing then?
I'm still really puzzled at my 30 hour contract but doing 8-4 over 5 days does not add up to 30 hours and my pay is for 40 hours?!

What they mean is that your actual start and finish time will be decided by the DOM when you start, so your six hour duty will be fixed somewhere between those hours, I would hazard a guess though that you will be asked/told to do a 0700 - 1300, to tie in with everyone else, unless there's a late walk in the office that the full timer has got pissed off with.

[whitemoor66]

DONT f***ing DO IT. Just don't get involved, you will get the wankiest round that no other c*** wants. You will be tasked with a job that you cannot do within the hours that you are paid for. And the best bit about it is you will find your local union rep drinks with the drunk that is the DIM and the pair of them are spineless and will do f**k all about anything. My one used to fall out of his loft.

[POSTMAN]

Taurus,where's the coach,and the rep?

[taurus88]

Taurus,where's the coach,and the rep?

Damned if I know! That's what I'm going to speak to the rep about - where he is, firstly, and where everybody else is, secondly.