Shift Patterns

[lettersbe]

Hi,
Been working on deliveries for about 3 months now, and really enjoying it. Met some great people at my depot and had a lot of support (from my colleagues at least). Management not so much. But i suspect this is the case everywhere.

The thing is, i can deal with all the other cr@p, ie uniform not issued, no leave available, being put on routes i don't know nearly every day. The thing that is annoying me is not knowing from week to week what day off i will be getting. I literally don't know what day off i will have until the Thursday of the week before. It means i cant plan anything.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not a fussy person, and i hate being awkward. I want to keep my gob shut as much as possible as i'm in my probationary 6 month period. But i really need a bit of ability to plan my life.

Am i expecting too much, is it like this everywhere and i should just get used to it??

Any advice appreciated.

[pokos27]

you will be put on a variety of duties with a different day off, we usually knew, what walk we were on the thursday for the week commencing, as a newbie you can be put on a variety of walks, if you drive, then its far worse, because you may be on rural duties.
There is no set time limit before you get a fixed walk, it could be 5 years.
You can always ask other staff members to swap days off with you, its worth a shot.

[Postman Plodd]

I am often told that we should know our rota day off for 2 weeks ahead. All the time ive worked for RM ive only ever got to know my day off on the Friday morning when the following week's rota is put up. Being a cover/floater makes prediciting what day i'll get impossible.

EIDT: apologies for the thread hijack.

[Darren Bent]

ig you need a certain day off, let the guy who do the rota know. it is worse when you change walk and have one day off each week. Mine is full time and I do same walk for one week (most week) and have a week off every 6 weeks. If you need a certain day off, try to ask for this day off each week if possible. (Don't bother asking for Saturday)

[POSTMAN]

The rep 'should' have weekly resource meetings,you should at least know a week before what duty you could be covering.
At times sickness would throw a plan out though.
Rule of thumb,if you're covering Bob then you 'should' have Bob's day off and not this Tuesday off bollox.
A rep 'should' ensure that.

There is a lot of 'shoulds' in the job.