I Hate Door to Doors !

[box_shana]

I really do not like these door to doors I have to do every day, and all for a crappy supplement at the end of the week. Is there no way that a postie can opt out of these ? I mean I would rather give up this supplement than have to deliver these horrible leaflets.

[Pat Ostman]

The supplement is not for delivering door to doors and you cannot opt out of delivering them.

[box_shana]

The supplement is not for delivering door to doors and you cannot opt out of delivering them.

Really, what is this supplement for then ?

[rhino49]

The supplement is not for delivering door to doors and you cannot opt out of delivering them.

Really, what is this supplement for then ?

The supplement (supposedly) recognizes additional difficulties faced by delivery staff and increases the basic pay package without being a commitment to a being a permanent inclusion although it does increase in line with pay rises.

Door to door items are now classed as mail and are included in workload - they vary in quantity and complexity in the same way that the addressed mail does and provide a regular revenue stream that supports our business and no doubt pays towards our wages. You may not like them - but would you rather have too much work or be sat at home looking for some? - easy decision for most people.

If they spoil your day then work as you are supposed to up until your finishing time and stop there - we have an obligation to discharge our duties to certain standards - or failing that to the best we can achieve (note - I did not say just what we feel like doing 'cos we can't be arsed), so embrace the door to door items as an additional aspect of job security and get on with it

This is only a personal point of view !!!

[SexyLegs]

Think of them as normal mail, that way you don't feel like you're doing it for the pittance that is the delivery supplement, start cutting off if it' getting on top of you but always prep and deliver the d2d, it's not worth the hassle.

[Harry_Perkins]

I really do not like these door to doors I have to do every day, and all for a crappy supplement at the end of the week. Is there no way that a postie can opt out of these ? I mean I would rather give up this supplement than have to deliver these horrible leaflets.

You can't opt-out but the public can. It depends if you've got your own permanent walk but you could put together you own leaflet telling them how to opt-out. If you make it easy and straightforward enough, I would guess 30-40% will do it.

[rhino49]

I really do not like these door to doors I have to do every day, and all for a crappy supplement at the end of the week. Is there no way that a postie can opt out of these ? I mean I would rather give up this supplement than have to deliver these horrible leaflets.

You can't opt-out but the public can. It depends if you've got your own permanent walk but you could put together you own leaflet telling them how to opt-out. If you make it easy and straightforward enough, I would guess 30-40% will do it.

That would be the very best way of avoiding doing them, in fact you wouldn't be delivering anything at all if RM caught you doing that

[Harry_Perkins]

I really do not like these door to doors I have to do every day, and all for a crappy supplement at the end of the week. Is there no way that a postie can opt out of these ? I mean I would rather give up this supplement than have to deliver these horrible leaflets.

You can't opt-out but the public can. It depends if you've got your own permanent walk but you could put together you own leaflet telling them how to opt-out. If you make it easy and straightforward enough, I would guess 30-40% will do it.

That would be the very best way of avoiding doing them, in fact you wouldn't be delivering anything at all if RM caught you doing that

Not if you're sensible. There was the famous case of the fella who put the leaflet out and said he was the postman and they sacked him. But, of course, they then got the worst publicity imaginable. Headlines in the Daily Mail of 'Royal Mail sacks Postman for telling public how to stop Junk Mail' Middle England was in uproar. They had to reinstate him and would guess he could have cleaned up at an employment tribunal. There is no way they will risk anything like that again.

[rhino49]

So I take it that you would approve of interfering with a source of revenue that is important to our company and our job security because you simply don't like doing it - what planet are you on ??? As an analogy - if you were working in a retail business - would you tell a customer that an item in their size was out of stock because you couldn't be bothered to fetch it from a stockroom?

I personally think that the person you mentioned should have been summarily dismissed and never allowed back to work in RM - what he did amounted to industrial espionage.

What we deliver is a responsibility - not an option - it pays towards our wages and subsidizes other mail costs. Whether customers want it or not is for them to decide and by far the best option is for us as a business to be paid for it and for the customer to recycle if it is not wanted

[Harry_Perkins]

As an analogy - if you were working in a retail business - would you tell a customer that an item in their size was out of stock because you couldn't be bothered to fetch it from a stockroom?

It is nothing like that at all. In that instance, the customer has come direct to you and it would be in your job description to deal with them properly. Doors to Doors, on the other hand, are an automatic opt in for every residential household in the country. A more accurate analogy would be people who hand out advert leaflets in the streets. Happens up and down every high street in the country. They offer the advert out to you and you have the option to take the leaflet or not. Fair enough. Nothing wrong with that. What Royal Mail do, on the other hand, is force the punters to take the leaflet and then when they complain, tell them it's up to them to opt-out! The cheek of it!

Whether customers want it or not is for them to decide

Absolutely. So why are Royal Mail deciding for them in the first instance? Surely it should be an opt-out to start with and then you can request to receive the leaflets if you want them So what is the problem here then? They are being given the information on how to opt out and then it up to them if they want to or not. I've done it informally many a time. I had a classic case last week. Women has 'no junk mail' on the door. Put the crap through and she has come and pointed at the sign on the door. So I told her how to opt out. If Royal Mail want to sack me for that, go right ahead. The employment tribunal would be literally rolling in the aisles with laughter.

And no, it doesn't pay towards our wages. Do you really think our wages is somehow related to profits? We're paid for our labour, nothing more. Only places like the John Lewis partnership do a profit sharing scheme. In that instance you might have a case but not at Royal Mail.

[clashcityrocker]

I have tried opting out at my home address - not because I am particularly averse to my postie shoving some leaflets through my door, but simply because I wanted to see how well the system worked.
It doesn't work.

[fishtank]

Sorry Harry i can't see the logic in the argument that D2D doesn't pay our wages.
Our wages are paid from revenue not some magic labour pot.
D2D is a revenue stream for the business.
No revenue...no business...no pay.

[Fishyfingers]

i'm not to keen on them myself but at least they make the company some money unlike DSA that is something that needs to get sorted.

[rhino49]

As an analogy - if you were working in a retail business - would you tell a customer that an item in their size was out of stock because you couldn't be bothered to fetch it from a stockroom?

It is nothing like that at all. In that instance, the customer has come direct to you and it would be in your job description to deal with them properly. Doors to Doors, on the other hand, are an automatic opt in for every residential household in the country. A more accurate analogy would be people who hand out advert leaflets in the streets. Happens up and down every high street in the country. They offer the advert out to you and you have the option to take the leaflet or not. Fair enough. Nothing wrong with that. What Royal Mail do, on the other hand, is force the punters to take the leaflet and then when they complain, tell them it's up to them to opt-out! The cheek of it!

Whether customers want it or not is for them to decide

Absolutely. So why are Royal Mail deciding for them in the first instance? Surely it should be an opt-out to start with and then you can request to receive the leaflets if you want them So what is the problem here then? They are being given the information on how to opt out and then it up to them if they want to or not. I've done it informally many a time. I had a classic case last week. Women has 'no junk mail' on the door. Put the crap through and she has come and pointed at the sign on the door. So I told her how to opt out. If Royal Mail want to sack me for that, go right ahead. The employment tribunal would be literally rolling in the aisles with laughter.

And no, it doesn't pay towards our wages. Do you really think our wages is somehow related to profits? We're paid for our labour, nothing more. Only places like the John Lewis partnership do a profit sharing scheme. In that instance you might have a case but not at Royal Mail.

Reasonable points Harry but I would take issue with the way you perceive "the customer". Our customers are the people who pay Royal Mail to effect a delivery on their behalf and we as postal delivery staff cannot opt out from that and neither should we discourage the recipients of those items from taking delivery of them. Outright campaigning against them whilst your company relies on them for revenue is a justifiable reason to suspend and sack you (or anyone else for that matter). As for your other point on wages - all revenue is important in guaranteeing job security and regular pay and I didn't BTW suggest that our wages are only related to profit - profit sharing is for businesses where the workforce also shares responsibilities and having worked for many years in both spheres I can assure you that employees generally in Royal Mail do not want to share responsibility (although to be fair they have been forced into that mindset by a gradual but inexorable decline in the quality of management available)

I've said all I can now to illustrate my points on this subject other than to comment on Clash's post- no matter how many DTD's we cease to deliver - the independents will still call with them or drop them in gardens, stick them in hedges and deliver to the same address twice because they get lost easily, so we are not really the worst part of the leaflet industry - we at least put them through with the mail and save the recipients some of the outrageous effort it takes to pluck them from the carpet.

No further comments to make on this other than the send you my kindest regards and hope you are having a good week while I am on leave and awaiting this weeks leaflets

[Harry_Perkins]

Reasonable points Harry but I would take issue with the way you perceive "the customer". Our customers are the people who pay Royal Mail to effect a delivery on their behalf and we as postal delivery staff cannot opt out from that and neither should we discourage the recipients of those items from taking delivery of them.

I agree we can't opt out. I said that to the OP. But I dispute this notion that what I describe is 'discouraging' or 'outright campaigning' against them. I merely suggest giving out information. Information that is already freely available. They certainly can't sack you for doing that. They would be taken to the cleaners big time.

As for your other point on wages - all revenue is important in guaranteeing job security and regular pay and I didn't BTW suggest that our wages are only related to profit - profit sharing is for businesses where the workforce also shares responsibilities and having worked for many years in both spheres I can assure you that employees generally in Royal Mail do not want to share responsibility (although to be fair they have been forced into that mindset by a gradual but inexorable decline in the quality of management available)

Yes this is all true but the point is this: there is labour market - just like their are markets for any other commodity. Royal Mail are also *our* customers in this respect. We are selling them our labour. This is why I don't see it as 'our company' as you put it. Of couse I understand what you mean when you say this but there remains a very casual link with the idea that our interests are aligned with the employer. However, this clearly isn't the case. Yes, some employers end up in a position where the revenue can't even cover wages - and in the case of RM, if the revenue really is that weak that D2D are that important and that revenue was then eroded by people freely choosing to opt-out, then quite simply it has to be accepted that those jobs would not be worth doing. No more than digging a hole and then filling it back in again is a job worth doing. RM could hardly complain when they used the exact same argument with regards to the introduction of machinery. Let that capital be freed up and actually invested in something useful and productive - which in turn will create new useful and productive jobs for people to do.