Going 'postal' about the Royal Mail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Here's the background: A letter was sent Recorded Delivery from a Post Office on one side of Liverpool to a business on the other side of Liverpool. When it arrived, the envelope had been damaged and was open. Some, but not all of the contents were missing, including a photo intended as a countersigned form of ID and a cheque. The recipients immediately contacted the sender and discussed exactly what had gone missing, and so needed to be re-sent. Sorted.

So then.

There appears to be no way to actually speak to a human being at the Royal Mail about this. The customer services phone number demands you listen to a succession of slowly read out menu and sub-menu and sub-sub-sub-sub-menu options until it all just routes to not a human being but a pre-recorded set of information relevant to what a customer can do. A customer can fill-in a compensation/claim form, which can be downloaded from the website, printed off, filled-in and then posted to them.

Except of course, it can't.

At the time of trying, and again at the time of writing this, a fault at the Royal Mail site would not allow access to the pdf of the relevant form. So, the only place to get the form is from a Post Office, it helpfully advises.

I have spared you the sliding scale of my growing anger and frustration over the period of time that I endured the previous painful experiences of getting no customer satisfaction from the Royal Mail.

Now, back at the beginning, the bright clean new A5 envelope was handed in to the Post Office counter and duly stamped up and had the relevant stickers applied to ensure it was a Recorded Delivery. The envelope that arrived at its destination looked like it had aged 30 years, been pulverised by a huge press, walked on by an army, attached to a sled, and slashed by Freddy Krueger. How could this have happened in the space of 24 hours?

Naturally, this is worthy of letting Royal Mail know, even if compensation isn't available, at least they should know that something has gone wrong? But, no, there is no know mechanism available for advising them. Therefore, no central quality control, no centralised intelligence gathering or knowledge or ability to identify problems while mail is in their charge.

That's got to be wrong, surely?

The Royal Mail appears to be hiding. It's sitting there with its fingers in its ears gently rocking back and forth whilst emitting a manic hum, thinking that if we can't talk to it, then we'll happily go away. No, we won't go away happy in the slightest. We'll just get angry and maybe get driven by them to 'go postal' as it's called in parts of America.

Where's my AK47?

[pinstripe]

"Now, back at the beginning, the bright clean new A5 envelope was handed in to the Post Office counter and duly stamped up and had the relevant stickers applied to ensure it was a Recorded Delivery. The envelope that arrived at its destination looked like it had aged 30 years, been pulverised by a huge press, walked on by an army, attached to a sled, and slashed by Freddy Krueger. How could this have happened in the space of 24 hours?"

One word, modernisation. Sounds like it's gone through one of those new fangled flat sorting machines. Still, it's all our fault.

[andy2007]

No. To be fair, it IS RM's fault. Just not the Posties fault. RM Management decided that these machines would improve the service, and are therefore at fault, because they've had the opposite effect. Sadly, the Public rarely realise this, unless someone explains it to them. They just assume, that it's been manually sorted by some fool of a Postie, rather than a machine which seems to be completely unfit for purpose.

[Tman]

"Some postie" should have culled it. It should have gone straight to manual, so it was some postie's fault.

[andy2007]

Can't the machines take an A5 envelope then?
Sorry if it's a daft question, but we don't have those machines in the RDC.

[DGP1]

"Some postie" should have culled it. It should have gone straight to manual, so it was some postie's fault.

Don't those big machines sort them out............you know, the drum ones just saying that

And so the management has bought machines that aren't fit for purpose so not some posties fault

[POSTMAN]

"Some postie" should have culled it. It should have gone straight to manual, so it was some postie's fault.

Don't those big machines sort them out............you know, the drum ones just saying that

And so the management has bought machines that aren't fit for purpose so not some posties fault

Drop in volume,Tman's right,postie should of spotted it.

[DGP1]

"Some postie" should have culled it. It should have gone straight to manual, so it was some postie's fault.

Don't those big machines sort them out............you know, the drum ones just saying that

And so the management has bought machines that aren't fit for purpose so not some posties fault

Drop in volume,Tman's right,postie should of spotted it.

I thought the sarcastic smilie was but (at least I hope you weren't serious). Even with the very slight drop in volumes (and not the mythical RM version of one) the massive drop in staff exceeds it.

[POSTMAN]

"Some postie" should have culled it. It should have gone straight to manual, so it was some postie's fault.

Don't those big machines sort them out............you know, the drum ones just saying that

And so the management has bought machines that aren't fit for purpose so not some posties fault

Drop in volume,Tman's right,postie should of spotted it.

I thought the sarcastic smilie was but (at least I hope you weren't serious). Even with the very slight drop in volumes (and not the mythical RM version of one) the massive drop in staff exceeds it.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

"Some postie" should have culled it. It should have gone straight to manual, so it was some postie's fault.

AN HONEST QUESTION

In what circumstances would/could a "postie" cull it, especially if its machinable and goes all the way through from tipping from collection sack, to ending up in a walk sequence tray. Honestly as a DO postie it would be an insight into MC work. Do the machines reject damaged items on arrival , is the rejection procedure infallible, can the machines reject items they damage in processing.

The delivering postie should/would have put it in damage bag (if the office had any) but as there is no mention of that its impossible to state either way if it arrived in one.

[Tman]

Drop in volume,Tman's right,postie should of spotted it.

That's right, he's paid to spot them on the pre-culler, remove them, and put them to manual.
Not too onerous or arduous, is it?
"Oh look, there's a Recorded, now what was it they want me to do when I see one of those?"

[hubbahubba]

Heres a rough guide to what could of happened,for any DO staff reading:

If it was Liverpool then should of gone through Warrington MC.I don't know,but expect they have IMPS.If it was in a sack of LBC mail it would of been tipped straight into the A feed of an IMP (The big drum with a conveyor belt on the front).If the hopper that the IMP operator was working on was alreadly half full when he tipped the bag,there is a good chance he wouldn't see the item,and unless it was obviously bulky he/she would have no reason to take the item out,recorded or not.Operators are told to do a minimal cull by management as "the machine will sort the mech from the non mech",which to some extent is true.(IMPS have flat extractors and a couple of spitout boxes where over/undersize items are sent to manual).These culling areas of the machine have different width setting,which are set by an engineer,but if they are not set correctly you could have larger/smaller items getting through that shouldn't.A good mech operator SHOULD notice when these settings are wrong,and call an engineer to reset the correct width/height sizes.The problem is so many mech operators are rushed through with next to no training these days that unless they have experience on the machinery they operate,these things can,and DO happen quite often.
I'm sure tman could add/correct any info that i may have omitted or got wrong

[POSTMAN]

These culling areas of the machine have different width setting,which are set by an engineer

So it's Tman's fault then!

And of course i was being sarcy thought you lot knew me by now I have seen it being done in an MC,and with the amount of work tipped it would take a seriously good eye to spot everything.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

So let me see if I got this right - the new more efficient, less manual, highly automated system requires the first operation for a sorting machine operator to cull non standard and non mech mail. It can't do it completely by itself.

[DGP1]

So let me see if I got this right - the new more efficient, less manual, highly automated system requires the first operation for a sorting machine operator to cull non standard and non mech mail. It can't do it completely by itself.

And they really wonder why modernisation isin't working