On Reflection,was YOUR xmas heavier ?

[guyscliffe]

Hi Folks ....
Just interested,in your opinions and thoughts as to whether xmas pressure last month was in YOUR opinion,was lighter or heavier than other years?
In otherwords in your unit/delivery office,were YOUR mail volumes UP or DOWN ?
Food for thought when you take our word for it,and your DOM's or the Royal Mails as a whole <-- This happens,every year! ( the figures are massively down,so lets lapse another five deliveries ) :P

[DGP1]

Mail was about the same but packets were through the roof but for me it was a bit difficult because I had a helper for the entire period

[mdm]

well last Xmas we had just introduced p&l and what with the weather as well, it was a disaster. This year i think the mail was about the same as other years but the packets were bad, in fact there were quite a few days when we just left the packets in the yorkies because we were having to deal with on average about six bags between us each day and that alone was taking us over our time.

[daveallum]

I think mail was down but we certainly delivered a lot more parcels/packets and we think that in our area people did order a lot earlier than last year which meant we were heavy for longer but we did manage to clear the DO every day.

[bakerstreetirregular]

Considerably lighter than previous years on the letters!. No exceptionally late get aways from the IPS as in past years, only time letters increased noticeably was around the 1st & 2nd of December. Older Customers saying it was too expensive to send normal amounts, youngsters don't send them!.Was also on collections from P.O.'s and was taking 10- 12 sacks of parcels ( not including oversized parcels) out of P.O.'s out by midday most days on the lead up. Pkts as with all went through the roof about the middle of November and continued throughout. Our callers office did in excess of 5,000 items between 12/12/11 - 23/12/11 back over the counter and the drivers were getting rid of most pkts!. Fraid the future is Amazon Shaped!.

[bottletree]

I claimed more overtime this xmas than at any other xmas. Reason- packets packets packets. Mail was slightly down on other years, but the packets more than made up for that.
Knock on door and wait. Knock again and fill 739 card out. Call it 1 to 2 mins wait for items that can't go through letterboxes and that is a lot of waiting.
Oh and xmas started the last week of November in my office.

[post_bitch]

AYE HEAVIN

[PhilthyPhil]

Packets are horrendous on my walk all year roudn anyway, 4 sacks+ everyday except monday. I wouldn't say this christmas was significantly heavier packets wise except for the large packets which increased a lot, 2-3 yorks everyday rather than 1-2 in the past. Letters were well down, we didn't seem to get any christmas cards walksorted/sequenced at all, where as in the past there would be at least some in there along with the usual DSA crap. Despite this the manual letters were still down on previous years.

[montriff]

PACKETS PACKETS AND MORE EFFIN PACKETS Christmas cards seemed to have dropped off

[DHARMA16]

Cards deffo down-packets and parcels through the roof

[oldgeezer]

Think ours was down generally but lots of packets and tracked items of course but on 23rd and 24th Dec we cleared office for the 1st time for months and months......

[Darren Bent]

I don't think it had been too bad but more packets make it harder for everyone.

I would increase numbers of van drivers delivering packets if I were Royal Mail.

[centenaryman]

likewise i thought mail was ok and manageable,,,and again alot of the time packets were unmanageable,,,,what ive found over the last few years the packets increase from early november so to me xmas pressure isnt the 2 weeks up to xmas,,,OK i know its silly then but with packets and heavy bags that extends upwards towards 6 weeks,,,and we only get 2 extra drivers for the last 2 weeks