Big Job/Little job or Starbursting anyone

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Recently got information from a mate who works from the Aberdeen DO/MC, apparently the revision in the DO is not going well to say the least. The DO covers 3 postcode areas and the 1st section to go 'live' with the revised duties went in about a year ago. Despite the section having big problems when the duties went in, they pushed ahead and changed the next section to the revised duties anyway.

Then the proverbial hit the fan and they stopped the revision to try and get the duties sorted out. More hours were put into the office and new duties made to ease the pressure and get the mail moving again. It helped a little but mail was still being left, and a lot of docket was being put in to complete. However unless the section got hammered with high traffic, the office cleared most of the time.

After things began to ease, they decided to go ahead and put the 3rd sections revision in. But the planners had, it seems, not learned their lesson and it went belly up again. Again more time was spent to sort things out and get things back on a more or less an even keel.

So, now they are all in and the revision is over. It took a lot of time though, the revision was meant to go ahead in January 2011, but it continually got pushed back until July 2011. Then with the problems with the new duties going in and the time taken to sort it out, eventually the DOM had to issue the holiday sheets for 2012-2013. With having the leave selected pre-revision, post-revision it was going to pose problems, as not everyone was now be in the same duty groups. However the Spring holidays passed without to many problems, but it seems that as they are now into the 'peak summer period' and the office is very much up

s**t canal with no paddle!

As they are honouring the leave requests, the DSM has brought in agency staff and changed the system. The current method is mini star-burst with 2-3 agency staff going out with an OPG who will be the driver. The OPG will concentrate on oversized packets, recorded, tracked and specials and “supervise” the agency staff who will complete the loops delivering the rest. My mate says they can have up to 10 agency staff in per day. But even this, sometimes, is not enough and he says sometimes duties are not going out. Apparently it's mainly down to how many OPGs decide they want to work their day off.

Seemingly this week they had a Director or someone from the head shed sent up by Moya to find out first hand what was going on. But it can't be good can it, if you appear on Moya's Radar, and certainly not a good career move for managers.

He tells me that the MC has had problems too. Over budget is the word on the grapevine, so he is not sure if the Director was there exclusively for the DO/MC or Aberdeen in general. But there have been meetings galore since. One on Monday apparently involved the lino's from all or most of the AB offices.

But wait for it the best bit is yet to come. Apparently some of the duties in the office that continually had problems completing within their time, are now trailing a new style of delivering. You may recognise it. Locally its been given the name of 'Big Job, Little Job' and although the details are still a bit sketchy it appears that they use 1 driver and 1 non-driver and 2 delivery routes. The non-driver takes his first bag and starts delivering. The driver then puts the remainder of this posties pouches into appropriate pouch boxes and the non-driver collects them along the way. This has been planned around the old pouch drops apparently. The driver then delivers most of the packets and them proceeds to complete his own smaller delivery. On completion the driver picks his mate up and they return to the office.

I now invite comments.

[fishtank]

The non-driver takes his first bag and starts delivering. The driver then puts the remainder of this posties pouches into appropriate pouch boxes and the non-driver collects them along the way.

Union position? Local?,Branch?,Division?,National?...anybody?
If Moya is sending Directors in to see what the problem is who have we sent in?..or are we still trying to decide whether it's really a "failing revision" or not?

[clashcityrocker]

Is this why there are full-time vacancies being advertised in the Aberdeen area on the plasma screens every morning?

[hans solo]

The non-driver takes his first bag and starts delivering. The driver then puts the remainder of this posties pouches into appropriate pouch boxes and the non-driver collects them along the way.

Union position? Local?,Branch?,Division?,National?...anybody?
If Moya is sending Directors in to see what the problem is who have we sent in?..or are we still trying to decide whether it's really a "failing revision" or not?

this is the problem im asking about at national level
is pouch boxes to be used with p&l one mans doing lot more work than the driver
national level hq instructed me div and area reps investigating matters and will report
apparently ive to get visit from area or div re pouch boxes etc
as my office rep states its an agreed del method nationally
cant wait for the excuses and fit up to be explained to me

[Lincox]

So where is the walker supposed to rest, have a break, have a pee, if he/she is on their legs for 5/6 hours.

[Patrick Clifton]

Union position? Local?,Branch?,Division?,National?...anybody?

I'll guess at :-

Plus it sounds like the walkers are going to get shafted here.

Correct. The system would also be open to 'manipulation' from those drivers who would try and make out that they need more time for packets and less time for getting off their arse and delivering mail.

[cyclemech1]

So where is the walker supposed to rest, have a break, have a pee, if he/she is on their legs for 5/6 hours.

Give them a bike, drop off the bags in the pouch boxes and there you go, you're back to the old way of working!

[fishtank]

So where is the walker supposed to rest, have a break, have a pee, if he/she is on their legs for 5/6 hours.

Give them a bike, drop off the bags in the pouch boxes and there you go, you're back to the old way of working!

Except for the fact that your duty will now be around an hour,maybe more longer than it was pre-revision...and of course these guys never used bikes so it will be back to the old way of carrying it all on your back.

[sad]

it well f### up in nearly every office that's had its park and loop revision.i work in Livingston do and we are nearly 2 years in to the revision and we are still working with a night shift so we can get the ip up in the morning what makes it worse is we have still not had a resign so the dom has put people were he wants it b######.

[cyclemech1]

So where is the walker supposed to rest, have a break, have a pee, if he/she is on their legs for 5/6 hours.

Give them a bike, drop off the bags in the pouch boxes and there you go, you're back to the old way of working!

Except for the fact that your duty will now be around an hour,maybe more longer than it was pre-revision...and of course these guys never used bikes so it will be back to the old way of carrying it all on your back.

Suppose they could use their cars too ?

Seriously, since my old office had its revision last October, most of them are now back to bag on shoulder coming in early etc. Glad I'm out of it really.

[ass asin]

i thought the dom was the prob in aberdeen m/c. i couldnt work there lol .i also heard that there r loads of vacancies and plenty off sick. they have/are introducing this way of working throughout the ab postcode with as far as i know mostly full union co operation. in my office it works pretty much perfectly well and didnt turn into the horror story we thought it would. we pair a full timer with a part timer, full timer preps both deliveries, part timer drives. its basically 2 deliveries as they were but with both duties pkts to do on top. that seems bad but if u use the lcts it aint too bad. the pairings were also given leeway to plan the most efficient route for them. ( dont think the guys doing the revision could be assed but worked out well for us). most of the extra time has been gained off the inward sorting as most of our office can now hit the minimum standard of the one minute prep test. luckily though we didnt get the planners aberdeen m/c got lumbered with and we had a more common sense approach with full involvement every step of the way. we have also had some pretty shite doms over the years who have all done their level best to feck up the office. so you could say our office was ready for something "better" lol. btw we still have the early birds, the runners, the break missers and the guys who wont use lcts, but we had an agreement with the dom, the planners and the troops that during the revision period the jobs would be done properly so we could have a more accurate idea of the state of play. there r still a few probs to iron out but on the whole it aint too bad.

[Talell]

The non-driver takes his first bag and starts delivering. The driver then puts the remainder of this posties pouches into appropriate pouch boxes and the non-driver collects them along the way.

Union position? Local?,Branch?,Division?,National?...anybody?
If Moya is sending Directors in to see what the problem is who have we sent in?..or are we still trying to decide whether it's really a "failing revision" or not?

Directors being in my MC is news to me, thought we were only having a paperwork audit, but I should have known things would start to kick off since the area rep is on leave.

They are still trying to decide whether the revision works or not, for some reason, some days thing just seem to work for whatever reason (probably low mail volumes), other days it's not uncommon to see several full walks left in, on top of cutoffs, and managers in from other sections out delivering. Hell in a WTLL session processing (think it was the same for dist) got, they were almost begging for overtime volunteers from wherever they could get them.

iirc, in the initial revision (they had a couple patchwork fixers afterwards), they didn't account for attendance calls at all, amongst other things probably

Credit where it is due, when the revisions first went in, they all told management 1 week we'll be flexible with overtime etc, after that they all were working to their time. And they all did, for awhile.

As far as the MC its self goes, over budget is an understatement, which is ironic since they are meeting the savings targets for this year, and the bulk of them instantly, but the overspend on agency is colossal, every night they are at least 5 angard and 6 manpower agency in (on a quiet night), and for an office that only has a seniority list 130 long, that is a lot. But who cares about that when they got 19 points in the last WCM audit! (vs the 24 they were hoping for.)

[cyclemech1]

So where is the walker supposed to rest, have a break, have a pee, if he/she is on their legs for 5/6 hours.

Give them a bike, drop off the bags in the pouch boxes and there you go, you're back to the old way of working!

Except for the fact that your duty will now be around an hour,maybe more longer than it was pre-revision...and of course these guys never used bikes so it will be back to the old way of carrying it all on your back.

Suppose they could use their cars too ?

Seriously, since my old office had its revision last October, most of them are now back to bag on shoulder coming in early etc. Glad I'm out of it really.

Look, I was only kidding, but what did I see this morning? Yep, one of my old colleagues using his car for delivery

[Patrick Clifton]

The main issue I would have is for any guys that were having issues with their duties and being told that they are the problem! They are causing the extended time/requirment for cut offs. They are not upto standard!

Are they going to be apologised to as it would now seem that the system of work has now been deemed inadequate and, for part of the office, is being dumped in under a year since it was implemented.

[ben19]

I work in IV area which is just next to AB. Our revision went in last October and is "big job, little job". Although that's not what we call it!

We were told that park and loop wasn't working out and this was the way to go. The planner and DOM "worked" on our revision for months but all they did was a last minute job of lumping 2 duties together and hoping for the best. The driving duty is allegedly 20-30 minutes shorter than the walking one. This is to give the driver time to deliver all the parcels, tracked etc for both duties. Works fine if you only have one or two packets but the days with 20 odd specials, 15+ parcels and your tracked on top of that then you are struggling. So what is meant to happen is the driver drops off the walker with his/her trolley and 2 bags, then drops off the pouches in the old pouch boxes, does their own delivery, packets for both duties then picks the walker up at the end because you are both magically finished at the same time!

This is their preferred way of doing it. However the DOM told us to "sort it out yourselves". Of the 9 van share duties in our office 6 do it this way. The other 3 do park and loop "sorted out themselves". I am a non-driver and I park and loop. I have a good partner and we prefer it this way.

So our office is a mix of the two delivery methods and still over budget!