untrained on a walk...

[BingBong]

hi all. need abit of info. next week i have been put on a walk that ive not been trained on. it has alot of business drops, safe houses and trolley usage and alot of bulk. normally im happy to give any walk a go but this one is quite specialised and only a handful of people know it in the office. there are alot of hidden places on it too. i spoke to dom and said ive never done it before and would like proper training on it. e.g shown the walk, how its tied up, where safe drops are otherwise it might be best to swap me with someone else whos done it before. with it being heavy and all it would save the possibility of there being a cut off. dom was of no help at all and just said 'youll be fine'. i didnt even bother saying anything else. im gonna see if rep can help me out.

anyway can anyone tell me where i stand on this? am i right to refuse a walk without training?

[doorstepped]

the only training anyone here gets now is on a very rural walk, other than that they get a map and a frame and thats it. even new bods ( not that we have had any for years and we are understaffed ) only get a few days now on a walk before being let loose.

however, someone will always show them how to at least bundle it up etc, and if all else fails, just work your time, once you have thrown it all in, re-directions, kill off's etc see how long you have left time wise, ask someone beforehand how long roughly the walk takes then add 20% as you will be a lot slower than someone who knows it.

work out what you can cover then tell the DIM to cover the rest.

the days of getting trained up for at least 2 days are sadly gone, but don't refuse to take it out as you could be sacked for refusing a reasonable request.

[newtimes]

From my limited experience from where I work is when you ask someone else how long it will take, they always say well within your time and most town walks are done by people coming in early and they go out twice.

[steven100]

This is what is wrong with RM, new recruits don't get enough training. And what i don't understand ehy they get trained on a easy walk with the trainer(his walk) to be put on a difficult walk a week later. RM wonder why complaints go through the roof. Shouldn't the trainer be training the newbie on the walk he'll be covering.

[NewPostieUK]

For a long time I refused to do any walk that I wasn't trained on. I couldn't see how I was expected to do it when I'd never even heard of most of the streets, never mind know where they are. One day I relented, and agreed to do a walk blind but with conditions. I wouldn't walk up and down streets looking for house names, anything I couldn't find I would take back (and I did).

I also said that as I'd no chance at all of finishing on time, I'd just take out half(!). I took out just over half, brought loads back, and still went over my time. It was a nightmare, loads of houses with names and no numbers, no idea which side of the street they were on, frame all wrong, got lost... now I dread being asked to do something different.

Stick to your guns. Ask for training.