Seniority is all wrong....

[flaminmoses]

Simple solution.

Give an extra supplement for being a floater.
And if senior posties want the extra money they get first pick.

[Bahia Feliz]

I will be leaving by the door held open by my good friend Bahia Feliz....

I'll be right behind you if i get a small payout

[Judgee]

Simple solution.

Give an extra supplement for being a floater.
And if senior posties want the extra money they get first pick.

Great idea. Then they can back date it for everyone that was a floater when they started which was erm pretty much everyone?!

[OnAFlyer]

When the old-timers started, the deliveries were much much smaller.
If you had a 2 hour delivery and went over by 50% it was still only 3 hours.
If the same scenario plays out now, a 4 hour delivery + 50% is a 6 hour delivery. That is beyond most people's physical capabilities, especially if the newstart isn't used to physical work.
And of course we all know that what takes up time out on delivery is knocking on doors for packets and in the old days you had very few.
Very few Registered letters and no PDA. And no Tracked.

And what did we used to get - 3 hours o/t for a second delivery that consisted of 4 letters.

The job has changed. The training and induction needs to change as well and although there are some well intentioned documents, most offices are full of the same old s**t - we had it tough so why shouldn't they?
Not really very grown up and not really the trade union way imho.

I think there should be a supplement for being a reserve.

I had to do rotations on nights, 6 mornings followed by 6 nights. Mon-Sat then Sun night-Sat morning. One full day off every two weeks! Yes the shifts were shorter on mornings but screw that, I wouldn't go back to 6 days now and certainly wouldn't do nights again.

[jaylime]

20 years service,six day weeks,5.00 am starts,no van,bus,bullying managers,sent here there and everywhere,prep testing,ips testing,night days and lates.Now on a rural 9 day fortnight and have been for 10 years,it's not an easy duty and I work to my time most days,but its out in the hills and its nice.Without seniority I would never have got it,so stop whinging and do your bleeding job,i'm sick of hearing the moaners......you never had it so good.

[fishtank]

Kind of depends on your office really.
If it's weak as piss the junior staff will get walked over by management and the senior guys will laugh at them, if it's a decent office they won't.

Out of 80+ deliveries in my office about 4 or 5 might be worth getting excited about, the rest are much of a muchness, the duties are mostly prepped by full-time(senior) guys, very few have the luxury of prepping only one duty now and most of the mail is sequenced anyway and our deliveries are almost all pairs so a floater/reserve will usually end up out with a duty holder anyway and they'll both finish at the same time.

I would say on balance a reserve/floater in my office has it a good bit easier now than the reserves of about 10 years ago who tended to be dumped on an empty unknown frame as everybody else was f***ing off out the door.

Days off/rotations are the biggest gripe I get as a rep now because management as they always have been are dicks.

[mickh2423]

Lets be honest about seniority, from what I have experienced over a short 8 years service with Royal Mail it doesn't matter a bit to most employees. Most senior men in my D.O. have just as many problems as those who have served less time when prepping or delivering walks which are unfamiliar to them.
It's ok going on about "we used to be finished by 1030" and how the job has changed but the job is now hard physically with 4 hr plus deliveries.
How time served in this job has any importance nowadays is questionable in my opinion.

[Pete22]

By the way 27 years completed to this very day . Monday starts my 28th year and trust me seniority means very little, 6 day weeks 5 am starts ,last pick of holidays every year when I started .£5 a week less for a year than a regular postie and now on a ladder system for hols so getting screwed again .

[royalmailslave]

I think new starters should get their own rounds and the experienced, time-served people should be the floaters/reserves.
That way, we should all finish around the same time. People with 25plus years who can prep and deliver their rounds blind-folded have loads of time to spare, while recent starters struggle with both, but are reluctant to book overtime because of peer pressure, i.e.jeers from their senior "colleagues", which is a form of bullying.

Your obvs a new starter .....

So your telling me an old boy who's been there 35/40 years who earned his stripes has to do one of the shittest walks in the office so a younger lad with 2 months service can get one of the easiest ? It doesn't work like that fella.....

[bustedflush]

I think new starters should get their own rounds and the experienced, time-served people should be the floaters/reserves.
That way, we should all finish around the same time. People with 25plus years who can prep and deliver their rounds blind-folded have loads of time to spare, while recent starters struggle with both, but are reluctant to book overtime because of peer pressure, i.e.jeers from their senior "colleagues", which is a form of bullying.

Your obvs a new starter .....

So your telling me an old boy who's been there 35/40 years who earned his stripes has to do one of the shittest walks in the office so a younger lad with 2 months service can get one of the easiest ? It doesn't work like that fella.....

No, it doesn't and it shouldn't.

I can see where he's coming from though. You have far more stress being a reserve, and all the old hands will agree in my office. Your throwing off will be far slower, you'll get lost more, won't know the hazards and constantly be playing catch-up with your partner. When your throwing off is slower, you'll then find yourself doing door-dustbins in your own time, or on Saturday afternoon. This then leads to perceived pressure which you'll likely alleviate by coming in early to give yourself a comfort zone. Then the unpaid work scenario rears its ugly head again. If I thought the DIMs/RM were intelligent enough to have planned this all along, I'd protest. It's just the way it is until you learn better and gain experience.