Why do PDA's have.....

[Bernardson]

There is no doubt the PDAs are annoying.

1. It times out too often, leave it for 10 mins and it wants your pin entered again.
2. It fills up your pocket and weighs a tonne.
3. Freezes up just after youve knocked on the door, which means you need to reboot it. Now u and the customer have to wait for it to slowly reboot.
4. Bleeps at you every 10 seconds to tell you the battery is dying and that bloody message pops up (incase u forgot)
5. Clicks in your pocket for no reason.
6. Wont connect to the system to download the collection route so now you have to ad-hoc every box.
7. Somehow makes it way into phone mode and calls the emergency services.
8. Blank screen - can hear it clicking when i press the buttons but the screen has given up.

This old piece of technology is laughable compared with what other courier companies are using.

Very especially No7

[postslippete]

Royal mail are trying to run the business on a shoestring. They needed PDAs for every postie in every office; so they were not going to be of the same quality that UPS or TNT use.


We have had the PDAs for a few years now, and we still experience the same problems as regards low battery life and not uploading to the server.

As staff regularly work more than four or five hours on delivery, it is obvious that the PDAs have not been properly field tested (if at all). The charger in the van is also quite redundant as PDAs need a constant charge. Royal Mail of course know all this but at least they can give customers 'some' sort of service as to whether their package has been delivered or not.

[Altrider]

7. Somehow makes it way into phone mode and calls the emergency services.

Twice in the past month for me! LOL Ooooops

[Postie45]

Royal mail are trying to run the business on a shoestring. They needed PDAs for every postie in every office; so they were not going to be of the same quality that UPS or TNT use.

I dont know, I think these PDAs may have been close to top end when RM first bought them, its been a good few years we`ve had the same ones now. Probably bought a huge bulk order so we`re stuck with them for now.

[edwards87]

There is no doubt the PDAs are annoying.

1. It times out too often, leave it for 10 mins and it wants your pin entered again.
2. It fills up your pocket and weighs a tonne.
3. Freezes up just after youve knocked on the door, which means you need to reboot it. Now u and the customer have to wait for it to slowly reboot.
4. Bleeps at you every 10 seconds to tell you the battery is dying and that bloody message pops up (incase u forgot)
5. Clicks in your pocket for no reason.
6. Wont connect to the system to download the collection route so now you have to ad-hoc every box.
7. Somehow makes it way into phone mode and calls the emergency services.
8. Blank screen - can hear it clicking when i press the buttons but the screen has given up.

This old piece of technology is laughable compared with what other courier companies are using.

Don't forget:

9. the comments on it being upside down
10. messages about time zones popping up just as the customer is signing their name
11. the straps wear quicker than our shoes. Never realised until my strap went how hard it is to hold your mail, a parcel and the pda
12. it has a touch screen (by 2005 standards) yet it also still has a keypad (not that the keypad even works most of the time)
13. total inability to see the screen in sunlight
14. never looks like the customer's signature anyway which makes the whole machine totally pointless

[villan]

There is no doubt the PDAs are annoying.

1. It times out too often, leave it for 10 mins and it wants your pin entered again.
2. It fills up your pocket and weighs a tonne.
3. Freezes up just after youve knocked on the door, which means you need to reboot it. Now u and the customer have to wait for it to slowly reboot.
4. Bleeps at you every 10 seconds to tell you the battery is dying and that bloody message pops up (incase u forgot)
5. Clicks in your pocket for no reason.
6. Wont connect to the system to download the collection route so now you have to ad-hoc every box.
7. Somehow makes it way into phone mode and calls the emergency services.
8. Blank screen - can hear it clicking when i press the buttons but the screen has given up.

This old piece of technology is laughable compared with what other courier companies are using.

It clicks in your pocket because something is pressing against the screen. The clicking is the PDA's way of saying "Gerroff! I'm not that kind of PDA!"

[rjack]

i had a customer draw a house and sun on mine instead of a signature.

[dvbuk55]

Well you may have noticed that there is a site ID which is specific to your office and the pin is specific to you at that site.

[DB1100]

....pin codes?

What is the reason for the PIN codes on them?

It's not a Smartphone holding lots of personal data! It's a big lump of stupid outdated plastic which scans bar codes and receives a text everyday at 12pm reminding you to cut off for Specials! God forbid that anyone managed to crack your PIN number and get into your PDA and read that text at 12pm!

heres a reason for you, tell you what, leave me your pda signed in with no pin lock and ill use it to sign for these specials ive got for the local jewellers with a fake name, I wonder who IB will be coming looking for

Yep,you really are going to get convicted on that.

[maninred]

Well you may have noticed that there is a site ID which is specific to your office and the pin is specific to you at that site.

The pin is specific to the user id. Your user id & pin can be used on any site id.

[janitor]

When I came back from holiday once, the person in thr rle locker had covered my duty, they told me they had signed in as me for the whole week, there was list in the office showing PIN numbers for each postie, so they just logged in as me and used my pin.They said it was easier that way, they was stopped from doing it not long afterwards.DOM said it was important to know who did what.

[IcanthelpthewayIam]

....pin codes?

What is the reason for the PIN codes on them?

It's not a Smartphone holding lots of personal data! It's a big lump of stupid outdated plastic which scans bar codes and receives a text everyday at 12pm reminding you to cut off for Specials! God forbid that anyone managed to crack your PIN number and get into your PDA and read that text at 12pm!

heres a reason for you, tell you what, leave me your pda signed in with no pin lock and ill use it to sign for these specials ive got for the local jewellers with a fake name, I wonder who IB will be coming looking for

Yep,you really are going to get convicted on that.

point is the person signed into the pda will be the person investigated, may not get convicted but could lose job over it