It must have been like the busiest day ever mail wise with 3 waves of mech! (12 packed trays for both duties!!); 3 lots of D2Ds as well as reams of thin mech bumpf plus heavy catalogues. The end result: a very untidy paper avalanche sat on my desk whilst I was walk sorting.
And yet.........the gaffer still seems to think we can collapse 3 duties. Is he out of his tiny mind?? Did he not observe the mail traffic forecast for today? Is he aware that we now have fewer walk sorters than before thus we are leaving the office later? Has he observed how staff were reacting in the office?
I informed the lino in good time that we would pushing it just to get our own deliveries done today, never mind the 2 loops of collapse for the two of us. The response I got was not entirely unexpected. "Yes, just put the time that you have gone over by in the book when you sign off."
However, I have an issue with this and its not the fact that I enjoy walking a marathon everyday and getting home just before Look North starts on the TV. I don't know if other delivery offices are doing this. Bot our DOM has had the brainwave that if you finish before your time on one day, when you go over on another day, means you probably don't get paid for going over your time. It sounds fair, but it just doesn't work in practice. Its like Swings and Roundabouts but they are his Swings and Roundabouts. And there are numerous reports of staff not getting paid what they have worked even when they have done everything by the book signing in and out on time.
And so I think to myself: Why should I bother working past my time today if I am not getting paid for it?? So I informed the gaffer that I do not wish to work past my finish time. And so the standoff begins.
Manager: Why?
Well, I need to pick my son up from school at 3.30pm.
Manager: Can't you get someone else to pick him up?
No.
Manager: Well, you need to give me 30 minutes flex.
What's that?
Manager: Well can you work half an hour past your time and come in 30 minutes later on Saturday?
I can't because I've told you I need to pick the kid up from school.
Manager: (sighs) well I guess its not going to be delivered today then, it will have failed.
This was quite a brief exchange by his standards but it won't probably be the last. Little did I know that he had an ace up his sleeve in the fact that he rang up one of the lads to come in and do the full round on overtime (just in case). I admired the fact that he did try to pull out all the stops beforehand though.
And so the bullying and harassment will never stop in delivery offices when managers are trying to do everything they can to get all the work delivered because it otherwise means that they will have to deliver it themselves. And we as posties know, that is why a lot of them became managers in the first place....
