A National Update

[Tman]

Other posties have suggested the mail hasn't been run through the machine enough times, which is also why things also come in back to front and/or upside down.

If "things" are like that it's not down to the machine but the dummy emptying the stackers being useless and/or careless with the sequenced mail.

[SpacePhoenix]

Other posties have suggested the mail hasn't been run through the machine enough times, which is also why things also come in back to front and/or upside down.

If "things" are like that it's not down to the machine but the dummy emptying the stackers being useless and/or careless with the sequenced mail.

Nope. Upside down mail is down to how it's been run through an IMP or iLSM. If it's been upside down when it's been coded in an IMP or iLSM then it has to stay upside down. An IMP or iLSM will be still be able to read the code if it gets put right way up later but a CSS machine will reject it

[fishtank]

Updating the A+ won't stop me getting letters for duties 500 miles away. Another issue seems to be the operators regularly feeding mail into the machines upside down. This might seem trivial to a mailcentre bod but it's a huge pain in the arse while sorting into a frame. Out on the street it's going to be enough to have you kicking gates open and beating old ladies about the head with your PDA.

Is it difficult to tell up from down while operating a machine?

[Danelectro]

Another common occurrence with sequenced mail is the sequence jumps a load of addresses and then goes into a reverse sequence so you end up prepping backwards to the point where the jump occured.WTF.

[Tman]

Other posties have suggested the mail hasn't been run through the machine enough times, which is also why things also come in back to front and/or upside down.

If "things" are like that it's not down to the machine but the dummy emptying the stackers being useless and/or careless with the sequenced mail.

Nope. Upside down mail is down to how it's been run through an IMP or iLSM. If it's been upside down when it's been coded in an IMP or iLSM then it has to stay upside down. An IMP or iLSM will be still be able to read the code if it gets put right way up later but a CSS machine will reject it

Other posties have suggested the mail hasn't been run through the machine enough times

Which means CSS's. I thought the DO posties were complaining about how they received sequenced mail?

[monkey76]

Some DSA , 2nd class are available after 18:00 but is not sequenced until at least 23:00

2C gets sequenced on "Day 2" along with the 1C that's on "Day 1"

70% of Mail is sequenced by 02: 00 but is not suspected to a Delivery Office until 04:30 so if they delayed the sequencing until later what would the effect actually be ? The second wave if Royal Mail get maximisation of the first wave could come in either walk sorted or manual as the numbers on say a 1000 letters would be either 50 or a 100./quote]

Sequencing (in theory) is supposed to take 40mins per batch. Say you have 10 batches per CSS, if you were to start the wave 1 at 22:00 it would take around 7 hours to sequence them all. On a busy day you might have something like 8-12 left over boxes which would get held over for wave 2. If you had 14 batches then that would take around 9 hours to sequence. If RM push night shifts back a couple of hours then you are probably looking at best case wave 1 not going out until at least 6. Wave 1 can't be made any larger, there's not the capacity to do so

With RM using 17 tonner lorries my guess is that RM possibly want to have it so that a given DO in one hit

Royal Mail are reviewing each Mail Centres shifts based on automation and traffic arrival and for each Mail Centre are highlighting where each traditional shift pattern is efficient or not ! Especially on inward

All shifts are probably understaffed. Shift times can't change if RM want to keep to having 2C dispatched at 10:00

Are you doing any 2C on other shifts as opposed to early?

[SpacePhoenix]

Lates are suppossed to do some 2C but in practise they probably never do due to staffing levels.

Some of the mech will have been prepped in DOs (collection hubs) before being sent to the MC. If they have boxed the mail the right way up, then it'll be upside down when emptied on an IMP or iLSM

I find it hard to believe that you're getting a chunk in reverse order, a CSS machine would reject it. If a CSS machine gets a chunk of mail that's not where it expected it to be it rejects it and tells you that you have some mail that's out of sequence

[fb1969]

Today was a usual example: Sequenced mail came in eg. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 6, 7, 8 ,9, 14, 15, 16 etc. That happened twice in one tray, in different places, some days it is fine but others not. Not reverse order in our case, but a chunk correctly sequenced but in the wrong place in the overall sequence.

Also, our trays come in a York that has all the trays for the duties in our aisle. More and more times I get random missorts for other duties in the aisle (and they are packed in, so not just thrown in manually).

Not making any of this up and not 'blaming' anyone within the system or on here. Just giving examples of the fact that sequenced mail is never 100% correct, and if the future for redirections is to flick through the tray then there are problems to come.

[citypostie]

On friday, I prepped 10 supposed sequenced mech trays on my park and loop delivery. There was roughly 50 missorts for rounds in our office and city's all over the country. And plenty of it was jumping forward and backward on the frame. If they bring this new method of working in without improving the sequenced mail unless we are given time to check every letter in the trays there will be lots of missorts coming back to the office. At least they aren't bothered about that anymore. Not like years ago when a letter found in a pouch on a random bag check would result in a grilling and mentions of wilful delay.

[SpacePhoenix]

On friday, I prepped 10 supposed sequenced mech trays on my park and loop delivery. There was roughly 50 missorts for rounds in our office and city's all over the country. And plenty of it was jumping forward and backward on the frame. If they bring this new method of working in without improving the sequenced mail unless we are given time to check every letter in the trays there will be lots of missorts coming back to the office. At least they aren't bothered about that anymore. Not like years ago when a letter found in a pouch on a random bag check would result in a grilling and mentions of wilful delay.

10 trays of sequence? Did you have a bulk posting?

Bulk postings are handy for seeing which walks/DOs need their A+ updating.

They'll never get 100% sequenced, it just isn't possible

[citypostie]

On friday, I prepped 10 supposed sequenced mech trays on my park and loop delivery. There was roughly 50 missorts for rounds in our office and city's all over the country. And plenty of it was jumping forward and backward on the frame. If they bring this new method of working in without improving the sequenced mail unless we are given time to check every letter in the trays there will be lots of missorts coming back to the office. At least they aren't bothered about that anymore. Not like years ago when a letter found in a pouch on a random bag check would result in a grilling and mentions of wilful delay.

10 trays of sequence? Did you have a bulk posting?

Bulk postings are handy for seeing which walks/DOs need their A+ updating.

They'll never get 100% sequenced, it just isn't possible

Nope, 2 trays of normal mail and 3 trays of mainly christmas cards on each round. Wasnt saying 10 trays on 1 round!

[Gangham_style14]

I have faith in the cwu. After analysing yesterday’s video Terrys body language suggested to me the change of times is defiantly going to go ahead. Myself, along with many other members can only speculate how these time changes will affect us with school times, I don’t know if it was just myself, but I got the feeling that talks are still long way of and wonder if RM will do a u turn after we head out of Xmas pressure ???? And start back tracking on things .....

[postslippete]

From the video what I sensed was a lot of distrust between Royal Mail and the CWU, a bit like a house of cards that could collapse at any moment. I suspect part of that is because they know a lot of posties are quite resistant to change and part of it because our employers simply want us to work us into the ground and pay us as little as possible for it in return.

Personally, the CWU should add another pillar and call it "Working to Time" in an attempt to try and prevent posties being bullied or coerce into working any overtime that they do not want. A privatised company like Royal Mail will always attempt to push the boundaries over what we can deliver i.e. more D2Ds, more mail, more lies over traffic volumes, more lapsing, bigger deliveries. And this will stop them from pushing staff members towards breaking point. It will also reinforce the overrunning procedure, which is badly in need of a makeover to bring it up to the 21st Century.

[TheTrolleyMan]

Working to time .......... Now that's a pillar I'd love to see

[toomuchcoke]

Today was a usual example: Sequenced mail came in eg. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 6, 7, 8 ,9, 14, 15, 16 etc. That happened twice in one tray, in different places, some days it is fine but others not. Not reverse order in our case, but a chunk correctly sequenced but in the wrong place in the overall sequence.

Two of the rounds have similar "quirks". One of them jumps ahead about 100 calls just before the end of the first row, has sequencing for about 5 calls at that point, and then jumps back to where it was and continues as normal from there on in (obviously missing out the 5 calls when it gets that far). That just started happening one week. The other has an industrial estate with about 30-40 businesses at the beginning. All of the business mail arrives sequenced correctly except for one company! Most of that company's mail arrives sequenced correctly, but the rest of it is scattered through the rest of the industrial estate both before and after the correct location!

I tried telling management about the second case but got told "Oh that just happens, there's nothing we can do!" ... An explanation that completely failed to explain why, if it's so random, it only happens on that round and only for mail for that company and not randomly to any call on any round in the office! However given the quality of the response I've decided not to even waste my time asking about the other case!