Double Prep

[clashcityrocker]

Should this way of working be abandoned now?
I could understand it when 2 people were on van share - because it would be done properly.
But with a full timer prepping a part timer's duty..... let's be honest, if it gets done at all it gets done badly. (I apologise for the generalisation and I am sure there are some full timers who do the job professionally. I just haven't met one)

And how does throwing 50/60 parcels on top of a frame in a random order constitute "prepping". With random bits of paper stuffed in the frame or random letters turned.
It would be far better to let the part timer prep their own duty.
More hours for LTFT staff leading to a reduced turnover of staff. Greater efficiency. Less stress.

Obviously it would mean less full time staff but full time postman is a dying breed anyway.

[Bahia Feliz]

Trouble is if a PT is on a 30 hour contract at 6 hours a day (over 5 days) how can you prep a delivery,bundle it,deliver it and have a meal relief in 6 hours? And travelling as well (if they drive that is)

[Jamesfr3man]

I'm a P/T and have been with RM over a year now and I've run into this problem a lot. Some F/T staff prep properly don't get me wrong but some have no interest as it's not "their" work to do, so they may only do the letters and not packets or redirections. When I go into the office and this has been the case, I make my lino aware and prep in my time and cut off later on. The irony is I end up leaving most of the loops in the frame once I’m finished prepping to make sure the tracked parcels get delivered within my hours. I’m on a 25 hour contract with a 30min break, that leaves 4.5 hours to prep my delivery, bag up, drive to my delivery point and do all my parcels during the duty, which is impossible. My contract isn’t fit for purpose and I end up claiming O/T everyday just to finish, but as of late with no van sharing I’ve lost the love due to the work loads and end up cutting off everyday. The current situation is a complete nightmare.

[clashcityrocker]

Trouble is if a PT is on a 30 hour contract at 6 hours a day (over 5 days) how can you prep a delivery,bundle it,deliver it and have a meal relief in 6 hours? And travelling as well (if they drive that is)

Well that would depend on what the delivery span is.
If more hours were needed than 6 hours/day then it would already be a full time delivery anyway.
Apart from rural duties I have never known a duty that would take 7 hours/day to prep and deliver. (I have known a few people who could string it out that long)

[Cucumber]

I'm a P/T and have been with RM over a year now and I've run into this problem a lot. Some F/T staff prep properly don't get me wrong but some have no interest as it's not "their" work to do, so they may only do the letters and not packets or redirections. When I go into the office and this has been the case, I make my lino aware and prep in my time and cut off later on. The irony is I end up leaving most of the loops in the frame once I’m finished prepping to make sure the tracked parcels get delivered within my hours. I’m on a 25 hour contract with a 30min break, that leaves 4.5 hours to prep my delivery, bag up, drive to my delivery point and do all my parcels during the duty, which is impossible. My contract isn’t fit for purpose and I end up claiming O/T everyday just to finish, but as of late with no van sharing I’ve lost the love due to the work loads and end up cutting off everyday. The current situation is a complete nightmare.

It's shameful the extent to which this goes on. The union knows it happens, management clearly let it happen, and ultimately it can lead to people losing their jobs due to constant run ins with management over manageable workload.

[UNION JACK]

Should this way of working be abandoned now?
I could understand it when 2 people were on van share - because it would be done properly.
But with a full timer prepping a part timer's duty..... let's be honest, if it gets done at all it gets done badly. (I apologise for the generalisation and I am sure there are some full timers who do the job professionally. I just haven't met one)

And how does throwing 50/60 parcels on top of a frame in a random order constitute "prepping". With random bits of paper stuffed in the frame or random letters turned.
It would be far better to let the part timer prep their own duty.
More hours for LTFT staff leading to a reduced turnover of staff. Greater efficiency. Less stress.

Obviously it would mean less full time staff but full time postman is a dying breed anyway.

Double prep do not throw the whole walk off as the part timer comes in to finish it off,in our office you only put in d2d's,sequence and flats,part timer comes in and preps his own packets .

[wallan]

I'm a P/T and have been with RM over a year now and I've run into this problem a lot. Some F/T staff prep properly don't get me wrong but some have no interest as it's not "their" work to do, so they may only do the letters and not packets or redirections. When I go into the office and this has been the case, I make my lino aware and prep in my time and cut off later on. The irony is I end up leaving most of the loops in the frame once I’m finished prepping to make sure the tracked parcels get delivered within my hours. I’m on a 25 hour contract with a 30min break, that leaves 4.5 hours to prep my delivery, bag up, drive to my delivery point and do all my parcels during the duty, which is impossible. My contract isn’t fit for purpose and I end up claiming O/T everyday just to finish, but as of late with no van sharing I’ve lost the love due to the work loads and end up cutting off everyday. The current situation is a complete nightmare.

It's shameful the extent to which this goes on. The union knows it happens, management clearly let it happen, and ultimately it can lead to people losing their jobs due to constant run ins with management over manageable workload.

If its on there 318 , it is there work to do

[RICARD020191962]

No

[Jamesfr3man]

Should this way of working be abandoned now?
I could understand it when 2 people were on van share - because it would be done properly.
But with a full timer prepping a part timer's duty..... let's be honest, if it gets done at all it gets done badly. (I apologise for the generalisation and I am sure there are some full timers who do the job professionally. I just haven't met one)

And how does throwing 50/60 parcels on top of a frame in a random order constitute "prepping". With random bits of paper stuffed in the frame or random letters turned.
It would be far better to let the part timer prep their own duty.
More hours for LTFT staff leading to a reduced turnover of staff. Greater efficiency. Less stress.

Obviously it would mean less full time staff but full time postman is a dying breed anyway.

Double prep do not throw the whole walk off as the part timer comes in to finish it off,in our office you only put in d2d's,sequence and flats,part timer comes in and preps his own packets .

I will never understand why this is considered an effective way to work. Why get the guy with less hours to do the job of the F/T when you already have that same person on the frame in the morning preparing 70% of the walk. How much more work/time is it to a F/T compared to a P/T? All this does is take away valuable delivery time from a guy who is already under the kosh when he gets to work. Obviously I'm biased but when I'm seeing F/T finishing hours before the end of their duty or are have left hours before I've even come in, it pisses me off to no end... especially when they leave frames unprepped

[fangrock]

When I double prepped, the last time over a year ago, I had to prep all of it. I would prep the walk seq first then the boxes of flats for the PT walk, then the same for my walk. Go to the IPS frames and clear both walks down. Do the PT walk first then mine. Clear the DBF doing the PT walks packets first then mine, I would put the PT walks packets on top in order of how the walk was delivered marking each packet with a blank P739 in the frame as thats how the guy worked. After that I would keep checking the IPS frames and DBF and need be clear them down. If there was not much sorting left I had to prep the D2D's on both walks, PT walk first then mine ( sometimes each walk had between 4 - 6 D2ds each which would work out about 300 delivery points x how many D2Ds we had for that day ). When all that had been done I went and had my meal relief, 40 mins, and all the people on IPS were already on their meal relief.
After my meal relief I had to prep the second wave of Walk Seq for both walks and do the redirections on both. Alot of the time the people who had been on IPS were already going out the door before I had even finished prepping the last lot of walk seq and they thought I had it easy.
Personally I found double prep very stressful and I was very glad when I managed to finally get a transfer to my local MC after doing nearly 32 years on delivery.

[UNION JACK]

Should this way of working be abandoned now?
I could understand it when 2 people were on van share - because it would be done properly.
But with a full timer prepping a part timer's duty..... let's be honest, if it gets done at all it gets done badly. (I apologise for the generalisation and I am sure there are some full timers who do the job professionally. I just haven't met one)

And how does throwing 50/60 parcels on top of a frame in a random order constitute "prepping". With random bits of paper stuffed in the frame or random letters turned.
It would be far better to let the part timer prep their own duty.
More hours for LTFT staff leading to a reduced turnover of staff. Greater efficiency. Less stress.

Obviously it would mean less full time staff but full time postman is a dying breed anyway.

Double prep do not throw the whole walk off as the part timer comes in to finish it off,in our office you only put in d2d's,sequence and flats,part timer comes in and preps his own packets .

I will never understand why this is considered an effective way to work. Why get the guy with less hours to do the job of the F/T when you already have that same person on the frame in the morning preparing 70% of the walk. How much more work/time is it to a F/T compared to a P/T? All this does is take away valuable delivery time from a guy who is already under the kosh when he gets to work. Obviously I'm biased but when I'm seeing F/T finishing hours before the end of their duty or are have left hours before I've even come in, it pisses me off to no end... especially when they leave frames unprepped

This is the problem full timers getting annoyed with part timers and vice versa the management love this because there will always be someone who walks over and does the overtime.The managers are afraid of the bosses above them,posties afraid to say no to managers its a boiling pot,this isn't just Royal Mail its like this in most companies across the country its the way society is set up,just chill tell your manager your not doing it ,stop overtime,do not walk over,i know what your going to say it will never happen but just imagine the fun if all your office got together and just said NO,god i feel a song coming on .

[Cucumber]

I'm a P/T and have been with RM over a year now and I've run into this problem a lot. Some F/T staff prep properly don't get me wrong but some have no interest as it's not "their" work to do, so they may only do the letters and not packets or redirections. When I go into the office and this has been the case, I make my lino aware and prep in my time and cut off later on. The irony is I end up leaving most of the loops in the frame once I’m finished prepping to make sure the tracked parcels get delivered within my hours. I’m on a 25 hour contract with a 30min break, that leaves 4.5 hours to prep my delivery, bag up, drive to my delivery point and do all my parcels during the duty, which is impossible. My contract isn’t fit for purpose and I end up claiming O/T everyday just to finish, but as of late with no van sharing I’ve lost the love due to the work loads and end up cutting off everyday. The current situation is a complete nightmare.

It's shameful the extent to which this goes on. The union knows it happens, management clearly let it happen, and ultimately it can lead to people losing their jobs due to constant run ins with management over manageable workload.

If its on there 318 , it is there work to do

Of course it's on the 318
Which of course means it's their responsibility.
But when balanced with flying out the door 30 mins early vs prepping a part time run, there is only one winner.

[clashcityrocker]

Double prep do not throw the whole walk off as the part timer comes in to finish it off,in our office you only put in d2d's,sequence and flats,part timer comes in and preps his own packets .

So you are half way there - now go the whole hog and give the part timer a better contract and let him/her prep the lot.
I particularly don't like coming in to a frame not knowing who has been coughing and spluttering over it for half the morning.

[HTPostman]

Unpopular post of the year coming up....

Trying to steer away from PT vs FT cos we’ve done it to death on here.

Anyway....

At some point Royal Mail will have a huge amount of backdated holiday pay to pay to part timers. I’m owed £1500 ish. Some PT will be owed more, some less. Assume an average of £1000 which is being conservative, and 30,000 PT (my estimate) that’s £30 million.

Not sure about other PT staff but I’d gladly accept a one off nominal payment of say £200 in my next wage PLUS have 5 hours added onto my contracted hours (so my 25 hour contract becomes 30 hours). Royal Mail know the majority of PT staff do more than their contracted hours in the form of OT anyway.

The company gets out of a huge payment which could put it in a dire financial position and tip it over the edge, and me and other PT staff get more contracted hours which simply replaces the extra hours we do on OT. It then means we have extra prep time. Win win.

[UNION JACK]

Double prep do not throw the whole walk off as the part timer comes in to finish it off,in our office you only put in d2d's,sequence and flats,part timer comes in and preps his own packets .

So you are half way there - now go the whole hog and give the part timer a better contract and let him/her prep the lot.
I particularly don't like coming in to a frame not knowing who has been coughing and spluttering over it for half the morning.

Fair shout but that ain't going to happen,been at royal mail over 20 years and they've always been trying to get a part time workforce and they are professionals and getting people to work for nothing.