one year on

[world class male]

i never even knew until today when the wife said its 1 year since lockdown and a minutes silence at some point for those who have sadly passed away and reading some news snippets its also like a celebration of all essential & key workers efforts
does anyone here feel appreciated?
1 year of hell with people being paid to sit on their arses ordering gardening furniture, paddling pools & bar stools etc. then inflatable snowmen whilst we've been run ragged since nov19, yes almost 18 months!
i don't feel so good about it so lord knows what the real heroes in the nhs feel like?
even the plod are getting it now too, crack some skulls i say

[Jahpostie]

There was a patronising one minute clap in our depot yesterday. I just stood there feeling sick to my stomach at how we have been shafted day after day.

[Celgar]

DOMs are currently getting pressured by their managers to encourage us to get 0900 & 1300 SDs delivered by those times & not the current amended times of 1100 & 1600 respectively.
To my mind we are not back to normal yet and the busier days are not far off the busy days at Xmas therefore I think we need to keep the amended times probably until the start of 2022. The Covid situation is still so precarious and I feel there is not a great pull to go back to 'normal' by the general public.

[Dorset Plodder]

DOMs are currently getting pressured by their managers to encourage us to get 0900 & 1300 SDs delivered by those times & not the current amended times of 1100 & 1600 respectively.
To my mind we are not back to normal yet and the busier days are not far off the busy days at Xmas therefore I think we need to keep the amended times probably until the start of 2022. The Covid situation is still so precarious and I feel there is not a great pull to go back to 'normal' by the general public.

This must be a Local Incentive (probably some Suit trying to earn Brownie Points). We've heard nothing about it and would probably tell him to GTF!

Our Covid "Journey" has been a fairly consistent one. Generally Busy most days, with some VERY Busy days, but no real Nightmare stories that you hear about in other DOs with mail not going out for days at a time. We've been lucky that we've not been hit by a lot of Covid Absences, and we've had support with Hired Vans & Agency Workers.

My DO also has a lot of Experienced Posties, many that have a High Standard of Personal Pride in the Job. This has not necessarily been a good thing as IMO they were doing far too much that should have been left to Managers to sort out. "I don't want to let my customers down"syndrome

However a year down the road and it's wearing a bit thin. Nowadays not so many Posties are willing to "Go that extra mile" Lapsing is being refused more often and some Posties are even regularly cutting off now ... Shock Horror!

[Cucumber]

All but 1 or 2 in ours are just cutting off now, with the rest working from home ( a mix of FT and part time) unable to work their full hours.
Once it became abundantly clear that management were trying to put the squeeze on the rest of the staff to make up for the time they were losing to staff remote working, people stopped going that extra mile. Who knows where it will end.

[SpacePhoenix]

All but 1 or 2 in ours are just cutting off now, with the rest working from home ( a mix of FT and part time) unable to work their full hours.
Once it became abundantly clear that management were trying to put the squeeze on the rest of the staff to make up for the time they were losing to staff remote working, people stopped going that extra mile. Who knows where it will end.

I wonder if for RM if it's a choice between that or using PDA actuals to crack down on the time lost to remote working

[postslippete]

Aye, can't believe its been almost a year! Some of them have still got their rainbows up at the windows and theres a few "support your postie" as well. It was tough for us right up until Xmas when some of the duties had weeks worth of mail and packets. Thats when the business started employing tons of agency workers.

[Woody Guthrie]

All but 1 or 2 in ours are just cutting off now, with the rest working from home ( a mix of FT and part time) unable to work their full hours.
Once it became abundantly clear that management were trying to put the squeeze on the rest of the staff to make up for the time they were losing to staff remote working, people stopped going that extra mile. Who knows where it will end.

I wonder if for RM if it's a choice between that or using PDA actuals to crack down on the time lost to remote working

PDA actual measure outdoor workload.
It's not outdoor workload they are losing to remote working.

[Woody Guthrie]

They have been told to "maximise attendance hours".
Those working from home and not working their full hours are being pressured to work 6 days and/or take more delivery work to compensate.
My advice would be to put the ball back in their court and turn up at the office the following morning, it's their mess not ours.

[Dorset Plodder]

Aye, can't believe its been almost a year! Some of them have still got their rainbows up at the windows and theres a few "support your postie" as well. It was tough for us right up until Xmas when some of the duties had weeks worth of mail and packets. Thats when the business started employing tons of agency workers.

We were discussing this the other day. Most of the Posties in my DO have very little experience of failed walks. I've moved around a bit so have worked on frames with several days mail left.

Does your manager not try and move his staff around to try and at least deliver those failed duties every couple of days? Or are you that short of staff? I presume it would be caused by Covid Abscence.

[Cucumber]

They have been told to "maximise attendance hours".
Those working from home and not working their full hours are being pressured to work 6 days and/or take more delivery work to compensate.
My advice would be to put the ball back in their court and turn up at the office the following morning, it's their mess not ours.

Ideally, yes this is what I would recommend too. Although it's extremely unlikely people will volunteer to give up WFH to go onto a nightshift for example.

[Dorset Plodder]

We have no experience of WFH in my DO. I find the situation Bizarre to say the least.

Am I missing something? Surely if a Postie is getting the mail dropped at his First DP, or whatever, and he's "Missing" the first two hours of Prep & Bagging up ... would not a DOM expect him to make up those two hours by adding two hours worth of mail?

I see it's been suggested they work a six day week to make up those hours. Is that the agreed process?

[Woody Guthrie]

There is no agreed process.
To ask members to replace two hours of indoor work with two hours of outdoor work or work six days is completely unacceptable.
As I said this is their mess and not the fault of our members.

[Cucumber]

There is no agreed process.
To ask members to replace two hours of indoor work with two hours of outdoor work or work six days is completely unacceptable.
As I said this is their mess and not the fault of our members.

I totally agree with you.
It's equally not the fault of the remaining indoor staff who are being 'squeezed' by management to claw back the indoor work time lost. I'm seriously not trying to create a 'one vs another' situation but there is clear link (again caused by RM) between working time lost from WFH and extra work pushed onto those not WFH, especially in this type of job.
Is there a solution to this? I don't think so or we would have seen one by now, or maybe there is no appetite to create a new agreed process and simply kick the can down the road.

[postslippete]

There is no agreed process.
To ask members to replace two hours of indoor work with two hours of outdoor work or work six days is completely unacceptable.
As I said this is their mess and not the fault of our members.

Its typical of Royal Mail managerial planning. When van sharing stopped the screws went round and asked staff what they wanted to do as they were looking for volunteers to work nights and/or work from home to reduce the numbers in the office. Those who were full-time and working from home after a few weeks were then told to take an extra couple of loops. So what happened is that most of them came back to the office at their usual start time on their usual round. There were even a few staff who were starting at lunchtime but they often turned up at that time and there wasn't a van available and/or they were expected to do 6 loops. So they went back to their usual times! As you can imagine only very few staff are now working from home and perhaps inevitably we had many staff going off with Covid symptoms.

We ended up short staffed.

Does your manager not try and move his staff around to try and at least deliver those failed duties every couple of days? Or are you that short of staff? I presume it would be caused by Covid Abscence.

New guys (temps) were introduced to complete deliveries that often had at least 2 days worth of mail and packets. However, all the managers were bothered about was getting the Tracked and Special items delivered so the mail and packets built up for another day. Most of our packets tend to be tracked these days. On some days a few loops did get taken but I remember one duty that was just packed to the rafters, you couldn't get any more mail in the frame and there were at least 4 Yorks full of packets!!

Staff were working their days off and Sundays and thats when dozens of agency staff were employed.