A huge Royal Mail exposè is coming...

[Skimm]

I saw my postie today after not seeing one for weeks and asked whats been happening with the mail recently. He took out his ear phones and wouldn't stop talking.

He said that its chaos at the depot, they are being giving thousand of letter to post and when you complain they say ai don't care what you do with them, dont bring them back.

They are also being told to prioritize parcels and that letters aren't important. People are quiting or going off sick so the RM are having to hire agency workers who are dumping letters in bushes and quiting within days.

I haven't had post in over 3 week. I have only noticed as I'm waiting to recieve 2 v.important letters that were sent 3 and 2 weeks ago. So who knows how long its been going on.

I have phoned the help line and been told that 50% off the staff in my local depot are either sick or absent and that they have shut down certain postcodes to deliveries. They said after the complaint I will recieve post within 72hr. It never happened and I've had to complain again.

If you search online you will see I'm not the only one. It seems to be happening nationwide in cities and rural areas. The issue is that RM are denying that there is an issue.

They are suppose to deliver post to every postcode Monday to Saturday and now I've been told that they are closing down certain postcodes over the phone but then denying it on social media.

I still didn't get my mail today so I'm starting to wonder if I'm one if the people whobhave had their letters dumped.

@the80sweregreat That's the Post Office a completely separate company to Royal Mail. How do people not know this?

Case in point being the NHS. It’s a complete shitshow, as is DVLA, passport office etc. What about how these inefficient, resource-sapping enterprises are run instills any confidence that renationalisation will be the answer?

The NHS is completely different. The line that it is inefficient is what the Tories want you to believe so they can continue to starve it, and then people can come along and say it is badly managed and wont complain so much when healthcare is privatized. In the services already sold off, profit is king and paying money to shareholders trumps anything else - including infrastructure.

Not sure if this is still a thing, but it might be.
Sometimes - well, often, actually - our postie would have to deliver junk mail to every single house on the round. Most of which will then have been chucked straight in the bin. I presume those who produced the junk mail paid for this to be done, and it was felt that this was something the business could not afford to turn down, as it was reliable income

I’m not defending them, but I can see the logic in prioritising parcels at Christmas

I wondered if something was going on. I got a pile of post today for the first time in a while. Looked like it had all been saved up. It often happens where I live though so not just a recent thing. Waiting on a new bank card ordered last Wednesday so will be interested to see if that comes before Xmas

We had a farce whereby the hired white post van had a flat tyre at our house . Dh offered assistance and a jack etc but the postie said that they aren't allowed to change tyres as they are hired vans. They closed the red van repair garage and they are basically just disintegrating and they pay massive hire fees when not enough vans.
He had to wait until his supervisor came to pick him up , with another postie as well.at this point second van wouldn't then start 🤣
We were beginning to feel like the overflow depot.
Eventually someone from hire company came and changed tyre and fixed other van.
It's madness though , lack of maintenance meant three staff members out of action for hours, plus it must cost them a fortune to hire vans.

Royal Mail won the CIPD Best Resourcing Initiative 2023..... which I find remarkable, because if they are best in class how are they struggling for people?

@whenindoubtgotothelibrary so so true , I feel the same when I receive a message from Evri , it’s a rollercoaster of when you might actually get your parcel !

I did that as a student too. Many student aged kids would do it too if encouraged.

The real problem is that RM should not have to deliver to every single house very single day and definitely not on a Saturday.

I had an argument with a Royal Mail beancounter over this. To me, it seemed obvious that the expensive part of the process was always going to be the walk to your letterbox, particularly a single letter to a house in a hamlet. However, the senior management pushed an argument saying that the sorting process and its equipment were the expensive part, which limited (via Ofcom) them to charging (I believe) 13.5p for letters sorted by postcode, delivered to the correct outbound distribution hub (of which there were 69 IIRC).
Many of the senior management then left to start up their own businesses, targeting bulk-mail - ie a single business sending out insurance renewal quotes or warranty confirmations could subcontract their mail cheaper than franking machine rates and as long as it was delivered in 69 vans, the mail company could make big profits, anything fiddly could be avoided.
RM should have recosted and slashed postage costs to drive out the undercutters, but instead increased postage significantly, making their competition more attractive and even more profitable.

So how do urgent things like house sale contracts and short-notice hospital appointments get sent if there isn't a daily delivery?

Noticed a trend in our area, letters only come if there's a junk mail delivery.

TBH I wouldn't complain because then they might start shoving the pile through someone else's letterbox and if they decide not to hand deliver, you won't be getting your post at all.

If you're determined to complain ring the redelivery phone number and keep pressing options until you get to a human. That's what I had to do years ago when our regular postie disappeared for some reason and the substitute was stealing cheques.

I know it was someone working for the mail service because it was every cheque, and only cheques, that started not arriving. Together with every hand written envelope that didn't contain a cheque being very obviously deliberately opened before it was badly stuck down again and delivered.

Because some of us are busy living our lives, dealing with difficulties on a daily basis and don't watch depressing things/propaganda like the news or read newspapers. Royal Mail/Post Office have been one and the same since forever and as it appears on the surface to be working just the same way as it always has there's no reason to suspect the situation has changed. Since there isn't a huge sign in the post office announcing they're no longer the same company as royal mail and since people aren't psychic, so they don't know until they read a thread like this one or a friend mentions something about it to them.

On the sick with depression, anxiety and auto-immune conditions cause by trying to keep going whilst suffering long-term burnout?

Working from home doing anything at all, so they can take 5min breaks when needed to avoid burnout, cover childcare they can't afford to pay for and get a few house chores done at the same time as working long hours?

Back when the usual amount of full time work for an average job was considered to be 35-37 1/2hrs a week with an hour for lunch and almost everything was closed on Sundays, instead of the 40-48hrs as standard with short/realistically no lunch break as it is now, people weren't spread so thin by the daily grind, life felt more manageable and those with long term health conditions were less likely to completely break mentally or physically due to trying to work.

Why does nobody ever pay attention to the real reasons many workers strike? The news & media always focus on pay but in nine out of ten strikes, the terms and conditions, management reorganisation, cost cutting, redundancies, out sourcing, working practices, understaffing etc are equal issues. Strikers don't get paid, it's not something most workers vote for unless they are desperate.

@AshleyBlue it's been 11 years. Surely it's quite obvious with the two different company names.

And our youngsters don"t have the work ethic of previous generations...they don"t want to be pounding streets day in day out, they'd sooner be sitting at home answering call centre lines

Blimey I know which I'd prefer. I imagine every single day involves abuse in a call centre. Posties might have to run the gauntlet of aggressive dogs, but not every day.

The volume of letters has decreased dramatically so they cannot afford to employ as many people as they did, yet they are still expected to deliver to every single house 6 days a week

It's a silly and obvious point, but only if there's something to deliver, though. If there isn't, they don't need to go to that house. I sometimes see the postie but they don't come to our house because we don't have anything that day. It's when I don't see them in the street at all (for days) that I get suspicious about what's going on.

Edited: I had forgotten about the junk mail that has to be delivered to every house, but that's only once a week. And some people opt out (but you have to opt out every two years so people end up being back on the list again).

So how do urgent things like house sale contracts and short-notice hospital appointments get sent if there isn't a daily delivery?

I think they do delivery but often to post boxes.

Otherwise maybe things like house sale contacts only happen face to face, and appointments are always sent by text or email?

I think it's just Saturdays they might not deliver, but I actually think it makes more sense to choose a weekday not to deliver so you know you only go without post for a day.

The Royal Mail needs to go back into public ownership and be run properly. Pay decent wages then they’ll attract decent staff. When an organisation stops looking to make a profit for their shareholders they can invest it back in to make improvements. I doubt all those people, who got their shares at a snip when it was sold off too cheaply (Vince Cable🤬), are raking in much in dividends at the moment. Same goes for the railways.

Oh sorry , I thought Royal Mail and the post office were same thing !

I've got a Christmas card to deliver today to someone who lives at the same number on a different road. Example- I live at 18 Sunflower Road and they live 18 Sunflower Avenue. Beginning to think my postie is just a bit dim.

I would have definitely complained too if I thought someone was stealing cheques though, that's awful.

I get all my hosptial appointments by text and on my NHS app.

House sale contracts can be sent by the RM guaranteed tracked delivery services.

What about speeding offence notices, parking fines, school attendance fines, etc?

Also credit and debit cards?