To think WTF is going on with Royal Mail?

[WorriedandScared93]

What is the actual point of them anymore? I sent a small parcel 1st class 2 weeks ago and it's still not arrived...

Hate Royal Mail. I always choose DPD if available. I think the “royal” part of it needs to go and it can be called UK mail or Red mail or whatever. Royal Mail currently have a spare part that I need for my vacuum so that won’t work. Since end Nov they’ve had it. They have a couple of other things of mine as well, but the vacuum part is pissing me off the most. My late fil worked for them as a postie for more than a decade and he’d be disgusted at this. In those days, Royal Mail was respectable.

I was a hermes courier for over 10 years. I started in 2007 on a parcel rate of 45p. When I left I was on 56p per parcel. I left because all my costs were going up, insurance, fuel and keeping a vehicle on the road costs a lot when you're loading it up and driving round 6 days a week. Despite making billions in profit over covid they said I couldn't have a parcel rate rise as they were out of budget. Funnily enough I now work for RM. Its bloody hard work, but I like the job. Unfortunately the big bosses want to turn it into another hermes(evri). The reason you don't get your post is we are told by management to prioritise parcels

God knows! I just had a letter through about a cardiac phone appointment I’ve been waiting months for. Oops, the appointment was this morning and I missed it as was working and didn’t have my phone. Letter was sent end of November and only arrived today, along with the rest of the last three weeks post!

I'd bloody love the DWP to email me about my relative's benefits, rather than write to me. They do have a fax machine, though, apparently. Not sure if that's helpful to many ...

The only reason I'm directing anything at you now is because you keep engaging - and completely ignoring what I'm actually saying in favour of telling me how I'm unloading whatever it is you think I am directly into you and making all these accusations at you. I'm not campaigning at anyone, though you keep twittering back at me about white knight crusades, campaigns and how I'm being so mean to pick on poor old you is a strange way of being uninterested in anything I've got to say.

My original comment spoke about the way low paid workers are viewed by society - again, where exactly have I accused you, personally of those things?

Yes I used your comment to illustrate that, but I didn't accuse you of all those things, you've made that correlation all by yourself there and have now started this back and forth with me.

I am starting to think though that I really have touched a nerve with how you keep shouting me down with all these accusations of what I'm apparently accusing you of.

I think you might need a lie down or a glass of wine or something because this really is a complete overreaction to someone else's opinion on an open forum designed for discussion and different opinions........

If they think you’re snubbing them off on 13th December because they’ve not had a Christmas card, during postal strikes, that’s fucking ridiculous!

are they mad?

All the nurses will quit to become posties and all the posties will retrain to become nurses 🤣

Which is one of the reasons that RM are striking! To
keep the USO!

Those damn "low paid" expecting fair treatment, whatever next!

Would your FIL be disgusted at the workers or the management/CEO?

But that’s it, lots here are happy that evri drivers are treated like shit! Why, why do you want that type of employment for.people!

Shouldn’t it be that posties win and that makes other delivery drivers in a stronger position to be paid and treated well?

This 100%! How dare they want fair treatment , the peasants!

I’ve been reduced to hand delivering my time critical important documents. Cheaper than paying £8 a letter for special delivery which are still being processed according to my post office man

Maybe if he was paid properly, he wouldn’t be casing your joint to try to burgle you?

just a thought!

Depends if you live in John O’groats and it’s going to lands end I suppose.

The "low paid" Royal Mail staff will be out of a job soon if this keeps up. They need to realise that it's 2022. Not 1972. "Spanish practices" aren't acceptable in this day and age.

Well that remains to be seen…. Currently they’re still getting a lot of public support.

DH picked up a fair bit in tips today, so clearly not everyone is aggrieved. A lot of people on his round have stopped to talk and show their support.

Very few of the cards I posted at the same time have been delivered. I sent birthday cards two weeks early, in the hope they’d get there. Loads of companies are using the strike as a disclaimer, which pretty much means that it’s not their fault if your goods never arrive.

Our Evri person is very pleasant. I look our for local hubs too now.

Getting an influx of email marketing saying "we've switched delivery providers to DPD"

👍

I’d have thought your late FIL would be more disgusted that RM want the new contracted staff to be ineligible for any sickness benefits until they have worked there for a year and that it’s a matter of time before they won’t deliver to every address so anyone living in a slightly remote location will not have deliveries rather than being disgusted by your lack of a spare part and some other things. My DH has worked for them for 30+ years and the morale is at an all time low. They don’t want to take industrial action, it’s a last resort. Losing 20-40% of your wages every week isn’t great when everything is going up in price.

They are intermittently on strike. I support their strike just like I support nurses, paramedics, teachers. Wake up!

Haven't read full thread, but majority of posties here aren't striking over money but over the way the company is going.

Royal Mail want to significantly piss over working conditions- sick pay, absence process, working times/hours. These will screw up many posties's lives and where families have built around these (e.g I'm a teacher so no way I can collect my children at end of day from their school, but it's okay because dh can) that causes big problems. Either additional childcare costs we haven't budgeted for, or more likely as childcare provision here is shit, I have to beg to work reduced hours if head can cover it, or dh has to find a new job after 25 years with RM. Working hours and start/end times to change depending on time of year. Another of his colleagues has additional caring duties after work - not if RM have their way. People who accept shift work with these kind of conditions know what they are taking on and build lives around it, taking that into account, but posties are having their family lives pulled out from under their feet.

Posties can see RM is going all out to rival DPD with delivery of parcels only and to where needed only. Public complaining about hospital letters, Christmas cards etc should also see that this is a direct result of RM policy. You see it now, as it's Special deliveries and parcels being prioritised. Posties on the ground are being told by managers to take parcels and Specials, and then whatever else they can. But we've all seen the photos of stacked up mail centres - so this results in mostly being ONLY specials and parcels. And RM don't care (despite spokespeople saying "all mail is equal") as they want to kill off a letter service and blame posties - they are determined to be strike busters. So letters are going to go the way of the dinosaurs if RM get their way. They've already tried to get out of having to do 6 days of letter delivery every week, if that had gone through you can bet it would have dropped to 4, then 3 etc until it was a distant memory, like second collections and deliveries.

Cynical me also looks at the billionaire lurking in the corner waiting to buy it, wondering how much he's paying top RM people to let the shares and value of the company nose-dive in order to get a cheaper price. But tbf, I have no justification for thinking that.

You can't build your life on the expectation that your work hours will always stay the same as they are. When the needs and expectations of customers change, a responsible business changes how they run the business to adapt. Because if they don't, they'll be out of business as competitors will step in to do what you don't. Obviously that wasn't an issue for RM until fairly recently as they had a monopoly on postal deliveries. But that is not the case anymore.

I've had mostly great service from evri in the last couple of years.

Royal mail is a shambles, posted 1st class on 2nd December and still not arrived yet.

I ordered something from eBay on 26 Nov, dispatched next working day and it was sent by 2nd class, still not here
😮

I bought some artwork from my Mum on 27th November- it was going to be for Christmas. It still hasn't arrived, I'm gutted. And actually frustrating as I will end up spending double as I'll now have to go and get her another present to open on the day if it doesn't turn up.