to think evri have a nerve

[SEmyarse]

in blaming the driver shortage for their terrible performance at the moment, when they have caused it!

I'm an evri driver, the company (and its predecessors Hermes/parcelnet/redcats) has been a disaster for years. But this year really takes the biscuit.

I know there will be limited sympathy, because a lot of couriers are dodgy. I know this to be true, and there are less and less decent ones left, although I also know many great ones. But the good ones are leaving in droves. Consistently this year evri have been finding ways to rip us off.

There are 'bands' within which we're supposed to get paid - heavy/standard/packet/postable. But they just misband them all the time, and it has taken us years in conjunction with the union to set up a system whereby you can 'upgrade' wrongly banded parcels. I have no doubt that some exploit this system but I know for a fact that anything I upgrade is legit, but we now just get emails saying the disbands have been refused, in fact often claiming the barcode doesn't exist at all, so we're back to square one.

And then there's the bonuses. There are many ways to fail these. One is to not provide compliant photos, so when I got an email to say I'd failed I was surprised and disputed it since I know I do my job well. I asked for evidence, and was told that couriers aren't allowed address details due to gdpr.... Well this has taken me 3 months to argue with the union's assistance and they've now sent me the photo evidence. They've failed me for 2 photos. One shows a parcel sticking out of the letterbox saying it's not secure, the other one says no photo available. The specific guidance for parcels that fit in the letterbox is to take photos half way through, my photo is almost identical to the one shown on the training posters. And the one with no photo? That's for a company that doesn't ask for photos, I couldn't have provided one if I wanted to! But it's cost me 80 quid and they still won't back down, and say I'm non-compliant. I know at least half the couriers have a similar situation going on.

It makes me laugh in recent news reports that evri say it's a temporary measure that we load outside in all weathers. I've worked out of 4 different depots over 20 years and have yet to load inside once. It's just how it is, but it does trash the boxes. The cold and wet just come with the territory, but I have to admit to being unhappy to have to push 7 foot high overflowing cages across very rough ground to where we park. They often topple over, trashing parcels, and I'm frankly astonished that we've not had injuries.

So we've lost loads of couriers this year, and seem to have run out of new fodder for Christmas. But they just carry on taking on more and more late lorries of stuff, which means that the depots don't open until late morning. Ours is supposed to open at 8.30 but mostly doesn't until after 10. So by the time you've waited for a parking space and then loaded maybe 200 parcels in your van it's after midday and you only have a few hours of daylight to deliver.

I was delivering about 7pm over 2 weeks ago when I tripped on a path and almost knocked myself out on the concrete. I also injured my wrist making lifting difficult. After 3 days of being unable to contact a manager and struggling in pain I decided I would have to stop doing my second route. So I just stopped doing it. It has not been done since. Every day about 120 parcels for that area turn up and are just stacked (with all the other failed routes) at the back of the depot.

Once I was feeling better I offered.(via text since I still can't speak to anyone) to try to clear some in the mornings before the lorries arrive. I've just had a 'no that's not possible' reply.

I'm told there are 2000 routes across the country with serious backlog, but from what I hear in other depots it's the same as here - no drivers so just accepting parcels to keep stacking up. And daily I hear of more couriers quitting.

That sounds shit OP. Have you considered a different job?

You have my sympathies OP, I really feel for package delivery drivers who have shocking working conditions.

I like the job just despise the company. I've tried some of the other companies and come back.
DPD - stuff too heavy
Amazon - complete nightmare
Yodel - the best, but not enough contracts so hard to make the money

You have all my sympathy OP - our local courier is a brilliant woman, and some of the shit Evri puts her through is incredible. She, like you, does her job thoroughly and still has impossible hoops to jump over.

It's nice that people feel sympathy for us, but tbh this thread was supposed to be more about the sympathy I feel for the customers.

I just think it's outrageous that we can keep accepting thousands more parcels into the system, when there doesn't appear to be any intention of delivering the things.

OP this is very interesting. I do not know much about how the courier industry works. Just that couriers are not paid nearly enough for what they do.

What is your union like? Do many couriers join? I think unless couriers make a decisive stand their employers will get away with as much as possible.

The union thing is very complicated. A group of 194 of us took them to tribunal several years ago and won proving that we're not truly self employed.

We now have the right to holidays and to be ill (not paid just ill, but won't lose your job as before). This is a huge improvement BUT instead of awarding everyone the limb b worker status that we won by law, they invented something called se plus and made all the rest of the couriers take pay cuts to pay for it.

Obviously lots of the couriers were furious about this, so are vehemently against our unionisation. So there's only a small amount of us in the union.

I feel for you OP. Not sure what the answer is but take care of yourself. No job is worth messing up your physical/mental health.

I'm another who is glad you posted to share how badly they are treating you. Anyone who knows Naz in Greater London. She's just the best and most hard working courier. You deserve better, OP.

We have a couple of great Evri couriers here. Facebook posts that are unpleasant get drowned by people explaining just how hard they work and how much they do to put Evri issues right, even though it is usually far outside their control. Evri are bloody lucky to have them, and you it seems!

Unlike the weird DPD man we have at the moment - he stands right on the doorstep and shoves parcels into your chest, lots of eye contact! Every offputting as a woman with bosom !

I worked for Hermes a few years ago - not for long as they're absolute shit to work for although, as OP says, it can be a good job if you like it. Yep, OP is right in describing new recruits as "fodder".

So your photo was rejected because the parcel sticking out of the postbox "wasn't secure", but if you'd put it all the way through you'd have just been taking a photo of a door and no parcel!

If that's their rules then there's literally no way to win, unless you can take a photo through a window, which is a total breach of someone's privacy!

My sympathies OP - our Evri driver is excellent too, but I'm sorry that you all have to deal with that shit show!

My local courier is absolutely lovely, he really is a prince among men. I can't say more because it might ID him and me, but the company seems to be going to wrack and ruin due to disorganisation. I've just had a bad experience of sending an item recently and the whole thing has left me wanting to rip my hair out. Nothing to do with the local courier but elsewhere in the system. I don't know what is wrong but something is, and it's got worse lately.

I know this is an old thread but HAD TO post, I was an Evri driver too... Unfortunately. I was Solus so the truck came to us all in the countryside.

I bought 3-4 cars so I did not have any downtime, I even rented a large storage unit for the lorry to come and deliver in bad weather. So parcels were always safe. I had 3-4 rounds for 3-something years!! Never a problem.

Then comes the new "Field Manager" Who wanted to visit my popup depot if you like, lol. The Manager started telling new couriers to go there and collect their rounds, it ended up as around 7 people collecting from there.

A couple of the couriers were stealing parcels unbeknown to me.... at the time. I just got on and did my own thing. Well.... the field manager kept piling on more and more rounds even though people were refusing them!!

She would put people on them and go on holiday for days at at time, so it looked like we were the ones in the wrong! So long as they "ACCEPT" and get manifested the rounds, the buck and blame passes to the courier!

They decided to come down with a higher manager all heavy-handed one day, they got their aZZes handed to them! Everybody had just had enough.

One courier was bought on without a driving licence AT ALL. It was just stupidness.

They came down all heavy handed and decided to get rid of me and 4 others.

One courier had enough got in his car and rammed the field managers, not much could be done because it was private land, they was not invited!

I sued for unfair dismissal via ACASS website.

I've since started: Https://my-evri.biz

Why?

To spill the beans from the inside - what is REALLY like to work for this company. I have footage of 2 high up managers in the CCTV control room illegally deleting footage to protect a courier who had no licence or insurance, yet backed into a customers wall, so they decided to delete footage in the depot where they collect.

The company is more crooked and bent than another company I have EVER been involved in.

In a way I'm glad it's kind of over because my whole life was spent on the road trying to get their parcels out and cover rounds on top. I would wake up 4-5AM go out delivering previous days cover parcels and then come back meet the lorry, then go back out at 10-11AM till 8PM EVERYDAY - sometimes even sundays.

The buck is passed all the way down through managers until it finally gets placed on the courier all the stress and panic of getting parcels to people.

I have a background in Marketing, unfortunately for them I'm not ranking for quite a few of their keywords and soon to be on page one. I am hoping somebody at the top will see it and finally take action for those involved in the events I captured and seen.

Managers seem untouchable, the field manager who got her car rammed and got a warning to employ somebody with no licence or insurance. She was NOT fired, she was demoted and never allowed to be a field manager again.

Now managed a Depot in Birmingham!

Also, if anybody is ever wandering why they have messages saying "Customer Not Available" or "We attempted to deliver" It's all a load of cack..... Couriers are told to put that if they can't deliver all the days parcels or they fall ill or its a new courier.

Why? Because field managers will still get their bonus, the statistics they give to their large contract corporations such as NEXT and M&S for example, will see how fantastic Evri is.

So again, the buck gets passed down to the courier then onto the customers themselves for "not being in".

The only thing I miss are the truck drivers and other couriers, we were all under daily stress. You have to think as well, new couriers do not get training over routes either haha your joking aren't you!

You're expected to get 90-100+ Parcels in your car or van after sorting the pile, you have no idea how to sort the piles because you won't know the roads or lanes.

That's you done! You then have to find each home and deliver to each home, it's not easy at all. Especially in the countryside like here, where a postcode could take you miles out.

On average it take 2-3 months maybe even longer on difficult rounds. In the countryside we deal with folks who you finally manage to locate, with NO door number or property name. I once asked somebody why they did not have a sign, they said "Because I don't want anybody knowing where I live!"

That's 100% Truth - The company needs a MASSIVE shake up.

Oh and here is more irony, The other manage higher up that sacked us lot, she was fired herself 2 months after for renting out Units belonging to Evri and pocketing the cash. Her family was also in on gaining cash when we had the Gousto trials. We were offered up to £50 per box just to go out and deliver them, she was faking them and her son was pocketing an extra thousand pound a week.

The irony !