AIBU to think the Postal service in NI has gone to the dogs????

[blcakgaragedoor]

We used to have 3 lovely post people on our route. Probably for about 4 years. They seemed to rotate and at Christmas we would have seen two of them
on the route one with parcels one with letters.

You could have set your watch by them. I was so grateful for them as I work from home and rely on post. I showed my appreciation in various ways through out the year.

for the last six months we have had many times where often 2-3 days in a row we had no post. Our usual postal workers have disappeared and we have had loads of different people. They come at all sorts of times. Some very early and often after 4pm in the afternoon.

Regular I get mail for a different address through my door and I have to then go and deliver it correctly myself. I have had items sent to me for work which haven’t arrived or have taken a very long time to come.

I'm not sure what to do about it. A member of our house hold had a hospital letter not delivered and another with an appointment date came after the actuall appointment.

AIBU to think this is really poor service and to make a complaint. Or will that make it worse. I fully support the postal workers I know they are under paid. However I need these deliveries for work.

We’re in Belfast and only seem to get post about twice a week these days.

I don’t see how a compliant will help anything to be honest. Royal Mail is a failing company at this point and will probably become obsolete in the next few years. My nephew worked as a postman for a few years and it was a shambles - badly organised, low morale due to rubbish pay, lack of staff etc. Personally I’d just use a different courier service for your important items like DPD (it’s fantastic, anything sent before 8pm with next day delivery actually arrives next day!!)

Royal Mail in England is utterly hopeless now.

I posted a gift card for delivery on a specific day ( which the company asked for). It didn’t arrive and nor did the card I sent in time for that day.

I had a parcel delivered to the wrong address and there is no way to complain to RM.

@Cappuccino5thats annoying to only get post so rarely but it’s going the same
way here. (We are outskirts of Belfast) I’ll have to look into different services. I chatted recently to a postman who is never seen and asked him do they not have dedicated routes and he said it depended who the duty manager was on that week. Seems one arem
os independent of the other. No one
is working
together.

Maybe it would be better as a private company. It’s not really working for anyone at
the moment.

YANBU. We get post about once a week now, a whole load of letters in one go. We've also had letters regularly posted through the wrong doors, I did complain to RM when one was a hospital letter with really private medical info that the neighbour had automatically opened, and they did take it seriously at least. But it's a complete shambles these days

@FinallyOnTheUpdo you mind me asking how you know they took that seriously please?

They contacted me again after a few days to say they had taken that particular postman off the route (he had mixed streets up quite a few times already) and gave me a case number and direct contact number for if it happened again, which it thankfully hasn't

Over the last few months when the new guy brought the company - postal workers have been told no overtime pay, prioritise tracked parcels to the detriment of letters and recently that there will be a change to second class letters becoming an every other day thing, so won't be taken out daily.

The no over time meant even in a rural NI Post office people couldn't finish their duties and got through the parcels and maybe a handful of letters - thankfully that has been changed again now, as they realised most were putting in a good 2 hours overtime to complete duties.

Basically royal mail are really screwing with things at the moment- for NI it's worse because our post from British companies takes longer to get into the NI system anyway, even when British System is working perfectly.

It's very area dependent. I have amazing postal people and get post every day, parcels no issue. Friend mile and half over in city regularly doesn't get post

We get daily post. South Down coast. They use a post office van as we are about a mile out from the town centre with a lot of estates off the main road.

They would have given the postie a mouthful.
No extra training, no help, just don't do it again.

It's been a private company for years.

I'm in ROI but attend a hospital in NI and my letters to book appointments come after the cut off date to get in touch with them every single time. In ROI we have next day delivery the vast majority of the time on letters and parcels. I wasn't sure if the post in NI was just shite or if the hospital was holding onto the letters for over a week before they send them.

It's just as bad in England. It's a terrible day when one has to say that Evri is more reliable...

I have the same. Just in terms hospital appointments does NI have the NHS app? That’s how i get appointments though the hospital sends a paper copy as well.

Is it a private hospital?

We do have a form of that called MyChart but it’s still in the early stages and at the moment it’s pretty useless - when I log on to see my information there’s nothing there. DD was sent to an NHS hospital in London for surgery due to the waiting lists here in NI - I was amazed by how efficient the communication is in comparison to here! So handy to get emails + texts instead of waiting on letters to come.

Really bad at the moment. I'm on the peninsula. You're lucky if you get post once a week. My son's blue badge has went "missing" in the post. We had the same postie for many years he was amazing. He had enough and got another job.

Our post frequently makes it to the wrong village now never mind the wrong street. I received a ladies credit card for a village 15 miles away. Same street name at least I guess even the village a d postcode were completely different.

Ok so seems area dependant doesn’t it. My post comes from the Mallusk depot. I have friends in Glengormley who get post daily and no issues. Yes just 3 miles out it’s a different story. I can get my head round letters only a couple days a week if the parcels were being delivered and the letters came to the correct address. It just doesmt
happen though. I asked about the “mail collect” service I used before Covid. They held the post and I went and collected it every day. It worked a treat. But it stopped for Covid and didnr
come back.

The postal workers don't get paid overtime, so now many of them just down tools at finish time and if they have undelivered items they are just left to the next day. However, this means they keep building up, but then they just go off on the sick!

I've a family member who is a postal worker, he keeps working beyond his finish time as he doesn't want a backlog developing, but most (understandably) don't do this.

Total shambles from Royal Mail, chronic mismanagement for years.

I’m in Belfast too and I think we get post twice a week now. A huge pile of it each time as it’s been mounting up. I think we had seven letters this morning.

Stephen Nolan should be doing this instead of the usual tribal politics!

@hopeisherei totally agree. I hate the Stephen Nolan show specifically because of the tribal politics but I know people would rather watch about this.