Work

[SuperBacon]

2 hours ago, westlondonmist said:

Honestly you do wonder if directors have any idea how workers feel and the unsurity it all brings.

They don't give a fuck. Most of the ones at my old place are just hanging on for LGR and their position to be stable and have completely taken their focus off everything else in my opinion. 

I really saw it when I went through my redundancy and like I said earlier in the thread, maybe I was a bit naive, but I would've thought local government (and especially the nature of the people that worked in my team which is all about helping people) would've been more supportive than say the private sector. Nope.

HR were dreadful as well. Bearing in mind you can't reapply for 12 months, they hadn't even thought of if you could apply to the new combined authority (which is a brand new organisation) until I asked and raised the question. Then they took forever to come back, by which team I'd just messaged an old colleague who has joined the new one, and they said "yes of course you can" 🙃

[Joe Blog]

1 hour ago, Mr_Danger said:

The funniest thing is that they don’t stay longer than that either as it’s usually apparent very quickly that the big boy paper round job isn’t as cushy as most people think it is

Can you expand on this? I know a few people who have talked about applying as they can work early/finish early and get some exercise. Be interested to hear how it actually is.

[Mr_Danger]

19 minutes ago, Joe Blog said:

Can you expand on this? I know a few people who have talked about applying as they can work early/finish early and get some exercise. Be interested to hear how it actually is.

On delivery we no longer have early start job and jack finish. Start times are based on what times wagons can get to your offices and outside of a couple of people who will come in 5am and open up the rest of us in our office start no earlier 7:24am. Finish times are based on the projected mail traffic of specific days. So traditionally Tuesdays were the quietest days and we’d finish earlier on them than Wednesdays and Thursdays which were the busiest days. This has changed somewhat due to a new delivery model that is well in to the process of failing but in my office we now finish later due to having a much greater workload but we work 6 days a week and effectively bank that 6th day which is unpaid but we accumulate them and have a paid week off and an extra Saturday off every 5th week. Finish times at the moment are no later than 4:30pm and you can tell the office to get to fuck if they want you to stay out past that time but a lot of new people don’t have the confidence to do so so stay out in to tea time. 
 

Work wise it’s pretty grim, we’ve gone from doing one round each a day to 2/3 of one round completely and 2/3 of first class and tracked parcels on another round each, alternating the rounds daily so you always have a minimum of two days mail. Hardly anybody finds this achievable, and if they do they are quickly lumbered with more work. New starters start on poorer terms and conditions, mainly slightly shitter wages and the obligation to work Sundays as and when is required, which is fairly regularly. I tell people that if you can think logically, walk in straight lines and have a bit of common sense it’s mostly easy but everyone gets effected by pressure differently and managers are like pigs snuffling out truffles when finding people who can’t say no and taking the piss out of them.
 

I maintain having come from working in factories and retail mostly that this is still a better job than those sectors but without the pre tea time finishes, lofty time off and pension and sick pay I’d be long gone doing a parcel route self employed or something. Looking at getting my Class 2 drivers license again in January as the funding is back in place around here and it’s handy to have.

Oh and if all that bollocks seems unnecessarily complicated and drawn out that’s pretty much how everything in the company is. A 500 year old business constantly finding new ways to make it work shitter and less efficient.

[hallicks]

58 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

Oh and if all that bollocks seems unnecessarily complicated and drawn out that’s pretty much how everything in the company is. A 500 year old business constantly finding new ways to make it work shitter and less efficient.

[Mr_Danger]

41 minutes ago, hallicks said:

And therein lies the problem. We offer an essential service that most fuckers don’t find essential anymore but just enough people depend on it to make it essential. You know, the sort of thing the government needs to subsidise.

I fully expect the wily billionaire in charge to either eventually find a way to fuck the letters off back to the government and keep the profitable bits of the business or to just sell it up when he can’t do that.

[Onyx2]

7 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

I fully expect the wily billionaire in charge to either eventually find a way to fuck the letters off back to the government and keep the profitable bits of the business or to just sell it up when he can’t do that.

He's been squeezing the market that way for a couple of years.  I give it five years before he successfully offloads the unprofitable USO clause and ordinary letters will be an 'only best efforts' basis ie they won't happen. 

[Mr_Danger]

35 minutes ago, Onyx2 said:

He's been squeezing the market that way for a couple of years.  I give it five years before he successfully offloads the unprofitable USO clause and ordinary letters will be an 'only best efforts' basis ie they won't happen. 

I predict that mail will be a built in tier on your Prime subscription with me and all the arl arses in the office throwing rocks at drones from the picket line.

[Briefcase]

9 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

mainly slightly shitter wages and the obligation to work Sundays as and when is required, which is fairly regularly.

I was looking at job adverts as thought to myself surely the working hours can't be that bad and then every single one of them said you need to work at the mail office on a Sunday. 

Fuck that, I honestly thought Sundays would be the one day all posties get a day off having worked the week days & Saturday. 

Pretty sure a mate of mine years ago said that posties would work Monday to Friday and Saturdays would be overtime at a decent rate which he would always do a month or two in the run up to Christmas for extra Xmas money or as and when needed.