I was wondering if anyone in the s5 area has been having trouble with their post especially parcels. Up till this morning I have had 13 parcels go AWOL in one week. I know they have been posted as the senders have all got proof of postage. Have contacted local delivery office only to be constantly fobbed off with the usual excuses. Unknown to the s5 office i am married to a postie so know how the system works. I have been informed by someone who works at s5 office that all my parcels and many more are stuck in a cage in the back of the office as the usual driver is off and no one else to deliver them.
I would like to hear from any one else who maybe having problems so we can try and sort out this mess and make sure it does't keep happening, after all it is a criminal offence to willfully delay somebodys mail.

I live in S5, and have no end of problems with the post. There are several common complaints:

* The post is delivered to the wrong house (I get the post for 3 different houses, not including my own!)
* Parcels are returned to the depot despite my being in
* Parcels are not returned to the depot for 2 days after the attempted delivery
* Letters are wet or left outside

From speaking to other people, and having used the Capel Street post office when living in S6, it is my considered opinion that the S5 (Lane Top) sorting office is the most inefficient, least capable sorting office in Sheffield. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it at the moment.

Just keep complaining ... SOMETHING has to be done, doesn't it?!?

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
Just keep complaining ... SOMETHING has to be done, doesn't it?!?

Apparently Royal Mail are thinking about laying off even more people - so the problems will probably only get worse. I hate how when they leave a card behind to say they have taken a parcel to the sorting office they give you a phone number to call for re-delivery, but you call it and no one EVER answers!

I once rang the main customer service line about this only to be told that all the sorting offices were short staffed because of all the redundancies so they don't tend to answer the phone and I would just have to go down there in person - which meant I had to wait nearly a week to go down on Saturday because they are only open for a few hours each morning - useless if you work!

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
I live in S5, and have no end of problems with the post. There are several common complaints:

* The post is delivered to the wrong house (I get the post for 3 different houses, not including my own!)
* Parcels are returned to the depot despite my being in
* Parcels are not returned to the depot for 2 days after the attempted delivery
* Letters are wet or left outside

From speaking to other people, and having used the Capel Street post office when living in S6, it is my considered opinion that the S5 (Lane Top) sorting office is the most inefficient, least capable sorting office in Sheffield. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it at the moment.

Just keep complaining ... SOMETHING has to be done, doesn't it?!?

the parcels are returned despite you being in as they just leave them in the office and get you to go collect them!!! we have had this problems loads..

letters and parcels being left outside in full view of the road as did not fit through letter box,

its awful, i complained and then the postie started to knock every single time for the smallest of letters till i threatened him one day! some mornings he was knockin at 7am and i was not very happy as letters would fit through box

tell me about it!!-i can understand everyones dismay regarding the disgraceful postal service in s5--at the same time last year i had loads of stuff go missing which cost me pounds in phone calls in ringing places in london hoping theyd believe me when i told them goods hadnt arrived!---also we were getting deliveries at 7oclock in the evening!!---having lost patience and having several dvddsetc go missing i contacted the main office in glasgow who sent me book of stamps as a goodwill gesture(as if that would make up for not getting expensive items and spending hours on the phone!!).after more hassle i rang the office again and they contacted our local sorting office who said nobody else had complained(what a load of rubbish).
anyway shortly afterwards i spoke to the wife of a local postman who told me someone had just been sacked for stealing!!since that happened things got slowly back to normal and obviously there had been a cover up.oh and another postman who i know told me that there is a cage full of stuff that never gets delivered due to the cant be bothered syndrome!!now we are experiencing the same thing again and last week we had someone from the office bring us a backlog of packages and envelopes some from at least 3 weeks ago!!

The post is definately getting worse in S5. It's bad enough that deliveries don't arrive until very late afternoon, but 2 weeks ago I had no post for 3 days and then 12 letters on the forth day....obviously they just held on to it until they had someone to deliver it. This happened again this week, Fridays post delivered with Saturdays :loopy:

It's a shame they decimated the workforce - no wonder their profits rose to £537m last year :o

Originally posted by Scutts
The post is definately getting worse in S5. It's bad enough that deliveries don't arrive until very late afternoon, but 2 weeks ago I had no post for 3 days and then 12 letters on the forth day....obviously they just held on to it until they had someone to deliver it. This happened again this week, Fridays post delivered with Saturdays :loopy:

It's a shame they decimated the workforce - no wonder their profits rose to £537m last year :o

I'm a postie (not in S5 i hasten to add) and some of the things mentioned here amaze me. I've worked in my office for over 8 years and i have NEVER seen a pile of parcels or letters purposely left for days with no-one to deliver them. It goes against every Royal mail policy! I have once or twice seen temporary or agency staff send most of the mail back instead of delivering it though.

One thing i agree with is that some posties are bloody useless, if they were in any other job they would be sacked - someone covered my delivery while i was on holiday last year and got finished at 5pm - the latest i've ever finished in 8 years is 1pm! The annoying thing is nothing would have been said to them, but they'll have got several hours overtime - it's the only job where the worse you are at it the more money you get paid.

Royal mail are really pushing to save hours at the moment, our office had several hundred hours taken out last year when we switched to 1 daily delivery, more recently and there are more changes in the pipeline to save yet more money.

None of this would make a difference if the staff in your office were any good though, to me it's an easy job, i do it because i'm home and done for lunchtime!

Loads of times i have knocked on peoples doors 2 or 3 times, they havent answered and i've written a card out, they then ring up and say i didn't knock! Does anyone really think we'd rather carry a parcel all the way around than knock and get rid of it? It's more frustrating when people are in bed, you know they're in but they won't get up. You get halfway down the road and they lean out of the window shouting you back, it's bloody annoying.

It's often a thankless task, most posties do a decent job but Royal mail seem determined to make it harder for the ones that just want to get out and get finished.

hi,
i can understand where youre coming from and i know people like you do a good job but the state of the post round these parts is truly dreadful and the ones whove told me about post being cast on one side are not telling lies why would they?
i myself wwas a postman on the manor round in the 70s when you had to do two rounds a day and open post boxes aswell on foot!! and that was a thankless task and yes i had run ins with the public but this puts it all in to perspective. i can see the argument from both sides but i like everyone else needs to have their mail delivered on time not 3 weeks later or if at all!
i never blame the postman its the management thats to blame.

I think there needs to be new rules on compensation as well - giving people a book of stamps for the 'inconvenience' is like a slap in the face - it's saying "we're not really bothered that we've provided a bad service - here's some stamps just to remind you that you have no alternative". Why would you want compensation in the form of having to re-use the service that was bad in the first place! I'm sure if RM had to give cash compensation (even if it's only a pound or two per complaint) then they would soon improve in these areas - giving out stamps must cost them nothing - so where's the incentive for improvement?

I don't have any problems with the post on S5 ok it might come at 2ish somedays..our postman is a nice bloke and i know a few of them in the area even at the Lane Top sorting office.One of my mates works in the sorting office looks like Leo Sayer you might have seen him only kidding Dave ;)

I have to be nice i'm waiting for a dvd from play.com :hihi:

I'm in S5 and keep getting post for a different address. I didn't get post for a couple of days this week, but when i did there sempt to be quite a bit, so it could have been a couple of days worth.

Might buy the postie an A to Z :hihi: :heyhey:

jon,
yeah daves a top bloke,used to deliver on our road,always got post on time.his mrs is a lovely person aswell see her most days during school times and shes not having things easy bless her!:(

Yep i did when i lived in shirecliffe area of s5.

I found out that the post man was sending my mail to the right number house but wrong street..i lived on a road the other person lived on the close.so my guess is that you ask your neighbours if they got any mail in your addy and name.
i only found this out as i was sopose to get a parcel that was recorded deliver and i did not get it and was told someone of the name lee sign for it and then found out it was sent to the wrong road..and they was over 3 parcels and 7 letters that was in my name and addy at this address.but now moved to anouther part of the s5 area i have no problems now.

Yes, I am Leo Sayer/ Dave of which Jon and mikeyspiky speaks, (though I personally think I'm much better looking than the past-it pop funster of yesteryear)

Hi everyone. This is only my third post (pardon the pun), but I had to answer this thread as I'm personally mentioned, didn't I?

Its me that deals with the phone calls when I can get to the phone, but as I'm usually serving people at the hatch who call at the office, I can't do both! My duty has grown so much we could use two people in the callers office, but Those In Power say we can't afford it. So either people que up outside in the rain while I answer the phone, or I have to let the phone ring. I did request that Royal Mail paid for a surgical graft of two extra arms, but the ******** turned me down.

I spend most of my time attempting to deal with complaints; why people are not receiving their mail until gone 2:00pm, why giros are late, why a packet they have come to pick up hasn't come back through the sytem for days on end, why people are getting the wrong mail, etc etc etc, and in most cases, I agree with everyone. You all have a right to be annoyed. Unfortunately, most people need to lose their temper with someone, so in most cases its me, even though I have no control over anything. But, hey, thats my job, I just gotta put up with it. If it gets too hairy, I just drag the manager into it, he's paid for the abuse.

The job has gone to pot, no doubt about it, and S5, where I have worked for over 20 years, has been one of the worst districts ever. S5 has some of the largest estates in Sheffield; Shiregreen, Southey Parsons Cross etc, and as the amount of mail - mostly ****e, but also with the adveent of the likes of e-bay, has gone through the roof. Trouble is, the business doesn't want to spend the money to hire more staff, they just want more profit. Example: 20 years ago, my first delivery round consisted of one bag of mail. When I came off deliveries and went into the callers office two years ago, the same round had seven.

Yes, someone was sacked a few weeks ago for stealing, and deservedly so, but most posties do their very best under difficult circumstances. Many are undr pressure to get out on delivery and get finished, which leads to the the mis-deliveries people are complaining about, but yeah, there are also people employed who, to be honest, would not have been accepted 20 years ago. But we find it difficult to hire staff who are willing to stick it. Its telling that many people who are employed don't stick it; they can't stand the rain, or the early start times, or being out on delivery for five hours without a break, or the hassle from customers, being chased by dogs, etc etc.

But, as anyone who has watched the C4 dispatches programmes will have seen, training is awful. When I started, I received a week training at the head office: three days in school, and three days on the delivery round I was going to be doing the following week. If you started your job at a district office, you would be trained for nearly a week on the walk you would be doing the following week while the regular postie was on holday.

Now, new starters are dropped into a new walk each day sometimes. Its no wonder they don't know where they are going!

The main problem is that the people who are in charge now have never done the job; like many businesses these days, those running it are straight out of college, or completely different companies. You can't run the post ofice like you can run, say, BT, or Yorkshire Electricity.

I could go on and on, and will if you really want me to, but it ****** me off as much as it does you lot!

So I'm not making excuses, you all have a right to be annoyed and you are all correct. I'm just trying to explain some of the problems.

So please don't hate me. Or I'll never EVER post again.

Here I mean.

Not on S5

Oh ********, I'm confused now.

I agree with just about everything there. Very very few people stick the job for more than a few days. Why, maybe it's not quite like people imagine..

It's not just a case of walking in the office and picking up your mail like most people think, i get into work at around 5.15am to be faced with a mountain of mail, the vast majority of it advertising and crap. At 5.30am we have to go and sort the rest of the mail that comes in on the last trip, this usually takes around 30 mins - on a busy day it can be 7am before this is finished, pushing all the work later and later.

Around 6-7am we have to sort a part-time delivery (only full timers, part timers now don't start until 7 or 8am)

Around 7am onwards we go back and prepare the rest of our own deliveries, after that it's doing 'dead' letters, and sorting them to the return addresses. Then collecting any special deliveries, and finally tying the delivery up, i average 4 bags a day, a heavy day can be 6 or 7 bags.

around 8am the missort trip comes in, this is the last bit of mail from the mail centre that has generally got the wrong postcodes on, or no postcode, or a very vague address. although some of it is just late mail. Once this is sorted we clear it off and can go out on delivery - that's providing everyone has nearly finished sorting, if not we have to sit and wait for the slow ones.

On a heavy day it can be past 10am when some people get out on delivery, we now spend longer in the office than we do outside, and it's going to get longer if Royal mail have their way. It will be 9.15am onwards before even the quickest posties start delivering.

Thing is you only hear the people complaining, not the ones that are happy with the service, which must be a lot as there are 60 million customers! We do plenty of things we don't have to, letters/parcels with wrong addresses, vague addresses or even no addresses sometimes, just a postcode, are often delivered correctly. The problem is you need continuity on deliveries for people to know this stuff and give a good service, with the turnover of new staff we have it's not easy.

It's a job you either love or hate, you either stay a week or stay forever!

Surpose i have to have my 10 pence worth :D

firstly having done "this" job in a number of diffrent parts of the county, i have to say that the amount of s**t mail Sheffield gets is just far beyond anyhing i have seen, some houses i deliver on my walk can get easy 24 items day of which 23 are just rubbish. which from what i can see is sheffield main problem with the mail beeing so late. which then add this with the pressure you get from above to work faster and faster and faster then somethings will go to the wrong place, as we are only human after all.

plus all the junk mail is bad for you all wanting your mail early (which trust me all the postman wants is to deiliver your mail to your door and get home in the fastest possible time) and secondly bad for my back :).

Only thing this is good for is becasue royal mail get money for delivering it, or sorting it or whatever. so there just want more and more junk.

Its amzing how a place like Greece for example delivers just the mail you really want, and does so in a cost effective way, plus it gets there early. (i go of into a dream)

like most Posties i do my best and try to get everyones mail to there house as fast as i can, but when you have 20 items that need signing for 25 amozon packets whoch dont fit through lettet boxs, 12 ebay packets which dont fix through letterboxs, door 2 door junk mail to deliver, 7 bags of mail of which 6 bags are just in the junk catagaory, and your legs are screming at you that there carnt take no more. we are going to be late, we carnt do ever house in a wink of an eye.

In sort love ya postie, hate the company :D

Rant over :)

Waves to all the people on his walk :)

Originally posted by Rob_1
Loads of times i have knocked on peoples doors 2 or 3 times, they havent answered and i've written a card out, they then ring up and say i didn't knock! Does anyone really think we'd rather carry a parcel all the way around than knock and get rid of it? It's more frustrating when people are in bed, you know they're in but they won't get up. You get halfway down the road and they lean out of the window shouting you back, it's bloody annoying.and my point of view is when you knock at the door, knock hard so I can hear you, and give me time to walk down the two flights of stairs to get to the door.
I hear a knock, leg it down stairs, and the postie's gone already ! and as far as I4m concerned, do leave the parcels behind the bin next to the back door coz I don't really wanna have to go to Woodseats sorting office to get my mail !

davrak,
hi dave, i agree with just about everything you say and i can imagine what flack you gat thrown at you on a daily basis.yove also brought back bad memories about the training.in the 70s you did 2 weeks under a pillock who looked like derek guyler of sykes and potter(please sir fame)who treated everyone like kids.it was worse than being back at secondary school!!---he must have come close to being chinned a few times!---i had the worst round possible--the raynald road manor round and then you had a dinner time round to do---the afternoon shift was the easiest,it comprised of just throwing sacks of steel bars etc into the back of a van.
never did nights but they reckon the bloke in charge was a cockney called graham bowman(i think thats the right name)
was a right b------!!
all i can say if we want the postal service to work is bring back "SHEP"all is forgiven (NOT)!!!
cheers,mike.
by the way ive sent jon a private message explaining who i am!

It seems like junk mail is a huge problem from listening to the posties on here. Is there any effective way of stopping junk mail being sent to you in the first place? Any junk mail I get I send back asking to be removed from the mailing list (I know this makes more work for the posties in the short-term, but 9 times out of 10 it stops any future junk mail from that company). But some companies are relentless and will send mail to me on an almost weekly basis despite the fact that I have asked to be removed from their mailing list several times. Is there some sort of mailing preference service, like there's the telephone preference service for stopping marketing calls?

If there is then maybe we should all try and register to try and reduce the amount of junk that gets sent in the mail, so that important mail actually stands a better chance of being delivered quickly. But then I guess this would be the last thing the corporate bods at RM would want - imagine the dent to their profits!

i had an idear once that everyone should just keep posting junk mail back into the royal mail post boxs....to overflow the system....but it would need everyone to do it.. then thoses up stairs might wake up and smell the postage stamp :D

but schhhhhh i dident say out
:suspect:

Originally posted by Captain_Scarlet
and my point of view is when you knock at the door, knock hard so I can hear you, and give me time to walk down the two flights of stairs to get to the door.
I hear a knock, leg it down stairs, and the postie's gone already ! and as far as I4m concerned, do leave the parcels behind the bin next to the back door coz I don't really wanna have to go to Woodseats sorting office to get my mail !

Obvously i'm so stupid i knock quietly so i can't be heard, then write a card out which is a pain in the arse, then carry the parcel all the way around my delivery.
:rolleyes:

Or i might just knock hard because i want someone to hear me first time and come to the door so i can get on with my round. ;O)

As for leaving parcels, it's policy NOT to, i've done my round for a long time and i know the people that don't mind me leaving things in a safe place, and i'll always do this for people. A coupleof people i know well i even sign for their parcels if they aren't in and post them through - a risk for me but it's good service as far as i'm concerned and sod 'by the book' However loads of people complain about parcels being left behind bins etc, someone earlier in this thread did, as you can see we can't win sometimes.

Originally posted by Rob_1
as you can see we can't win sometimes.

Hear Hear!! ;)

Just to let you all know potie arrived sat am with all 13 missing parcels. Knew i had been waiting and kicking off about not getting them so had gone and found them out of a cage shoved in the back. It was only the fact he knows my hubby i got them otherwise we would still be waiting!. I know most of the time it isn't the posties fault they are only doing what they are told but does it seem fair that these managers tell them to leave parcels/mail etc. so they stay within their targets so these delightful managers get their big fat bonus!.
Just to say to dave from the s5 office sorry if i was rude to you on the phone but was getting fed-up.

Hehe, don't worry about it. I can fully understand how people feel, and like I said, peeps need to rant at someone. I don't mind if I feel the customer has a genuine grievance, which you did.

This isn't having a go at any just wandered if anyone can answer a couple of questions as we have some posties on.

We have had two parcels left on our doorstep in full view of the road and two left hidden round the back. Both times there was no card through to say they where left. The ones at the front could quite easily have been stolen and we would never have known. The ones round the back were there for days and both got soaked as they were hidden and we didn't know about them. Is this in line with policy if not why does it happen?

Also we now regularly get post for people a few doors away or a few streets away with the same number as us. Is there a problem with they system that causes this or is the postman just been lazy? How can they think that 5,7 and 9 for example all want to go to the same house?

I live at S5 and although over the past few years we have had several different post people, we have had very few problems, the odd time we may get someone elses post by mistake, but anyone can make a mistake.

And I for one would certainly not get up at the crack of dawn to trail round in all weathers, so even though there may be problems mainly due to the bigwigs who have never done the job, I think all n all our posties' do a v good job :clap:

Its not policy at all. I have many people calling up to ask for packets to be left in various places, but we usually suggest that the customer puts it in writing.

Its very easy for someone to ask for something to be left on the back step and this can happen quite smoothly for months. But, in my experience, the first time that the blue wheely bin is emptied (with parcel in it!), theres a sudden and unexpected downpour, the cat pees on it, or it gets stolen, the customer denies all knowledge that they ever said this was okay, as they know they can't claim compensation. Then, its the postie who gets into trouble for breaking rules.

We have even had cases where posties have left parcels with neighbours, who then deny ever accepting it.

As Rob1 says, many posties do this for customers they know and usually without any problems, but they ARE still taking a gamble.

There are several reasons for misdeliveries March.

Firstly we're just human and make mistakes especially when delivering to about 400/500 houses a day. But delivering three houses mail to one house is rather sloppy. Not lazy. This may be due to the house having no number, an unclear number etc. Or you may be at the end of the postie's round where sheer tiredness causes misdeliveries. Also if your street name is similar to anothers, you may get letters for another street, but this should be rare. As we sort 24 or more letters a minute for hours mistakes are bound to be made.

Also if your regular postie is on holiday/sick, the stand in will be unfamiliar with the sorting and delivering and therefore make mistakes more frequently.

If it is a regular occurence, your best bet is to phone (or write) to the delivery office and ask for the mail to be double checked daily. This means a note will be put aside for the postie to check the mail daily and also inform them to take extra care.

Thanks for the replies. I aren't really complaining and I think it is incredible we can have a postal service at all as the numbers are just crazy (letters, houses etc). Just a little annoying when mistakes are so regular. I would imagine we just get a lot of temps on our round for one reason or another. I live in S5 too BTW.

I live in S5, too. Some days we don't get our post untill after 2.00 PM. I dread to think what time the 2nd post time would be, if we had one. :o

Never had any problems with signed deliveries though, as long as it wasn't shipped via Royal Mail...

I live in S5, get my mail before 11am and always get my parcels on time, in fact the driver came today with something for me that I didnt expect to come till tomorrow. So for me I give royal mail 10 / 10 no probs

New record - todays post came at five to seven.............in the evening :confused:

Originally posted by Scutts
New record - todays post came at five to seven.............in the evening :confused: so its not just me then??? we got our mail to day at 6.50pm...

Originally posted by Scutts
New record - todays post came at five to seven.............in the evening :confused:

me too!!! just after 7pm the post came!!!!!

First day back at work for me today and what a nightmare. Due to cost cutting what happens now is if any night staff are off they don't cover the duties, they just lapse them. this means the morning staff (us!) have to do some of the night sorting as well as the morning sorting, then sort a part time delivery for an hour before we get near starting to sort our own deliveries.

7pm delivery is bad, i would guess a combination of new or temp staff working overtime due to sick absence, plus if the S5 office was anything like mine (which it would be), we had a horrendous amount of mail (utter junk) and on top of that i had over 600 electoral roll letters, one to every house on my delivery.

Saying that i'm full time and i was finished at 11.45am, you should have me as your postie ;)

come to think of it, im still waiting on some ink to be deliverd for me printer, next day delivery it wo, me mate orderd some the same night, and got his 2 days after, he lives in s2, mine still aint come (4 days after), being an s5 resident, but, saying that, a dint fill in the address out properly, only put the door number, but put postcode, so i wo thinkin the delay wo my fault, gonna e-mail the company later, see if its their fault. not rm's.

peace

Yeeeah!:clap: Dave

You said it all there & really well too, you are a star at that office, no-one realises just how the bad the job can be and how much effort goes into appeasing disgruntled customers.

Yes, the postal service has gone down hill since the single day delivery kicked in, they should put the money where they're mouth is and give us the service we deserve like HIRE MORE STAFF! Simple, tell Alan crosier who ever he is to get his fat arse off his golden cloud and DO something.

Our postie is ACE, we love him...wes me old mate, but everything goes to pot on his day off. Got our mail at 4pm today, it's all crap so not bothered but that's beside the point.

One day, posties will sprout wings.....lol

Hi dave!

YEEEES:clap:

Just got our post 9.30am, the temp that's on today is definitely on a par to our WES. But without the "Molly"dog.
Tell S5 to get more temps in, cos our one's damn good.

Our post (in Sheffield 5) was delivered at tea-time yesterday (4.15pm) not really good enough but at least it got delivered - we've had periods of no deliveries for 3 days then a whole host of mail. Had we been rural you could expect it but in the middle of a huge estate in a city is a real poor show.

:( Dave's alright though - he can always find my parcels :)

Thanks Mick

But its all over.

I'm back on deliveries from tomorrow. Last couple of weeks we've been avoiding hurricanes in Orlando (passed us by, people) but from tomorrow I'll no longer be in the callers office.

I'll just give you the quick details for all those who know me, and leave the fairness of it all to your own discretion; maybe I'm a little bitter for no reason.

I have been "leave-subbing" in the callers office in the role of PHG (which means standing in when the regular guy is on holiday or off sick) for more than eight years now. In that time, because of long periods when the regular PHG was doing other work, I've logged up aropund three years of 'time' in there.

Then, for the last two and a half years, I've been in the consistently, because the job was long term vacant.

Couple of months ago, the vacancy went "on the board" and myself and anyone was else was allowed to apply for the job. Trouble is, it does not go on suitability or seniority (I've done twenty one years), but on passing a test.

Bear in mind that the 'grade' of PHG is no longer an actual grade and is no more money - this was changed a few years ago.

Myself and three others, one of whom is the leave sub on MY day off applied for the job ands unfortunately ALL of us failed. There are three parts to the test (none of which have any bearing on actually doing the callers office job, mind) and you have to pass all three of the parts.

The other three guys failed on all three, I failed on one, the maths section, which was no surprise as I am awful at maths.

So now I can no longer do the job I have been doing for the last eight years.

But it gets better.

Someone else applied the other day and he DID pass the test. And guess what.

I had to train him.

I'm not good enough to do the job, but I'm good enough to train someone else.

I will still be good enough to fill on for my sucessor when he's off, too.

Go figure.

Dave - they are taking the **** large style.....stuff them :)

Sorry to hear you're out back in the weather - just as the winters about to arrive - October is going to be awful :(

dave,

That is absolutely and DISGUSTING! Just goes to show how much respect ROYAL MAIL have for staff.

You ain't guessed who I am, but worked with you for a couple of years, I think you are the best!
They screwed my head and chucked me in the sin bin, I was working my boots off but they wanted more.....but moaned about the overtime.

Thankfully, I escaped, luckily I did'nt need the job THAT desperately, was only doing it for a little spending money.
Make my money, painting on commision these days...a lot more relaxing than working your socks off for peanuts.
Don't even claim dole.

WHY THE HELL is it the BEST staff, who actually care about customers and work hard that get treated like sh***!
Sheff 5 office, even screws the managers heads up, but do they do anything about it DO THEY ****

Anyway, I'm gonna put a curse on em, so there! lol rant over:rant: :rant:

My friend at work, her daughter works abroad and is pregnant, she has sent her parcels with baby clothes and maternity clothes and 16 parcels have gone missing. They reckon the problem is actually in the Sheffield sorting office.

yeah i live in s5 too i get everyone elses mail except my own i buy alot of ebay too that my post man likes to leave on the step without note to tell me am gettin pretty fed up wiv it looks like i am not alone though.

It's NOT the Staff folks.....It's Royal Mail treating everyone with utter disrespect.

I reackon we should decend on S5 office, en masse and collect our own mail.
It don't take brains to do the job but it sure as hell takes einstein to make sense of the company.
Whatever happened to standards, customer, value?
Police have Justice with courage, so Royal Mail should have a motto too.....wonder what would fit them best & you can't be rude.
:hihi:

'when we're good and ready'

:D

Generally you'll get your post earlier on a tuesday, as it's by far the easiest day of the week. Why they can't just spread it out i dont know, tomorrow we'll be inundated with it again.

I've worked as a postie for Royal mail since i was 20 (i'm 30 next year) and the changes and increase in mail since i started have been enormous. I still like the actual job generally but some days i hate it and if i wrote what i think of Royal Mail it would be deleted!

The only thing that keeps me there is the fact i can work 30 hours a week and get paid for 40, plus i love finishing at lunchtime and having all day to play golf! I work my arse off and have no breaks at all to do that though.

We had our post today at 11,ish better than 6.50pm like yesterday you may say........ but i know how our mr post man got round his post bag so fast this morning.....

:rant: :rant: :rant: instead of opening the sodin gate and posting the flippin mail through the letter box ...:rant: :rant: he just threw the letters over the gate....:rant: :rant: and went off on his round...... :loopy: should i complain or just be thankful he came in the (a.m.) part of the day?

Maybe hes a united fan and has been offended by the picture on my front door...? :D

Def report it mate:(

Any postie should put mail through your door, that's what he gets paid to do!
Mind you your chances of getting through on the phone are slim, so may be better giving it to them personally!


:clap: come on you owls!!!!!

Report them, when i go back after my day off i'm sick of people complaining about the cover postie being late, leaving mail in the doorway etc!

I am not surprised to hear about the junk mail people get through the door, nor the mis-delivered mail.

I signed up to this

http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/

a long time ago and always register my new address when I move.
It does seem to work becaue I don't get much junk mail. It might save a forest or two if everyone else on this forum signs up as well.

As far as misdelivered post - it happens in the S2 area too so it's not just S5 that suffers from this. I have known post to be delivered as late as 4pm round here but never as late as 7pm! Having said that the regular postie is a darling and we don't usually have that much trouble, just when she goes away on holiday mail goes missing or gets mis-delivered.

Any mail I get that isn't for me at my address gets put back in post box with either "Not known at this address, please return to sender" or "Incorrectly delivered to <my postcode>, please re-deliver correctly" as appropriate.

It is very worrying and very sad the Royal Mail service is declining like this. I can appreciate that when the mail system gets privatised most businesses will prefer not to take the risk of using the Royal Mail services. I fear we will all suffer for that.

LesleyB

P.S. I also have my telephone and mobile number listed with the

http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/

I don't get much in the way of sales calls and the only one I kept getting recently cleared off quick enough when I was finally in to answer their call. My words were, 'This telepehone number is registered with the telephone preference service so that I don't get bothered by such calls. Would you please give me your name and the name of the company you are ringing on behalf of and the name of the company youare working for so that I may inform the telephone preference service of your activities?'

The response was a very rushed 'I am terribly sorry we will remove your details from our records' and they put the phone down never to ring back.

My post has been terrible all week, yet again i have parcels missing 8 in total i know they are at the office as the driver has told me but they are that far behind due to staff shortage etc. i will probably get tomorrow. My hubby works for royal mail in the main sorting office at brightside. After going on at 8am he was out delivering mail around s5 till turned 8pm mon and tuesday night so all you people complaining be grateful you got your mail as if it wasn,t for people like my hubby and other posties you wouldn't have got your mail. And before you all start saying it was for the overtime they were working their normal hours and could have quite happily stayed down at brightside sat on their arses doing their own jobs!. My hubby agrees it is down to the management at royal mail not the posties so rather than having ago at your postie why not write aletter to the man in charge of delivery offices
Mr. Steve Mcguiness,
First posthouse
Brightside lane
S9 2XX
FREEPOST

If you complain something will have to be done. strength in numbers!

I still can't believe parcels are being left in delivery offices for days. I've never ever seen or heard of this in nearly 10 years of delivery. It's against every policy and management would never have it in the offices i've worked in.

p.s S2 and S5 are large delivery areas and as such will have a proportion of crap staff, i know as i work in S2 and some of the idiots i work with are a joke and if it was my firm they'd have been down the road years ago. Royal Mail just pays them overtime :rolleyes:

Originally posted by wreck
.....After going on at 8am he was out delivering mail around s5 till turned 8pm mon and tuesday night so all you people complaining be grateful you got your mail....

I'm not blaming the postie for post arriving at 7pm but delivering at that time is as bad as being delivered a day late. I was waiting for a cheque to arrive Monday which I wanted to bank straight away...I mentioned in an earlier post that I sometimes receive 2 or 3 days mail all in one go :confused:

Thanks for the address to complain to, I shall certainly do that and hope others here will do the same.

Isnt the weather great for soaking you letters..... that the postie, today left slotted in the front gate in clear view from the main road...........
not to worry it was only my bank details and job application....
:rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant:

just called the royal mail and made a complaint, lets see if things change? all i have to do now is get the hair dryer out so i can read the wet post...

F*f*** ME!!!! He wants sacking! So what's so difficult about getting through your gate???

Have you got a massive yorkshire terrier that has the teeth of a crocodile?:hihi:
Where do you live, poss could name and shame that postie:heyhey:

Honestly, they don't seem to care.

Originally posted by bigredbox
F*f*** ME!!!! He wants sacking! So what's so difficult about getting through your gate???

Have you got a massive yorkshire terrier that has the teeth of a crocodile?:hihi:
Where do you live, poss could name and shame that postie:heyhey:

Honestly, they don't seem to care.
Yes i admit i have dogs... 4 of the pampered pooches... yes 2 are large dogs and they do bark alot at anything that moves... but.... they cant get to the side of the house where the front door is, its fenced off! And theres nowt wrong with my front gate it does open....;):heyhey:

Junk Mail pays a posties wage, take that away and you'll all be out of a job!


Did you know that Sheffield is constantly top of the Quality League table, best in 2003 and 2nd (to York, I believe) last year.

if Sheffield is top - god help the rest of them...

lol, madowl,

Tell u wot, I'll be your personal postie, u would get your post through the door at 7am every day.
Trouble is they get rid of gud un's like me in favour of temps, they tend to be 10 a penny and are renewable at the drop of a hat and sometimes don't do the job at all.

I'll bet u, if I ever did do that round in the past, you always got your post and in the proper box too, none of this messing around. I love dogs too, never had one bite me.

NO EXCUSES, get that complaint in!

Well folks, S5 post is stooping to all time low now, total cruelty should NOT be allowed.

Poor postman, drowned rat just knocked on our door 5pm, he's totally lost poor bugger. The road he wants was a fair distance away, pointed him in right direction but pity those who's post he has, it's mush!

Is there an RSPCA society for postmen?:confused: Whats going on in that S5 office?

Our post was delivered at 835pm one night last week! I didn't think that was allowed?

Originally posted by davbak
Yes, I am Leo Sayer/ Dave of which Jon and mikeyspiky speaks.

I spend most of my time attempting to deal with complaints; why people are not receiving their mail until gone 2:00pm, why giros are late, why a packet they have come to pick up hasn't come back through the sytem for days on end, why people are getting the wrong mail, etc etc etc, and in most cases, I agree with everyone. You all have a right to be annoyed.

The job has gone to pot, no doubt about it, and S5, where I have worked for over 20 years, has been one of the worst districts ever. S5 has some of the largest estates in Sheffield; Shiregreen, Southey Parsons Cross etc, and as the amount of mail - mostly ****e, but also with the advent of the likes of e-bay, has gone through the roof. Trouble is, the business doesn't want to spend the money to hire more staff, they just want more profit. Example: 20 years ago, my first delivery round consisted of one bag of mail. When I came off deliveries and went into the callers office two years ago, the same round had seven.

Yes, someone was sacked a few weeks ago for stealing, and deservedly so, but most posties do their very best under difficult circumstances. Many are under pressure to get out on delivery and get finished, which leads to the the mis-deliveries people are complaining about.

Yeah, there are people employed who, to be honest, would not have been accepted 20 years ago. But we find it difficult to hire staff who are willing to stick it. Many people don't stick it; they can't stand the rain, or the early start, or being out on delivery for five hours without a break, or the hassle from customers, being chased by dogs, etc.

But, as anyone who has watched the C4 dispatches programmes will have seen, training is awful. When I started, I received a week training at the head office: three days in school, and three days on the delivery round I was going to be doing the following week. If you started your job at a district office, you would be trained for nearly a week on the walk you would be doing the following week while the regular postie was on holday. Now, new starters are dropped into a new walk each day sometimes. Its no wonder they don't know where they are going!

The main problem is that the people who are in charge now have never done the job; like many businesses these days, those running it are straight out of college, or completely different companies. You can't run the post ofice like you can run, say, BT, or Yorkshire Electricity.

Everything this postie says is true. He has told it as it is. I applaud his honesty and his bravery for speaking out.

I worked for Royal Mail at the Central Delivery Office, Pond Street during 2001. I got one days training on some walks and none on others. One morning, I was sent out to deliver the Wybourn in howling wind and snow. In all, there was 11 sacks of mail to deliver, each weighing far more than the 16kg carrying limit. From the start, I was harassed by men and youths demanding their giros, or else. At about midday, the local kids and yobbos came out to stone and snowball me. This continued until I finished the walk at about three in the afternoon.

The next morning the line manager bollocked me for taking too long on the walk. He accused me of fiddling the timesheet. I threw my postbag at him and walked out.

In my opinion, as Dave so rightly says, RM is run by people who have never done the jobs they are ordering people to do. They are fresh out of Uni or from alien industries and have little idea how to organize, train and motivate postal staff. The Chairman is a former head of the Football Association, for God's sake.

The sooner domestic mail goes out to tender the better.

Yes and????

Why bring poor old Dave back into the equation, what he say's is spot on.
Right then, get the t******** of managers up there at S5 office to come out and do a flaming round themselves. See if they'd like to be p**** wet through and still out at 5pm.
I mean it's NOT right!!!! poor bugger, bet they won't pay him the overtime without moaning about it:suspect:

That's right, BigRedBox.

Sorry about the half a reply. I clicked the Submit button instead of the Preview button.

Read it again if you will. It's the one before yours.

Is Darryl still the DOM (Delivery Office Manager) at Sheffield Lane Top. If so, I'm surprised he has let it get so bad.

I knew Darryl when he was at Pond Street and he was one of the better managers.

Spartacus,

Thanks for that, Your spot on too....better off out of it, since SDD came in, the job has got worse.

As far as I know, Daryll went off with stress a few months back, don't know if he came back, cos I put my reso in beforehand.
Really nice, caring bloke.
As far as I'm concerned, Royal Mail, just S**** on those who do want to work & care about customers in favour of cheap, untrained labour. What a joke!
PLUS they are extremely cruel to posties! Is there any wonder they just give up.

Postal services are only going to get worse and more expensive for the general public in the next few years.

This isn't the fault of Royal Mail, it's the fault of the government. Royal Mail has to provide the universal postal service (e.g. the same price to every address in the UK) whilst other companies are allowed to skim the cream off the postal market.

As Jack Dee once said.. try delivering a letter yourself for 20p.

The postal service to Joe Public will get worse and become more expensive because the government has rolled over to EU pressure to liberalise the postal market. Whilst this will make it cheaper for bulk (junk) mailings and allow private companies to make huge profits by only delivering profitable mail, Royal Mail will be left to deliver the mail from John O'Grots to Landsend for a minimal charge.

Look at the cost for postage in other countries, you'll see how good we currently have it. Enjoy it while it lasts. I for one would rather have the service that we recieved 10 years ago at the prices of 10 years ago. I for one won't be pleased that all my junk mail gets delivered 100% next day at 20p while I have to pay £1 per letter.

Stop complaining about Royal Mail and get writing to your MP to protect the postal service for the benefit of the general public.

Of course, Tony45, you're dead right about RM's postal service being inexpensive and priced equally whether you post to John O' Groats from Land's End or to Southey Green from Longley. But as far as I am aware, nobody on this thread has complained about RM's prices.

Although you have not said so directly, I sense that you agree that the service has deteriorated over the last ten years or so. I will go beyond that and assert that the domestic service (the service not the company) is now in meltdown. I have had mail go missing, arrive torn or opened, hanging from the letterbox, left on my doorstep, for next door, for the next street, blah, blah, blah. And judging by the contents of other replies, a lot of RM's domestic customers are experiencing the same shabby service.

You assert that it's the fault of the EU and our government because they have allowed private companies to cherry pick RM's business. True, RM's single shareholder is the Crown but has not RM bragged that it has 'turned itself around' and did they not announce profits of several hundreds of millions of pounds last year? They are hardly the verbal and financial accounts of a company in jeopardy, are they?

I, as well as other recent posters (no pun intended) on this thread, have worked for RM as frontline cannon fodder both as driver and postman and I feel that I have some authority to comment on the morale of its delivery staff.

I say that RM has achieved this phoenix-like recovery by systematically replacing its long-term contracted staff with short-term contract untrained labour with minimal employment rights. This has led to a 'I don't give a hoot so long as I get paid ' attitude to the job;: no sense of duty, no pride in their performance and, judging by the rags that some postpersons slouch around in, no pride in their appearance.

And why should they have any job satisfaction when their management treats them as nothing more than mules and donkeys, beasts of burden to be used and dispensed with when they are spent? I have driven vans for RM and know that the delivery and collection times that managers (usually men or women who have never done the job they are organizing for others) promise their business customers are impossible for their drivers to meet without speeding and swerving along the roads putting other motorists (possibly you, your wife and kids) at risk.

As a postman, I have humped sacks of mail that weigh as much as a sack of potatos along winding alleyways, up flights of stairs when lifts are broken, along faeces strewn corridors, in soaking bone-stiffening rain, and flesh-numbing snow, and in summer, sweating out my life's juices in the burning sun. I have puzzled my way through flats and complexes that would confound the designers of Hampton Court Maze. And all this with little or no training, no direction manuals, and with the threat of a bollocking or not being paid the overtime if I took too long.

All these things add up to break a human's spirit when it is made obvious that whatever you strive to do it is not good enough for the profit greedy misfits that run Royal Mail today. Of course customer service is suffering. Little wonder.

Royal Mail higher managment force Delivery Office managers to threaten and intimidate staff into working overtime. And often, as the above poster says, often refuse to pay overtime worked if they think they can get away with it. Simple fact is, they can't cover the walks if people refuse to work overtime, (or cover them at all, if there are a lot of workers off on sick leave or on hioliday), and so will go to any lengths to 'persuade' people to work over.

If you stick with your union rep (in the offices where there is one), you'll be okay. You CAN'T be forced to work overtime, either taking out extra rounds or parts of rounds, or even on your own walk. Find out what the sytstem is in your own office and work to it. In S5, its like this...you tell the manager as early as possible that you are working to your time, and then tell them which part of your round you will be leaving in. How they then cover it is not your problem.

Of course, you have to be truthful about this. Its no use claiming that you are going to be working until 12.50 (without a break, that would be) and then be seen toddling off home at 11:30.

Don't give them an excuse to claim that you are not working efficiently enough in the office, and wasting time inside the office to make your delivery time shorter So don't take too many smoke breaks, or hang around somone else's frame talking about how your footie team went on, or just standing around. They'll notice, land on you with two feet, and you won't have a case.


I'm willing to work up to an hour over; I know that most office managers are in a bad position, and I'm not heartless to this, or some bolshie, rabid union type who, lets face it, is gonna burn their bridges behind them. But I guarantee that you will NEVER see me still pounding the streets at 3:00 pm, let alone nightmarish times like 8:00. It just ain't gonna happen.

Royal Mail have brought all this upon themselves, by cost cutting and axing staff, making rounds longer, getting rid of night duties (which did most of the forthcoming day's sorting) etc etc....now, they want staff to 'pull together and help the business out'. like some warped blitz mentallity.

At S5, they got rid of nights, and in the process, moved a man with 38 years experience to the Mail Centre because he can't do deliveries anymore doe to illness. They cut his hours from 42 to 20, and cut his night workers allowence, altogether taking over £200 from him a week. Because he is over 60, he has no defence of all this.

Now, because the office is in a state, they're wanting people to come in on overtime and do nights, when it suits them. I was asked and refused: apart from how they treated my mate, I look at it like this...they've made their beds, they can lie in it.

Of course, it has to be said, that staff themselves, especially part-time staff, are as much responsible as anyone. 90% of our part-timers start officially start work at 7:00am, yet are in the office and preparing their walks as early as 5:30am....for no pay. These idiots are giving Royal Mail 7 and a half hours work for nothing, each week. They claim that this is the only way that they can get done at a decent time, but this is ********. They are paid while 1:00pm, and can just cut off. But as said before, most of them are just too scared to say so.

Trouble is, according to the official figures, this makes the walks look easier than they really are, cos they are 'hiding' an hour and a half of work time each day. When they are off sick or on holiday, and someone else does the walk to the time, managment then want to know why the leave sub is taking an hour and a half longer to prepare the walk than the regular postie.

Delivery offices are time bombs, belive me.....and sooner rather than later, they are gonna explode.

I live in the S5 area and haven't really had a problem (that I know of) until this week! I've bought a couple of items from ebay and they've gone AWOL. The sellers insist they've sent them so are nagging from their end, waving proof of postages at their local post office.

Do you think my parcels are sitting at the local depot gathering dust?

Originally posted by davbak
Royal Mail higher managment force Delivery Office managers to threaten and intimidate staff into working overtime. And often, as the above poster says, often refuse to pay overtime worked if they think they can get away with it. Simple fact is, they can't cover the walks if people refuse to work overtime, (or cover them at all, if there are a lot of workers off on sick leave or on hioliday), and so will go to any lengths to 'persuade' people to work over.

If you stick with your union rep (in the offices where there is one), you'll be okay. You CAN'T be forced to work overtime, either taking out extra rounds or parts of rounds, or even on your own walk. Find out what the sytstem is in your own office and work to it. In S5, its like this...you tell the manager as early as possible that you are working to your time, and then tell them which part of your round you will be leaving in. How they then cover it is not your problem.

Of course, you have to be truthful about this. Its no use claiming that you are going to be working until 12.50 (without a break, that would be) and then be seen toddling off home at 11:30.

Don't give them an excuse to claim that you are not working efficiently enough in the office, and wasting time inside the office to make your delivery time shorter So don't take too many smoke breaks, or hang around somone else's frame talking about how your footie team went on, or just standing around. They'll notice, land on you with two feet, and you won't have a case.


I'm willing to work up to an hour over; I know that most office managers are in a bad position, and I'm not heartless to this, or some bolshie, rabid union type who, lets face it, is gonna burn their bridges behind them. But I guarantee that you will NEVER see me still pounding the streets at 3:00 pm, let alone nightmarish times like 8:00. It just ain't gonna happen.

Royal Mail have brought all this upon themselves, by cost cutting and axing staff, making rounds longer, getting rid of night duties (which did most of the forthcoming day's sorting) etc etc....now, they want staff to 'pull together and help the business out'. like some warped blitz mentallity.

At S5, they got rid of nights, and in the process, moved a man with 38 years experience to the Mail Centre because he can't do deliveries anymore doe to illness. They cut his hours from 42 to 20, and cut his night workers allowence, altogether taking over £200 from him a week. Because he is over 60, he has no defence of all this.

Now, because the office is in a state, they're wanting people to come in on overtime and do nights, when it suits them. I was asked and refused: apart from how they treated my mate, I look at it like this...they've made their beds, they can lie in it.

Of course, it has to be said, that staff themselves, especially part-time staff, are as much responsible as anyone. 90% of our part-timers start officially start work at 7:00am, yet are in the office and preparing their walks as early as 5:30am....for no pay. These idiots are giving Royal Mail 7 and a half hours work for nothing, each week. They claim that this is the only way that they can get done at a decent time, but this is ********. They are paid while 1:00pm, and can just cut off. But as said before, most of them are just too scared to say so.

Trouble is, according to the official figures, this makes the walks look easier than they really are, cos they are 'hiding' an hour and a half of work time each day. When they are off sick or on holiday, and someone else does the walk to the time, managment then want to know why the leave sub is taking an hour and a half longer to prepare the walk than the regular postie.

Delivery offices are time bombs, belive me.....and sooner rather than later, they are gonna explode.

Every word of that is true. It will come to a point when there will be so much work piled onto us that no-one will go in early, no-one will use their cars, and no-one will take their own 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th bags etc onto the delivery in their car. Royal Mail will be totally f***** as this is all covering up the massive cracks in the system.

There are people in my office getting their bags dropped off by the drivers after 11am, what chance have they got of finishing at a decent time when they still have 3 or 4 bags to deliver at that time? We've asked time and time again to get it sorted and it never happens. If i couldn't use my car i'd pack the job in.

Put it this way - i've only gone over my duty time 3 times in 9 years and i'm as quick on delivery as anyone - but if i didn't use my car, caught the bus and didn't take my own bags up to my delivery i'd probably go over a couple of times a week (well i actually wouldn't, because i don't want to work over, so it would be up to the managers to get rid of some of my delivery)

Every manager in my office except one were out at other offices delivering last week as there is such a shortage of staff, it's not suprising people only last a week when they realise what the job really entails - if only it were as simple as picking a bag up and walking out of the office!