EDDORDC

I live in Crystal Palace but work in ED. Word has it that the local bike shop in Palace ? Blue Door Bicycles - is finding the going tough at the moment. It?s a great shop; full of the usual goodies, friendly, helpful, incredibly reasonable - particularly for servicing and repairs - and also houses a standalone framebuilder (Talbot Frameworks) and wheelbuilder (Talbot Wheelworks) on the premises. It would be shame to see such a wonderful shop disappear...I?m mentioning it on this forum because Crystal Palace is the start and finish point for many cycling routes and I see plenty of riders setting off from ED each Saturday morning. If any of you could swing by, even just to grab a gel or spare inner tube it would make a difference...as the saying goes: every little helps. Thanks and happy cycling!

I?ve been away with the family - allow me to fill you in regarding pay and conditions. The working day is 6am to 2pm with a 40 minute break at 9:30am. The workload is frequently so heavy that people continue working beyond 2pm (despite not being paid to go over). If you see a postman at 5pm still delivering the chances are that it?s a casual hired in from either another part of London or outside of the capital altogether. In other words, someone with little or no familiarity with the area being given a walk (the term for a post round) and pushed out of the door to get on with it. This practice dates from when the wonderful Mr Crozier took over the Royal Mail in 2003. Before then, postmen and women worked a six day week so you had the same person delivering day in, day out. At that time I worked in another industry and I could almost set my watch by the postman?s arrival each morning. You also had a second delivery Monday to Friday then ? something else Mr Crozier felt the need to do away with. Mr Crozier was rewarded with a seven-figure salary package by the way? Royal Mail?s problem is that it is bound by the universal delivery service ? ie it will deliver a letter anywhere in the UK next day for the cost of a stamp. The logistics of keeping such an operation viable inevitably mean inefficiencies are present somewhere along the line. At the same time bizarre government-enforced competition rules mean that Royal Mail delivers competitors? mail at a loss ? when you get letters that have neither a stamp or a franking but instead a little logo where the stamp should be (such as UK Mail or TNT) the delivery cost is being met by Royal Mail while the profit is taken by the company concerned. Would you subsidise a competitor in this way? Try asking DHL for a quote to send a letter to the Isles of Scilly, for instance. When you?ve got your breath back consider this: whatever fee DHL charges you, the chances are it would then simply give the letter to Royal Mail to deliver. This leaves Royal Mail in the unenviable position of being both a public service and a business ? and can?t succeed at both. Businesses are run for profit and have to constantly examine costs and how to cut them. Royal Mail does this too: each year we are asked to make efficiency savings. When I joined in 2007 there were 22 walks in the East Dulwich office; there are now 20. The number of houses, flats and businesses hasn?t gone down; in fact, it?s gone up (new builds, conversions of existing properties into multiple residencies etc) ? so we?re having to cover larger areas. Most of the walks now top 600 points of delivery; one is close to 800. That?s a lot of front doors, pavements, stairs and so on. I?m not trying defend the very specific allegations made on this site, I?m just trying to give you an idea of the workload. Factor in the propensity for human error and there are bound to be instances when the service is less than 100% reliable. Royal Mail does have spies that covertly monitor anyone suspected of behaviour likely to bring the company into disrepute; in my time there so far I?ve seen three people marched out of the office with a police escort. I would urge anyone complaining on this site to go to Silvester Road and inform the manager. The current incumbent is highly competent and would investigate any allegations and, if necessary, discipline the culprit. I would add that if any colleague of mine was undermining the Royal Mail?s reputation then I would be glad to see the back of them. Something frequently mentioned on doorsteps but oddly not here is the door-to-door leaflets that you receive each week. You might know them better as junk mail, but we are contractually obliged to deliver them. You must surely all remember the strike this time last year? As part of the settlement of the strike it was agreed that all door-to-door leaflets would be classed in the same way as regular mail. This means that failure to deliver them carries the charge of Wilful Delay (exactly the same as not delivering a letter) which is a serious disciplinary procedure. This is the business side of Royal Mail again, being paid by the companies advertising to deliver their leaflets. At the moment the number of different leaflets per week is capped at a maximum of five but that figure could go higher. We have no say in the matter - we have to deliver them ? so please don?t take out your frustration on us regarding this. This is turning into a bit of an essay, but I want to make a few more points: The East Dulwich office is now open until 8pm Wednesdays and 2pm on Saturdays. There are no extra staff to cover this - the guys doing the Wednesday shift still get in before 6am and work through until 8pm. Yes, they get overtime but they work a 14 hour day for it and then have to arrive before 6am again on Thursday. Recorded Delivery doesn?t mean delivery at the recorded address; it means a delivery that is signed for (ie recorded). If no one is in to sign for it then the postie has no option but to leave a card. The mooted privatisation that a few of you have been crowing about will not necessarily lead to a better service. No private company could make a big profit and honour the universal delivery service. All the bidders will swear blind that the UDS will remain ? I would give it 12 months maximum before they then retract the pledge claiming ?costs?. Once it?s gone, that will be it, forever. Any privatisation would inevitably lead to a large number of redundancies. Is this something to be triumphant about? Would you wander into a pub in Corby and start braying about how courageous British Steel was in closing down its plant there? Incidentally, Royal Mail is already paving the way for how things will be post-privatisation. Not many of the people who have joined after me have managed to attain permanent status. Instead they are now given fixed short-term contracts which are then repeatedly renewed. This prevents them from gaining the security and advantages that permanent status accrues. It also makes them far easier to dismiss; in short some of the standard private sector incentives that keep employees on their toes and looking over their shoulders. The pensions deficit is not the fault of the postmen and women who have had their contributions taken out of every wage packet; it is solely down to bad management. If you had been paying into a pension fund all your working life (as many have) then it would not unreasonable to expect something in your retirement. To suggest that posties? pensions are a burden on UK taxpayers is at best sloppy, at worst Tory propaganda. What about the millions paid to Mr Crozier when he was a public servant ? or were they value for money? By the way, Alex K, if your OP was so supposedly impartial, why did you choose the particular thread title? And, I ask you again, why did you not check with your neighbour before making the OP? Have you been and checked with them since? Or are facts and evidence mere nuisances to someone so clearly further up the food chain than the rest of us? EDDORDC

I am that much-maligned postman seen delivering a ?slip of paper? to a house in Abbotswood Road on Saturday afternoon. Here?s what I was actually doing? The drivers at East Dulwich Delivery Office have to chip in with letter deliveries when required and I was delivering to nearby Burrow Road. Amongst the mail for Burrow Road I came across a missorted letter for Abbotswood Road. I could have simply taken it back to the office to go out for delivery on Monday, but as I was only round the corner I thought I might as well go and post it ? after all, the recipient might have been waiting for it. So there you go - it would have been prudent of you to actually check with your neighbour (who you must surely have a friendly relationship with?) before making such an accusatory posting.