Royal Mail delivery

[tomskip]

The BBC London news item doesn't give the full picture though does it? It's not just about Covid as we all know. If it were all about C-19 then you'd expect postal deliveries to be roughly evenly affected across the whole of London.

[intexasatthe moment]

Pointlessly ,but out of curiosity,I'd like to know more about the sorting process and at what stage items are franked .

[Lynne]

Article about TM in today's Times, with SE22 singled out for mention. All due to Covid, of course. Not closure of the sorting office, non-employment of Christmas casuals etc.

Now waiting for birthday cards. (along with Christmas cards, of course)

[Penguin68]

I've now had (yesterday) my missing 'Christmas' magazine issue, 2 letters dated 21st November and some 'current' mail. So it does look as though they are delivering current plus a selection of backlog mail. And seem to be getting down to the bottom, as far as my mail is concerned - unless they are starting from there for their catch-up.

They did employ casuals over Christmas (not enough, evidently) but the old habit of employing teenagers for Christmas post has long gone - when they stopped 4 Christmas deliveries a day, and Sunday delivery, those casuals went.

[Drxyster]

Today received 48 hour signed for, tracked envelope, posted NOVEMBER 30th 2021.

[Loki286]

Postie from the east dulwich/peckham office here. First of all, apologies for this mess which is Royal Mail and the delays you are all experiencing. The problems here have preceded the Covid pandemic, from the beginning which I first started working here, it?s been majorly disorganised with bad management. Too much work expected to be done when it is not physically possible and we the postal workers are working so hard day in day out, it?s so de-moralising. Since the pandemic it?s 100x worse, constantly bombarded with parcels non stop, tracked and special delivery?s take precedence. At the moment we have crates upon crates of letters not sorted and piles of non tracked parcels, leaving barely any room to walk. The reason why u will be getting newer post is because the old crates of mail haven?t been sorted, left to the bottom of the pile as it were. If the management were better, the walks would be rotated so they would all get cleared. Instead, there are some walks which are regularly cleared and some which are left to build up. So you can imagine due to the bad organisation that no one knows what is from December and what is recent, we just take out what we are told. There is also the problem of not enough trolleys/pda?s and vans and not enough staff. Don?t get me started on the state of the vans, they have not been cleaned inside or outside since I have been working there for 6 years. The public would be shocked at how disgusting they are, who would think Royal Mail vans would be like this. It really frustrates me as I do love the job but so many things can be improved. If they kept on top of it, it wouldn?t have been so bad. It makes sense right, if one walk hasn?t gone out one day, then u take a postie off a walk that has been cleared and put them on that walk, so all the walks are taken in turn to be cleared. But apparently no one has thought to do this. So there you have it, the real story of Royal Mail

[KidKruger]

Pretty much nails it.

RM won?t ever fess up tho.

[intexasatthe moment]

Thanks for posting Loki .

[Bic Basher]

To Loki286, I don't think there's one single person in ED who blames the posties for one minute for how inept the Royal Mail are management wise. You guys and girls are simply doing your jobs the best you can under extreme circumstances which has got worse under privatisation.

[Lynne]

Thanks, Loki286. Fascinating and dispiriting

If you could send your post on to people such as Helen Hayes or anyone you think might listen - the Times and the BBC for London seem to be investigating at the moment, without endangering your job, it might be of some help to you and your colleagues (and us consumers)

There again....

[Penguin68]

What Loki286 writes is entirely consistent with what my local posties are saying, which suggests that he/ she is writing from an informed position. This does seem to be a failure of local management, and it is not surprising that they are hiding under the cloak of Covid - and probably hiding their failure as much as they can from Head Office. That the failure was precipitated by the closure of Sylvester Road - and the lack of capacity locally to move the work effectively - may be a function of Head Office cost requirements, but equally Sylvester Road had been identified, both by management and unions, as being well past its sell-by-date both in terms of coping with changed postal usage (more parcels, fewer letters) and in terms of staff facilities there - which were as Victorian as its design. It now appears, from press reports, that the Regulator (now Ofcom) is at least aware that there are issues, although I suspect they will be looking more closely at the general failures of delivery over the last few months; but the concentration of problems in London have not gone unnoticed, and local/ regional management may still get focused on (fingers crossed). Helen Hayes at least is aware that the problems locally well pre-date Covid, and will have the documented evidence to support that.

[Penguin68]

Pointlessly ,but out of curiosity,I'd like to know more about the sorting process and at what stage items are franked .

I believe that franking is part of the automated sorting process, so will take place at the first point of aggregation/ sorting of collected mail (business mail may be franked at source). The only unfranked mail that you receive where the fault may lie locally will be that posted locally - i.e. I believe that which in our case goes to the Croydon Sorting Office (remember SOs are different from the Delivery Offices (DOs) where our problems lie).

[Pugwash]

I am waiting for 2 items sent by Amazon which according to Tracking Records were received by PO on 10th January.

[KidKruger]

Xmas card posted mid-Dec.

Parcel from Bulgaria posted last week ?

[Penguin68]

15 items of post today (our regular postie is back) including 4 Christmas cards. No cards yet for 2 January birthdays. Royal Mail is reported to be sacking 700 managers as a cost saving exercise. Glad they're focused on priorities.

[Earl Aelfheah]

The situation with the post is getting ridiculous. We've also recently received some Christmas cards.

[Bic Basher]

Another email from the Royal Mail.

We're sorry to advise that you may experience further disruption to deliveries in parts of the SE22 postcode area due to resourcing issues at our East Dulwich Delivery Office.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

We'll be back in touch to let you know when resourcing issues have improved.

[tomskip]

Christmas card received today, franked in Greenford on 9th December. Wondering if I win the thread?

[Bic Basher]

Delayed post arrived just before 5pm today. An eBay parcel which was the package the Royal Mail claimed to had delivered on the 18th Jan and a letter from the council.

There's still a missing Private Eye among other things still not arrived.

[Sue]

Three separate deliveries today!

1. A second hand book I've already had a refund on from eBay because it didn't arrive - somewhat annoying because now in all fairness I have to let the seller know, and refund the refund, as it were.

2. A packet of fabric samples posted a few weeks back.

3. A Christmas card (no date on it), a Private Eye dated 10 - 17 December and a financial statement dated 14 January.

Since I took out the Private Eye subscription in November, this is only the second one I've got. The free Christmas cards that went with the subscription arrived last week (very usefully timed, not).

Royal Mail seems to be delivering a totally random assortment of stuff, but at least some of what is arriving is from January!

I am still waiting for some things which I know were posted in November/December.

[Nigello]

A stand in postie pushed loads through today. I chatted to them - come from a town at least a hundred miles away and said Peckham was a right mess with trays and trays of old mail. Sickness from Covid and stress, etc. Offered to boss to do the same tomorrow - paid for from time of getting on train or bus, etc. to leaving said transport mode back at home town. Pretty lucrative but needs must, I suppose. (Don't want to say male or female or where from exactly as not fair.)

[Bic Basher]

More delayed post which arrived after 4.30.

The current edition of Private Eye, 1 week late.

A replacement copy of the Christmas Private Eye which I ordered after Christmas.

Letter from Southwark Council posted in early January.

[indiepanda]

I got a parcel today that was posted about 5 weeks ago as well as having had more Christmas cards this week. Still not convinced I have had all the cards yet.

[DulwichFox]

Got a Stack of Post this afternoon.

Including a Christmas Card posted long before Christmas.

Foxy

[Rockets]

Two copies of The Week junior landed today - one from 18 December and one from 15th January and two Christmas cards - straight to recycling thanks to the Royal Mail.....

But Helen Hayes is on the case....again.....!!!