10th (yes I know it's the eighth today) : radical honesty

You know how hard it is to tell people what you really think. So as soon as Duffy walked in to work yesterday I told him that his wedging the packets into boxes, stacking packets up and wedging everything onto the shelves was driving me round the bend ... being the person who mainly has to remove items from the shelves. I have told him this several time before. I said it was nicely as I could and made light of it. But it is very annoying. Other human beings are so annoying. I regularly walk around the office muttering to myself about the idiots that I have to work with.

A few months ago a young woman came in for her package. She apologised as she scrolled through her phone looking for her tracking number. I said 'It's ok, I just die a little every day watching people scroll through their phones', and then smiled at her. 

Stay safe. Be kind. Maybe see you tomorrow.

the ninth : work stuff

 

Couple of items at work yesterday amused me. Firstly the fact that that snails really aren't fussy and don't only wreck your spinach seedlings ... they crawl inside post boxes and quite enjoy munching on envelopes too. There was a postbox in Chastleton that was always full of snails as it was in a stone wall and was old and damp under the trees. 

The other letter, from the King, I wondered if it was a sign of the times. I delivered one only last week, presumably a 100th birthday card to a lady on Brunswick road; these letters had always previously been Special Delivery, but they seem to be economising and only sending them recorded delivery now:

Stay safe. Be kind. See you tomorrow.

New Year Resolutions

He looks such a nice ordinary bloke but I am still left to wonder what motivates Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky's desire to own Royal Mail, an apparently loss making company. His reputation precedes him. This quote from the bottom of the wiki page, "We want to make money in industries that are dying because we think they'll die much more slowly than the general consensus says." makes my blood run somewhat chilly, as does his undertaking not to take funds from the pension surplus ... for five years. It seems that what he has done with his life is just own stuff, companies mainly. And since Royal Mail seems so keen to be owned by him I can only assume the current board do not give many fucks about the company. Therefore my new year resolution is to withdraw my fuck-giving, and devote the next four years and two months to the bits of my life that are more important. Once my mortgage is paid and the rest of my pensions fall due I will quit and find something low key and part time to prop up my income.

My 2019 resolution not to beat myself up about things remains very much in place and ties in quite nicely with the new addition.

And Japanese ... I will continue to learn, for my brain health, and for ordering green tea when I go to Japan.

Stay safe. Be kind. Take care on the icy streets.

Pre-Christmas post - postage and scams

These old postage stamps are now no longer any good for posting letters. If you use them your item will be surcharged. If you have some they can be swapped for the new bar-coded stamps. If you buy postage on the website or app please don't guess how much your item weighs or measures, if you underestimate your item will possibly be surcharged. Be aware there are lots of fake stamps out there ... the main clue is the price, you are not getting a bargain to send your Christmas cards, you are getting worthless bits of sticky paper.

Beware. It's nearly Crimbo time so the scammers are going to be out in force. I have had several people in recently with messages about missed deliveries. Beware of any message that does not include a tracking number. If you are expecting a package check with any dispatch confirmation you might have been sent that will provide tracking information. Messages might refer to a specific delivery company or might be vague. Some messages include a delivery driver's name in order to seem more authentic. Any message that asks for money outright is a scam. I don't know about other companies but Royal Mail never asks for payment for redelivery. Some ask for a very nominal sum, this is because it is your bank details they are after. If you click any link or supply details to any scam website, contact your bank immediately. The Royal Mail website has lots of examples of scam texts and emails:

Enjoy your Christmas preparations, I'll be back in a few weeks with my annual posting advice.

Stay informed. Be cautious. Delete that scam message.

A Wild Time

Today my lovely Ady is two years old. Here she is having a wild time at Whitby beach. I remember the first time we took Lewis to the beach, at about this age. He dug a huge hole, and when we said it was time to go and get some fish and chips he said no, he wanted to stay and dig. She is plainly taking after her dad.

I had a lovely time on Wednesday sniffing all the roses down in Didsbury, one of the few perks of the job. This one however was taken down Heathside Road last week. The sun was in my eyes and it wasn't till I came home that I realised what a lovely photo I managed to take. The sun on the petals just makes them glow.

Stay safe. Be kind. Don't forget your sun hat.

Escape from the cage

 

Just when you think you've been working in one place too long it manages to surprise you. I found this Santa's Elf door just randomly on the skirting by the door to the men's. Admittedly there is usually a bin standing in front of it, but who knows how long it might have been there.

So for once Royal Mail institutes a plan and it has the effect they anticipated. The cage is deserted, few packets and fewer customers. Last week I moved all the packets and Stuart and I removed a chunk of the shelving to make a lovely open space in the middle. Then the manager had a little 'chat' and asked if I would be prepared to return to an outdoor job. I said I was happy to, and picked Cotton, duty 89, that has been without a permanent holder for some time now. Here is my frame. It is the first time I have had my own walk, having previously always done holiday and day-off cover:

Here is my nice little box for keeping tea making stuff and random useful stickers:

And my High Capacity Trolley (maximum loaded weight 122kg)

I am back doing the inward primary sorting (IPS) with everyone else and it has been nice to be part of the big team again rather than working alone in the cage. I have done ten days now, and while it is much more tiring than working indoors the sun has mostly shone on me and I am looking forward to the summer.

Stay safe. Be kind. Get yourself some vitamin D.

S is for Something For You

So this week Royal Mail introduced their new automatic redelivery initiative. If you are expecting a package and are not home you will get one of the new, redesigned P739 cards that informs the customer that we will bring their package back out the following day (quite a lot of couriers do this and we just wanted to be like everyone else). *Technically* you can not come and collect it until the day after that, but  customers are (still) not really reading the card (as we knew they wouldn't) but we are doing our best to track things down for anyone who comes in and is befuddled by the new system. (For tracked items there are a range of options including choosing a different redelivery day). This now involves for the posties a more complicated card, that is invariably not filled in properly, and a load of scanning and stickering when they get back ... but for us in the cage it has already meant a lot of thumb twiddling between the increasingly rare customers. We are taking bets on how quickly the hours in the Customer Service Point are going to be cut back and how quickly we will be back out on delivery ... at least it's nearly summer (because I am a big softie now and no longer relish going out in the rain).

Stay safe. Be kind. Wait in for your redelivery.

How the other half live

So I went down to this little back alley in central London to find out more about the role of Trustee of the pension fund. It was interesting and the tea was decent. Kim greeted me by name, and it was only afterwards I realised she knew who I was because I was the only woman there. Six other people also put themselves forward, so there will be a ballot. I had to tell myself that spending nearly £100 on the train was ok as 'reasonable expenses' rather than taking the overnight Megabus. We were taken into the meeting room to find this lovely arrangement on the table for each person:

and it made me realise how ordinary this kind of 'luxury' is for some people (that's Harrogate water and some very fancy tissues). I am not used to having my every possible need catered for, it was weird. So I took a photo, or course, in case I never see it again. As I pointed out to the girls, even if all the women members vote for me (I always opt to vote for any women in such a situation, but maybe others don't think like that) that's still probably only 10% of the vote so my chances of being picked are slim. It has been a step outside my comfort zone and we will wait and see what happens.

Stay safe. Be kind. Step outside your comfort zone.

Brain work and brain relaxation

This time last year a letter arrived concerning a vacancy for a Member Nominated Trustee for the pension fund. When I reread the letter some time later I realised it was already too late to nominate myself. It almost felt like they gave such a brief window on purpose. This year another letter arrived, so I wrote off straight away for a nomination form. It arrived while I was in Devon. When I got back and read it I realised it had to be submitted by 30th January and I had two days to think about what to write about myself and to send it in. Whatever I wrote was utter rubbish but now I have to go to London to attend a 'familiarisation seminar'. I did manage to get through last year's Trustee Report without too much trouble. Despite what it said in the initial information I have been assured that I don't actually have to have read and understand all 345 pages of the Trust Deed and Rules. I am around 80 pages in.

To give my brain a break I have been doing a lovely Van Gogh puzzle that I bought at the Marble Factory where we went out for lunch.

Stay safe. Be kind. Exercise your brain.

Christmas Posting Advice 2022

Further to my decade old post on Christmas posting advice I have some additional important messages.

Don't post anything this Christmas.

Get up, put your coat on and go to a real shop.

Buy presents, wrapping paper and sellotape.

Come home, wrap presents, give them to people.

Don't order something online and expect it to arrive on time,

chances are pretty high that it won't.

(Don't come into the callers office and ask me where it is either.)

Even Special Deliveries are arriving late.

For friends and family far away give a charity donation to a cause close to their heart.

Strikes are planned for 14th, 15th, 23rd and 24th December.

I was hoping they were bluffing and would call them off, but that seems unlikely.

I am very stressed by what is happening but have no means to affect the situation.

Don't cancel Christmas just because pressies are missing, try and enjoy what you have with the people you love, get a big bottle of Baileys and settle in for the weekend.

(Well that's my plan anyhow.)

So apparently 17,500 people gathered in Parliament Square yesterday, that's over 10% of the workforce. We took an impromptu march down to Buckingham Palace, but the Manchester South contingent headed back for our bus just before the police arrived.

Here is little me being interviewed by a nice french journalist:

Stay safe. Be kind. Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

Z is for Zero

Ten years ago I had been working for Royal Mail for ten years. Sarah sidled up to me this morning and said I was the first person to receive the new, redesigned anniversary appreciation award. I demurred and said no to the public presentation ... and it was a good thing I did because when I opened the envelope this crappy card was all they sent me. I was underwhelmed to say the least, but we saw the funny side and lots of people pitched in to talk about the random pens and badges that they had been given over the years to mark significant milestones. It came with a letter to the manager suggesting that they might want to give consideration to how to "bring the celebration to life" and how there is a "recognition toolkit" with "hints, tips and easy ideas" to help show me just how much my contribution to the company is valued. So zero is pretty much the amount that my contribution is appreciated. I think I might be revisiting my plan to write about the other ways in which Royal Mail gives zero f***s for everything except profit.

Stay safe. Be kind. Be Positive, Be Brilliant, Be Part Of It 😝.

Y is for York

This is a York. Royal Mail probably has thousands of them. My job seems consists mainly of pushing them back and forth to the cage (we still refer to it as the cage, even though since an office renovation it no longer has wire mesh walls). In the morning dozens are delivered to our office holding letters and parcels. Two or three arrive full of specials. First job is to remove them from the york and scan them into the building. Then I push the empty yorks out. When the specials are sorted I wheel in some more yorks containing the local collect parcels and the missorted parcels. Later I wheel in a couple of empty yorks ready to prepare the redelivery items. Drivers come back with items collected from post offices and we stack these on more yorks. During the day people come into the Customer Service Point and drop off packages for return. We collect these in yorks; when they are full they are wheeled out ready to be transported to the mail centre. As the posties return from delivery in the early afternoon they put their undelivered packets in empty yorks, and these are wheeled in to the cage to be booked in to the SPS system. More collections come in late afternoon. More yorks are wheeled in and out of the cage. After the collection driver leaves I tidy up the random empty yorks and stack them on the stage. They are pretty useful bits of kit. Older ones are steel and quite heavy but newer ones are aluminium. Like shopping trollies you occasionally get a temperamental one with wheels that won't go in a straight line. The base of the york lifts so they can stack inside each other when not being used. And I like the way that things in Royal Mail are designed to fit together: the yorks are sized so that four stacks of boxes fit them exactly and then 15 yorks fit exactly in the back of a lorry. 

Stay safe. Be kind. Keep your yorks in a row.

VW is for Very Wasteful

There are lots of wasteful behaviours that I think many companies engage in. Leaving lights on in empty building, shops that heat the street by keeping their doors open, but here at Royal Mail we have large TVs in each office that run all day with nobody watching. The previous one had an off button, but when I do my mid-morning tour of the office turning out the lights I can't find the way to turn this one off. While I know that turning off the lights won't save the planet I do think everyone needs to be paying more attention to thoughtless waste.

On Buy Nothing Day I cleaned the bathroom, made some flapjack and watched crappy Christmas films.

Stay safe. Be kind. Buy nothing.

U is for Unfathomable

In conjunction with the Post Office we run a service called 'Local Collect' where you can send your package to a local post office to pick up. This can be quite handy if your local Customer Service Point is not close by (and depending on your local office the Post Office might also be open longer hours). When you go online to book a redelivery the system will offer you a Local Collect option and tell you which post office is the nearest to you. Unfathomably sometimes people chose to send their parcel to somewhere further away. This might have logic for them if it is near their work for example, but when the students in Mayfair Court send their parcels to Withington Post Office it leaves me bemused, as they literally walk past our door to get there. So we follow these automated instructions and just agree that people are weird. At least once a day someone will come in looking for a parcel they have sent for Local Collect.

Oh well.

(Disclaimer: this a to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Use your local Post Office.

T is for Telling the Customer Off

This is a P6586 sticker. I refer to it as the Telling the Customer Off sticker, and it's my favourite. I relish sticking them on people's parcels and letters. This is because I go to quite a bit of effort to make sure things get where they are meant to be, and sometimes people thwart me in my labours by not really knowing the address of the person they are sending to. Bad postcodes cause things to be misrouted entirely. For example, the town of Bellshill in North Lanarkshire; it's postcode is ML4, which, when written lazily looks just like M14. Every day I send on parcels for Bellshill. I hope the people there appreciate my efforts. Missing house or flat numbers cause me to go searching our SPS system to discover where a person might live. Students who continue to use the postcode of their hall of residence even though they have moved into a house share. All these people will get a P6586 sticker. Don't be stickered, check the postcode when you send stuff this Christmas.

(Disclaimer: this A to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Get a better sticker.

S is for Sorry

This is a P6543 card (everything has a number in Royal Mail), more accurately called the apology card. I do still have a couple in my pocket even though I rarely go out delivering letters any more. It's easier than you think to put the wrong thing through someone's letterbox. The most common reason in my experience is being interrupted on the street: someone comes up and asks you something, and then you turn to go, walk up to the next house and deliver the next letters, only to realise they did not have any letters and they were for the house next door. It can be quite hard to admit you have done something wrong (the childhood fear of punishment lingers well into adulthood) but over time I have become more relaxed about knocking and apologising and asking for letters back, and mostly people are perfectly nice about it. The card is there so apologise on your behalf if there is no one home. I worry I have almost gone too far the other way and happily admit to customers (regularly during the pandemic) that no their mail did not go out today, or that I have no idea where their parcel might be ... I can't lie to save my life so find myself unable to spout fake excuses (I told one customer the notice about technical issues causing the early closing was a lie and we just did not have enough staff). The Amazon driver dropped a packet on our doorstep last week for Cowesby Street (without stopping to wait for an answer) so I just walked round and delivered it. Acknowledging mistakes in myself makes me much more forgiving of others, and when you do so you are less fearful of errors, because mostly they are not the end of the world.

(Disclaimer: this A to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Cut yourself some slack.

R is for Redirection

'If you don't redirect your mail, anyone could be reading it'. It might seem like quite a lot of money to mainly get your Boden catalogue but it is surprising how many people don't bother to redirect their mail. Random people you don't know could have access to all sorts of information about you if you leave your post at an old address ... your bank statements for example. Walks in our office can have anything from four or five to 40+ redirections. They are a physical thing (as I tried to explain to a customer once), a plastic wallet containing the instruction, with the old and new addresses, and stickers with the new address on. Each day the sorted mail is checked for each redirection and letters for the specified people are stickered and sent on. The parcel scanning system will also flash an alert on tracked parcels for any address that has an active redirection. I know you have a lot to think about when you're moving, but in effect this can save you trouble as it gives you extra time to inform all the people who need to know that you are in a new place. 

(Disclaimer: this A to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Protect your identity.

Q is for Queue

I looked out of the front window one day a few weeks ago and thought that there was some kind of roadside vigil happening ... only to realise that the queue at the bus stop was so long it was passing across the front of the office. Everyone was standing a 'safe distance' apart. It feels like covid has permanently changed our queuing behaviour, everybody leaves a gap now when they queue, it's the new normal. Apart from when we were only open two hours a day, for most of the pandemic we rarely had a queue. People were home. The number of parcels we stored at the office plummeted. The number of people calling to collect plummeted. Things seem to have finally gone back to normal. Bear in mind that the three people in front of you in the queue will want; 1. the Post Office 2. to complain about a parcel that is showing on the tracking as delivered but they haven't had and 3. to ask about their letter from the Home Office via Google Translate. If we have someone with a complicated query sometimes I can ask a colleague to take over and serve the rest of the customers, but given our current staffing crisis please bear in mind that I am doing three people's work and when I go off to find the manager they may have popped out to Macdonalds. I am always working as fast as I possibly can. Please refer to my 'Read the Card' post to ensure you do not stand in the queue unnecessarily. 

(Disclaimer: this A to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Enjoy your week off.

P is for Packaging

In advance of Christmas posting the issue of packaging is the main one. Look at the item you wish to send. If it is in any way fragile pack it in a box, padded with lots of cushioning, either crumpled up newspaper, bubble wrap or nice starch based packing peanuts. Do not pack tiny things in big boxes.  If the box you have is too large just cut it down to fit better. Jiffy bags are the best way to send smaller item, and they can be reused multiple times. If the item has any sharp edges wrap them to prevent them poking out. Choose a size that fits your item snugly so that it does not slide around inside and tear the packaging. 'Do not bend' envelopes are strictly only for flat things. If the item is soft and squishy do not wrap it in brown paper; the paper will tear when the item is picked up or put through the sorting machine; use a plastic posting bag. It's fine to improvise; a tough carrier bag folded over works well, but bin liners are mostly too flimsy. Do not use Christmas wrapping paper to send things through the post, it is not robust enough and will simply disintegrate. As far as I am aware there is not currently any rationing of sellotape. Use plenty. Make sure there are no loose corners that can tear open. Ideally write the address directly on the package with permanent marker. If you do use a separate label, again cover all edges with sellotape/parcel tape to ensure it cannot be torn off accidentally. 

It is part of my job to repair damaged packages ... well sometimes people just hand things through the hatch because they don't want to deal with it, and we do try and get your items there in one piece, but appropriate packaging is the responsibility of the sender.

(Disclaimer: this A to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Time to pot up your plum tree.

O is for OMG read the card

Another post sparked by an encounter with a customer this week. A young man came in and slid his Hermes card across the counter. I picked it up and pointed out that it was a Hermes card. I then pointed to the writing in the corner that said his package had been left in the electricity meter cupboard. Object lesson in reading the card. I made light of it and smiled and he took it with good humour. Some people get very irritated when you point out to them that they did not read the card. 

Our P739 cards inform the customer which office they should call at, how to collect their package, how to arrange a redelivery, and importantly that their parcel will be available to collect the next working day. While we do book in packets throughout the day, and they are mostly back at the office by mid afternoon, please bear in mind that you may choose to stand in a queue only to be told your packet is not available.

(P.S. If your card indicates to collect at an office other than your usual/local one please ignore this instruction. Sometimes delivery staff work at other locations and use whatever P739 they have in their pocket. This can be very unhelpful, but thankfully relatively rare.)  

I could not find an image of a Parceforce card. They are often not very helpful as the driver puts the postcode of the post office where they have left the package. Fine for me, because I know the postcodes of all the local offices, but most people don't. 

Just so you know ... Royal Mail Customer Service Points only hold Royal Mail parcels. We do not hold for DPD or Hermes or Parceforce. 

(Disclaimer: this A to Z is not official Royal Mail advice, except by coincidence.)

Stay safe. Be kind. Read the card.